Man Through the Ages __

Alexei Losev Aza Takho-Godi

Plato

Progress Publishers

Man Through @

Alexei Losev Aza Takho-Godi |

Plat«

Yi

Progress Publishers Moscow

Translated from the Russian by Patricia Beryozkina Designed by Vadim Novikov

A. ®. Jloces, A. A. Taxo-Froun NAATOH

Ha aneaudcKom R3vIKe

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 0301030000-260 014(01)-90

ISBN 5-01-001986-8

6-90

CONTENTS

Page Chapter One. Early Life. . . . . . ...... 5 Chapter Two. Plato and Socrates. . . ote le Sane 15 Chapter Three. One in Search of the Truth . we) : 40 Chapter Four. The Sicilian Tyrant— Dionysius the Elder . ; 46 Chapter Five. The Academy. . . 53 Chapter Six. The v Eaentenee Tyranny of Dionysius nthe Younger... ‘ 63 Chapter Seven. Plato—the Classical Philosopher. a) ae 77 Chapter Eight. Platonic Idealism. . . ot ees 86 Chapter Nine. Plato’s Dialogues—the Drama of ideas: . . 102 Chapter Ten. The Self-Rejection of Drama. . . . . . = 127 Chapter Eleven. The Illusion of Reality. . . . . . . 4132 Chapter Twelve. Plato: Myth-Maker and Utopian. . . . 142 Chapter Thirteen. The Last Years. . . . . . . ~~. 163 Chapter Fourteen. Eternal Philosophy. . . . . . . . 173 Name Index Sige ten: Ween OS ae 183 187

Subject Index .

Chapter One

EARLY LIFE

The birth of Plato is surrounded by legend: the Greeks themselves called him “divine” because of his wisdom. It should be noted, however, that the lives of virtually all the early great thinkers were connected with fascinating legends that stressed their selectivity and exclusiveness and, thus, their contact with the supernatural world.

The great Homer was blind, but his lack of vision was compensated for by his poetic insight. Mytholo- gical prophets like Tiresias were deprived of their sight by the gods, but they were given the gift of prophesy; they could use their inner vision to see the future. The ancient philosopher had to combine the qualities of both prophet and poet. Like Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles, in whom mythology, poetry and philosophical wisdom merged into an indivisible whole, the ancient philosopher had to ex- press his thoughts in enigmatic verse. Some philosophers, like Heraclitus, for example, were aware of their destiny as prophets and wrote in the obscure, poetic language of symbols, which had to be deciphered just like an oracle’s sayings. Fittingly, Heraclitus is known as ‘the Obscure”.

The stories concerning the lives of the ancient philosophers often defy belief. For example, the legendary Pythagoras traced his origin to the god Apollo and was himself revered as a worker of miracles; Empedocles threw himself into the crater of the active Etna volcano; Thales was glorified as one of the seven wise men; Heraclitus belonged to the clan of the son of King Codrus of Athens. He walked around in a purple robe and wore symbols

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of royalty; Democritus studied with the Magi, possessed the gift of prophesy, and died at the age of one hundred and nine, having postponed his death so that it would not fall on the holiday of the goddess Demeter.

We should not be surprised, therefore, at the ancient tradition that proclaims Plato’s birth to have occurred on the seventh of Thargelion (21 May), a holiday celebrating the birth of the god Apollo on the island of Delos. Moreover, Speusippus, Plato’s nephew and himself a philosopher, wrote in his “Eulogy of Plato” (a lost work) that Apollo was his uncle’s father. Speusippus describes how wise bees once put honey in the mouth of the baby Plato.

Olympiodorus, a commentator on Plato’s works, took up this same subject and described how Apollo appeared to Plato’s mother before she gave birth, and how the parents brought the baby to Hymettus mountain to offer a sacrifice to Apollo, Pan and the nymphs. According to Olympiodorus, while Plato’s parents were going about this noble deed, the bees, for which Hymettus is famous, placed honeycombs in the baby’s mouth, signifying his future sweet gift for speech.

As we see, the legends are many.

Plato was born in 428-427 B.C.* at the height of the internecine Peloponnesian War that was as destruc- tive for democratic Athens as it was for aristocratic Sparta. Both sides were rivals for dominance over the Hellenic city-states.

