The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [234]
39 Plato, Republic, 350d.
40 Aristophanes, Frogs, 1491–9 (performed in 405 BC). Trans. G. Theodoridis [adapt.].
41 Plato, Gorgias, 521d.
42 Plato, Alcibiades I, 130e. Trans. D. S. Hutchinson (1997).
43 That is, the Agora is not the means to an end; it is not the means, and not the end; it is simply, and vitally, our human home.
44 Plato, Apology, 23c–e. Trans. B. Jowett (1953).
45 Plato, Phaedrus, 275d–e. Trans. H. N. Fowler (1914).
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Democracy, liberty and freedom of speech
1 Trans. H. W. Smyth (1973) [LCL].
2 Trans. D. Kovacs (1995) [LCL].
3 IG II 1624.81.
4 Many thanks to Alec Tilley for his help with this passage. His own, fascinating views on boat design in the fifth and fourth centuries BC can be found in Tilley (2004) and Tilley (1992).
5 Iliad, 2.50–2. Trans. S. Butler.
6 Iliad, 18.497–508. Trans. S. Butler.
7 Diogenes Laertius, On the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 6.69.
8 Plato, Gorgias, 487b (and again in Protagoras, 319cd, although this is used more to describe the possibility that each man has in the Assembly for isegoria, right of equal speech).
9 Parody of the question posed in the male Assembly. Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, 379: See also Ecclesiazusae, 392.
10 Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 1.23. Trans. N. Fisher (2001) [adapt.].
11 Although Socrates does worry about the unbridled impact of a true democracy, recent readings of the works of Plato concur that he was not as critical as previously judged. See, e.g., Saxonhouse (2006), 98, for the opinion that Socrates does not describe parrhesia perjoratively in Book 8 of the Republic.
12 For a fascinating discussion of the role of parrhesia in Socrates’ Athens see Saxon-house (2006), passim.
13 Gorgias, 486d–8b and Laches, passim. Socrates was a practitioner of parrhesia.
14 Aristotle, Politics, 1317b12.
15 Aeschylus, Persians, lines 584–94. Trans. P. Vellacott (1961).
16 Several triremes named Eleutheria were built: IG II 1604 line 49 (377/6 BC); 1607, line 85 (373/2 BC); 1627, line 202 (330/329 BC); 163, line 488 (323/2 BC). All references from Robinson (2004), 80 (cf. also Hansen [1989], 42).
17 The forgers of the ‘Socratic’ Dialogues Eryxias and Theages (these were almost certainly invented) have the philosopher filling the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios with thoughts and words.
18 Plato, Republic, 8.562a. Trans. P. Shorey (1930) [LCL].
19 Herodotus, 9.5.
20 Plato, Republic, 5.449a. Trans. B. Jowett (1953).
21 Plato, Republic, 5.462d–e (see also 462b). Trans. B. Jowett.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The good life – after dark
1 Trans. P. Shorey (1930) [LCL].
2 Although there is some scholarly argument that Plato includes this information to prove that the Athenians frequently worshipped ‘new gods’ and therefore Socrates should not be targeted for his own unorthodox spiritual experiences, archaeological evidence shows us that the cult of Bendis was indeed inaugurated in Athens at this time.
3 IG I 136 (SEG 10.64).
4 Contrast the acceptance of this ‘new god’ when it suits the city, with the anxiety about Socrates’ new, ‘private’ god and the manner of its introduction.
5 Plato, Symposium, 197d1–e3. cf. Diogenes Laertius, Socrates XIV.
6 Socrates and his contemporaries lived in a landscape where there was much space to think. With their back-up of wives, slaves and the fruits of an empire, the leisured could enjoy afternoons saturated with thought. Socrates might have lived through times when men did abominable things to one another, when women passed by, their faces worn out by tears. But he lived a long life, and there would have been days of watching and waiting – times when the landscape of Athens and its surrounds could be drunk in. Socrates must have considered keen thoughts here, trying to ascertain whether or not goodness had a place in human society, and how to locate and nurture it.
7 On occasion Socrates did speak of one god, in contrast with the gods (Plato, Laws, 10.904a, and Timaeus, 41a). He challenged the literal veracity of the mythic stories, the tales in Homer and