The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [9]
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
The Greek Mainland, c.400 BC
Asia Minor
Plan of the Athenian Agora
Sicily and Southern Italy
Athens
INTEGRATED IMAGES
1. Portrait Herm of Socrates. Busts or herms of Socrates were popularly produced throughout antiquity. The majority that survive are Roman-period copies of Greek originals. We are told that almost immediately after Socrates’ state-assisted suicide the Athenians regretted their decision and set up a bronze statue of the philosopher just outside the Dipylon Gate. Many later sculptures were thought to be based on one original.
2. Excavations of the north-west side Athens’ Agora, 19 June 1931. On the far right is the hill of Kolonos Agoraios and the Hephaisteion. The first shovel struck the site in May 1931.
3. A reconstruction of the kleroterion – the random selection machine which allotted office in the democracy. Each of the jurors during Socrates’ trial would have been an adult, male citizen and would have had to have put himself up for selection for this state-sponsored duty.
4. Vase depicting women gathered at the fountains of Athens just before dawn. This was considered one of the few times of the day that respectable females in the city could exchange gossip and information.
5. Boiotian terracotta figurine, late Archaic (c.500–475 BC) showing a Greek mother carrying her child. Socrates was born in 469 BC, and in one account of his life we hear that he too rode ‘shoulder-high’ on his father.
6. A rare vase scene; the domestic interior of an Athenian home.
7. Eugene Vanderpool, Professor of Archaeology of the American School, 1947–1971. ‘EV’ examines a carved stone stele publishing the ‘Law Against Tyranny’. The inscription is surmounted by an image of Demokratia crowning the people of Athens.
8. The martial might of the men of Athens was celebrated by many of the great sculptors of the day. It was these paragons – in particular the young men of Athens – whom Socrates was accused of corrupting. In these portraits, which had originally stood in Athens’ Agora, the ‘tyrant-slayers’ Harmodios and Aristogeiton are lauded.
9. The beauty of young Athenian men is apparent from this sculpture – dating to c.480 BC. It was recently excavated during the rescue digs in Athens at the time of the construction of the new metro system. The head was discovered at the north-eastern edge of the National Gardens near Herodou Attikou Street. Note the full mouth and finely cast eyelashes.
10. A portrait herm, possibly depicting Aspasia, currently held by the Vatican.
11. Socrates is imagined dancing to Aspasia’s tune in this French cartoon of 1842. By Honoré Daumier.
12. Two hoplite soldiers, named Chairedemos and Lykeas, on a funerary relief from the Piraeus Museum. Socrates on his military campaigns would have been turned out as the Athenian hoplite is on the right.
13. Later cultures played on the possibilities of a sexual relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades. This touched-up print was one of a set made for a 1906 edition of the De Figuris Veneris (the Manual of Classical Mythology); the images were first produced on the Continent in the 1890s but titled ‘Manchester 1884’. Of course we hear from Plato that Socrates refused Alcibiades’ advances.
14. The so-called Mourning Athena relief, commissioned around 460 BC. The artist is clearly endeavouring to portray the weight of responsibility that comes with success. The relief is now beautifully displayed in the new Acropolis Museum, Athens.
15. Athena’s Silver Owl: the coin that became emblematic of both Athens’ wealth and of her control of the economy in the Eastern Mediterranean for a substantial part of the fifth-century BC. The silver to create this coinage came from silver-bearing seams of lead in the mines of Laurion, south-east of Athens.
16. The north-east corner of the Athenian Agora in 1931. By the end of the first excavating season many of the key landmarks of the marketplace of Socrates’ day had been revealed. The foreground