Plato’s family and his entire clan had close ties with Athens that reached into the distant past, where history and legend were so closely interwoven it was nearly impossible to distinguish between them. It is clear that the young Plato grew up with the realiza- tion that he was directly involved in the most impor- tant events of his city. Legend has it that Plato's ancestors traced their lineage to the god Poseidon and the mortal woman Tyro (whose son, Neleus, the hero of Pylos, was the father of twelve sons by his wife Chloris, including the famous homeric hero Nestor and Periclymenus, one of the Argonauts in

* All dates mentioned in this book are understood to be B.C.— (Author).

Plato

quest of the Golden Fleece). One of Periclymenus’s descendants was Andropompus; his son, Melanthus, was the father of Codrus, the last Athenian ruler and a personage already more historical than mythical. After being driven out of his inherited kingdom of Messenia, Codrus was welcomed in Athens by Timoen- tus, the last descendant of Theseus, who named Codrus the ruler of Athens out of gratitude for the help he had rendered during the war.

Under Codrus’ rule Athens flourished. But a war broke out, and the oracles predicted the enemy's victory unless Codrus was killed. Upon learning of the oracles’ prediction, Codrus decided to sacrifice his life for the sake of his people. Disguised as a beggar, he secretly left the city. While pretending to be collecting firewood, he met with enemy soldiers, who killed him at his provocation. The Athenians gave their ruler an honorable funeral, and their enemies quickly retreated from the city, which was now ruled by a group of elders that included Codrus’ son, Medon (whose descendants were known either as Medonites or Codrites). Exesestides was also a member of this clan which, according to Plutarch, was first among the nobility. Exesestides’s son was Solon, the famous statesman of Athens who was praised for his democratic reforms and who opposed his relative, the tyrant Peisistratus. The lineage of Plato’s parents is traced to Solon and Dropides.

We know little about Plato’s father, Ariston, but the relatives of his mother, Perictione, all left their mark in Athenian social and political life. There were two brothers, Callaeschrus and Glaucon; they were grand- sons of Dropides. Callaeschrus had a son, Critias, who became a politician and the head of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens from 405-404. Perictione was the daughter of Glaucon and a cousin of Critias. Her younger brother, Charmides, also took part in the Thirty Tyrants’ overthrow of the Athenian government. After the death of her husband, Plato's mother married her uncle Pyrilampes, a friend of Pericles. He was extremely rich and a well-known politician. Leogoras, father of the famous orator Andocides, was also a relative of Perictione.

Thus Plato was fated to grow up in a famous

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old family with royal ties and strong aristocratic traditions, a family that could think of the history of Athens as its own. These were people who were fervently involved in matters of state and _ political struggles. Not one of them died peacefully in bed at a ripe old age. They fought in wars and helped to overthrow governments. At the same time they were talented and educated, brilliant orators and poets, intelligent and witty conversationalists, and they had a deep interest in philosophy. Young Plato, as we see, grew up in an environment that destined him for political activity and an all-round education.

However, neither Plato nor his brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantos, nor his step-brother Antiphon took up state affairs. All these young men loved books and poetry and formed friendships with philosophers. Yet none won the poet’s glory of their ancestor Solon, nor the dramatist’s fame of their uncle Critias, nor the orator’s skill of their relative Andocides. Plato became neither poet, nor dramatist, nor orator; he became a great philosopher, whose works are distinguished by their poetic style, their dramatic plots and their convincing oratory.

Plato received an all-round education that cor- responded with the classical idea of the perfect, ideal individual, the idea of ‘“kalokagathia”. A “beautiful” (kalos) and “good” (agathos) person should combine the physical beauty of an immaculate body with inner moral nobility. It was possible to achieve this state by exercise and education begun in childhood. Kaloka- gathia was the ideal of the free-born man who was ready to guard the interests of his city, defend it with arms, observe its laws and glorify it with his own deeds.

