The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [225]
4 Rhetor came to mean professional politician in Athens.
5 Plutarch, Pericles, 16.3; Hansen (1999), 38.
6 Thucydides, 2.65.8–9. Trans. R. Warner (1972).
7 During Pericles’ rivalry with Cimon (late 460s/early 450s), he introduced payment for juries (in response to Cimon’s philanthropy with private funds). Cf. Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 27.3–4; Plato, Gorgias, 515e; and Nails (2002), 225.
8 Thucydides, 2.60.5. Trans. D. Kagan (1981).
9 Cf. Meier (1995), 389–90.
10 Cf. Lapatin (2007), 127.
11 The exact appearance of the original Odeion (which was burned down in 86 BC during Sulla’s siege of Athens) is unknown; Vitruvius (5.9.1, first century BC) alleges that it had a wooden roof made from the spoils of Persian ships. What is certain is that it was a structure on a colossal scale with a forest of interior columns.
12 Cf. Plutarch, Pericles, 13.9–11. And the frieze of the Parthenon was perhaps inspired by decorative work at Persepolis.
13 Cf. Isocrates, Antidosis, 235, and Wallace (2007), 225.
14 Olympiodoros, Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades, 138.4–11. ‘The songs which Perikles learned from Damon through which he harmonized the city.’
15 Plutarch, Pericles, 13. Cf. Wallace (2007), 226, and Kimball and Edgell (2001), 91.
16 PCG iv Thrattai Frag. 73=Plutarch, Pericles, 13.6. Trans. Miller (2004), 219.
17 Anaximander, recorded in Censorinus, De Die Natali, 4.7.
18 Simplicius, In Phys., 156, 13ff. [Diels-Kranz 59 B12].
19 Cf. Plato, Phaedrus, 270a. Trans. H. Fowler [LCL].
20 Socrates would have been very young when he went to Pericles’ house. There is a possibility that he never did, and just met Anaxagoras elsewhere in the city. Plato’s use of Aspasia, Pericles’ consort, in his dialogue, though, might suggest that Socrates had an early acquaintance with the two in Pericles’ own home (which Pericles shared with Aspasia).
21 Aristophanes, Clouds, 157–68. See also trans. McLeish (1979): STUDENT: Chairephon asked him his opinion on gnats: / ‘Do they buzz from the front end … or the back?’ / STREPSIADES: And what was his opinion concerning gnats? / STUDENT: He explained that the guts of a gnat / Are hollow, a sort of narrow tube. The air / Is sucked in at the front, and forced / Under pressure down and out the back. / It’s the narrowness of the hole that makes the noise. / STREPSIADES: It’s a kind of trumpet, then, a gnat’s behind? / What a brilliant man he must be, / What an expert on gnat’s anatomy! / Compared to that, it’s child’s play to win in court.
22 Plato, Protagoras, 314e-16a.
23 Plato, Phaedo, 97C. Trans. H. N. Fowler (1914) [adapt.] [LCL].
24 Socrates advised against going on trying to work out the astronomical properties of the heavens, ‘their distances from the earth, their orbits and their sources’. Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4.7.4–5. Trans. J. Fogel (2002). Socrates, it seems, stared up into the night sky, to comprehend its usefulness and its beauty – but not to understand it as a series of scientific facts: ‘He said that these things were capable too of filling up a person’s lifetime, and of stopping one from pursuing many useful kinds of learning.’ Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4.7.5. Trans. J. Fogel (2002).
25 See, e.g., Athens Acropolis Museum, 607. Base for a ritual water-basin dedicated by Smikythe the washerwoman, or Athens National Archaeological Museum, x6837, miniature shield with the face of a Gorgon dedicated by Phrygia the bread-seller.
26 Although most wealthy Athenians had country estates where their food was grown, many managed the running of the estates themselves. Socrates did not fall into this social category.
27 See also current excavations at Vari led by Barbara Tsakrigis.
28 Some sources tell us that Pericles’ clever bedmate Aspasia also held salons at the home that she, unofficially, shared with the General. Scandalously Aspasia