The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [243]
10 Plato, Apology, 35d–36d.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
An apology
1 Alternative translation: ‘I shall be like a doctor tried by a bench of children on a charge brought by a cook.’ Trans. W. R. M. Lamb (1925) [LCL].
2 Plato, Phaedo, 109b: ‘We live around the sea like frogs live around a pond.’ But Socrates turned his back on the sea. We hear that apart from his military campaigns and that one trip to the Isthmus of Corinth, Socrates shunned his companions’ taste for ocean-travel – for yearning to view, and acquire, what lay beyond each horizon. What drew Socrates were not the international highways of the sea, but the twists and turns of rivers. He fought by the broad banks of the reeded River Strymon in Macedonia, he paddled with his favourite it-boys in the Ilissos and composed his thoughts along the lost river of the Eridanos in Athens. It was the rivers that wind through human existence, rather than the oceans that sit at its edge, that constituted his natural home.
3 Plato, Symposium, 213e. Trans. M. Joyce (1935).
4 Plato, Apology, 35e–8c.
5 Plato, Apology, 17b–c.
6 Socrates in Plato, Apology, 36b–7a. Trans. H. N. Fowler (1914) [LCL].
7 Plato, Apology, 21a.
8 Plato, Apology, 20e. Trans. H. N. Fowler (1914) [LCL].
9 Plato, Apology, 21a. Trans. H. N. Fowler [LCL].
10 We also hear from Xenophon that Socrates’ friends defended him in court.
11 The amount of time Socrates would have been given for his speech is unclear. The length of Plato’s account suggests little more than two khoes. (A khoe is a pitcher-full. In a recent archaeological experiment this seems to give Socrates only six minutes for his final speech.) Since the jury was given no opportunity to confer when making a decision, the voting process is unlikely to have lasted longer than was practically necessary. Cf. Todd (1993), 132–5.
12 Trans M. J. Levett, rev. M. Burnyeat (1990).
13 Plato, Apology, 37a–b. Trans. Brickhouse and Smith (2002).
14 There is still some debate as to whether bronze ballots had been brought in by the time of Socrates’ trial or whether pebbles were still being used. As yet the archaeological evidence is inconclusive.
15 Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 1.30; Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton, 26.2.
16 Aristocrats engaged in vicious blood-feuds (the year of Socrates’ trial prostitutes across the city owned by noble families were tortured and murdered by rival aristocratic houses). Socrates’ exhortation to ‘turn the other cheek’ (not as a philanthropic gesture, but because doing so would ensure your own happiness rather then engendering a sense of hate) was considered dangerous nonsense.
17 Professor Paul Cartledge has quite rightly pointed out in his recent work Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (CUP, 2009) Chapter 7, that the population of Athens was justified in condemning Socrates according to the laws of the day. This raises the interesting question of the ethics of this decision.
18 Plato, Phaedo, 117c.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Twilight and Delos at dawn
1 ‘Athoi Proverbia’. See W. Bühler (ed.), Zenotü Athoi proverbia, vulgari ceteraque memoria acuta edidit et enarravit. Winfried W. Bühler, vol. 4: Libri secundi proverbia 1–40 complexum (Göttingen, 1982).
2 Plato, Phaedo, 58a–c.
3 There is some debate as to the dating of the trip to Delos – and therefore of Socrates’ trial. From extant sources it could be inferred that the Delia took place in the (Delian) month of Hieros, in turn associated with Anthesterion (January/February). See Deubner (1932), 203–4. Others date it to the month of Thargelion (April/May), e.g., Nails (2006), 15. White (2000), 155, suggests 7th Mounichion (March/April) for the date of Socrates’ trial. For further discussion see