The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [224]
7 Thucydides, 1.124. Trans. P. Woodruff (1993).
8 Cf. Thucydides, 1.90–2.
9 See also Plutarch, Moralia Vol. III
10 In 462 a democratic judicial reform of the Areopagus squared the democratic circle (other landmarks included the institution of pay for juries in the 450s, raised by Cleon in the 420s). See Thucydides, 1.100; Plutarch, Cimon, 12–13.
11 Other city-states were conducting political experiments at this time. Sparta’s fabled social reforms were thought to have started back in the seventh century BC. India too had been experimenting with democratic forms of government.
12 Vase-paintings from the period tell us that tortoises were a very popular pet in ancient Athens.
13 Aristophanes, Knights, 1398–1401. Adapted from LCL 1998.
14 The Kerameikos was the kind of place that attracted scandal. Themistocles – the architect of the naval fleet – was said to have driven through here at dawn in a chariot pulled by four courtesans.
15 Xenarchus, 4 K-A; Eubulus, 67 and 82 K-A.
16 See Aeschines, Against Timarchos, passim.
17 Plato, Republic, 2.357b. Trans. P. Shorey (1930).
18 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2.31. Trans. C. D. Yonge (1853).
19 Plato, Phaedo, 96a, 98b. Trans. H. N. Fowler (1914).
20 Traditionally, an Athenian boy’s education was less to do with learning facts than with developing a moral character. The kitharistes taught a musical instrument and lyrical thought; the paidotribes worked on the body and sports; and the three basic Rs were down to the grammatistes. In our overloaded information age this development of spirit, of character, can seem appealing. But the eager minds of the fledgling democracy wanted more. They wanted new data to juggle with imagination. And perhaps too they wanted, in this city of splendid possibilities, to spread their wings a little. Fragments of Greek thought circulating at this time, when Socrates was a young man, suggest that Athenian education was geared to inciting both aidos and sophrosune – a sense of shame and a sense of moderation. See Democritus (D-K 68 B179). In other words, education was devised to keep young men in their place.
21 Athens was a city that worked to a regular, languid, predictable biological beat. That insistent dripping water-clock, that marking of hours in the court, was still, in many ways, a spectre of the future. The rise of the moon and the turn of the seasons marked time here. Rituals that celebrated these events dictated when the fields were worked, when harvests were gathered, when wars were started. The ideal rhythm of the city was utterly unsyncopated. Disruption meant stasis, and stasis meant the disintegration of the body politic. Stasis was a Greek’s greatest fear.
22 Our source is Plato, Parmenides, 127a. Plato’s account tells us that Parmenides was about sixty-five when he made the visit in around 450 BC. But if we depend on Apollodorus’ Chronicles, then Parmenides was born c.544/541 BC. Did Parmenides visit Athens as a very old man? Is Plato imagining the encounter? Zeno came from the southern Italian town of Elea. It seems he rarely left his home-town. Plato may indeed have fabricated the meeting between Socrates and these two ‘fathers’ of philosophy – and yet, if we know that so many did flood to Athens at this time, why not these two?
23 Plato, Parmenides, 127b-c. Trans. F. M. Cornford (1973). Cf. Sophist, 217c.
24 This event was almost certainly reserved for the elite of society. The fact that we do not hear of Socrates participating is further evidence that he was low-born.
25 See Davidson (2007), passim.
26 I have relied here heavily on Davidson (2007).
27 Aristophanes, Frogs, 1096.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pericles: high society, and democracy as high theatre
1 Trans. Brickhouse and Smith (2002) [adapt.].
2 PCG iv Thrattai Frag. 73=Plutarch, Pericles, 13.16. Trans. Miller (2004), 219.
3 Once an ambitious pretender to Athena’s throne, Cylon, had attempted to take Athens by taking the Acropolis. His bid failed, and he and his entourage looked set to starve up on the Acropolis rock. But this would