Ancient Greek poets and writers had long praised the ideal of the perfect man. The poetess Sappho wrote: “He who is fair to look upon is good, and he who is good will soon be fair also,” thus implying the strength of a person’s inner, spiritual beauty, without which outer, physical beauty was meaningless and empty. Harmony between the external and the internal did not imply insipid uniformity of common virtues. On the contrary, the diverse and even contra- dictory traits of an individual’s character or interests

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Philosopher. A Roman replica of a Greek statue. 3rd c. B.C.

only served to create true harmony. Heraclitus aptly noted: “The hidden harmony is better than the visible”, and ‘The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony, and all things take place by strife.’ It is strife between feelings and passions, attachments and predilections that even- tually leads to a rationally balanced man deserving to be called, in the words of the poet Simonides of Ceos (6th-Sth century B.C.), a “rectangular” man, i.e, a man whose capabilities are equally developed. Only diligent study and practice could lead to this wonderful balance, for, in the words of Pittacus, one of the legendary seven wise men, “Truly to become a virtuous man is hard.”

The citizens of Athens, a city famous for its democ- ratic traditions, highly valued kalokagathia, which, it was believed, could be achieved by every free- born man and was exemplified in Solon, Pericles and Sophocles (who wrote tragedies, acted on the stage, sang, danced, played musical instruments and even served, albeit without much distinction, as a military leader and strategist). But it was one thing to value the ideal and another to try to follow it in life. The road to the ideal was long and difficult.

Since childhood Plato was brought up in the spirit of glorified kalokagathia harmony, and he was in no way inferior to either his ancestors or his contempo- raries. He was taught by the finest teachers. The eminent Dionysius taught him reading and writing, music he learned from Draco (the pupil of Damon who taught Pericles himself) and Metellus of Agrigen- tum, and his physical trainer was the wrestler Ariston of Argos. It is believed that Ariston was the one to give the name of “Plato” to his pupil, either because of his broad chest and powerful build or because of his wide forehead.* Plato’s real name was Aristoc- les, the name of his grandfather on his father’s side. So it was that Aristocles, son of Ariston, disappeared, and Plato went down in history.

The young Plato studied painting and learned to use the bright colors that later made his art work famous.

* The Greek platys means broad or broad-shouldered; pla- tos—breadth; platoo—! make wide.— (Author).

He composed tragedies, elegant epigrams and noble dithyrambs in honor of Dionysius, who was revered as the originator of tragedy. He also sang, though he did not have an exceptional voice. Plato especially loved the writers of comedy, Aristophanes and Sophron, and learned from them how to realistically portray characters in his own comedies. All these activities did not prevent Plato from participating in the national Greek Isthmian Games as a wrestler and even winning a prize.

Twenty-five epigrams attributed to Plato have sur- vived to our day. These verses are like miniature paintings, capturing a fleeting moment in time.

Plato also wrote a hexameter on the sleeping Eros, the god of love. The verse paints an idyllic picture of the god’s peaceful sleep.

Plato’s dialogues provide us with beautiful and poetic sketches of nature. We walk by bubbling brooks and lush vegetation; under the wide leaves of the plane-tree, next to a sacred statue of the god, we listen to a meditative conversation about the mean- ing of love (Phaedrus). Or, under the heat of a noonday sun, we might walk along with other exhaust- ed travellers through shady meadows and groves of tak cypresses down a road leading to a temple of Zeus. The travellers, as always in Plato’s works, philosophize and ponder the best form of legislation (Laws). Plato wrote poetry as a youth, Phaedrus in his prime, and Laws when he was near death. But it is evident that all these works were written by the same hand and inspired by the same master. Therefore, we can be sure of the authenticity of a number of elegant epigrams attributed to Plato.

We have here before us the happy life of Plato, a fortunate young man. But this peaceful existence would soon come to an abrupt end. In his native Athens, Plato would meet the philosopher Socrates. This meeting so affects Plato that he burns everything he previously wrote; as tradition has it, he called on the god of fire, Hephaestus, to help him. From now on Plato would live a different life.

As was common in ancient times, legend sprang up around this event, too. It was said that before meeting Plato, Socrates dreamed that a swan was sitting

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mT Mor r

Woodcarver. A painting ona vessel. Greece. 5th c. B.C.

in his lap and then it spread its wings and flew away, uttering a beautiful sound. The swan was the sacred bird of Apollo. Socrates’ dream is filled with symbolic meaning: it presaged his tutorship of Plato and their future friendship.

Chapter Two

PLATO AND SOCRATES

Who was this Socrates who caused such a change in Plato’s life? Unlike the aristocratic Plato, Socrates’ background was humble. He was born around 469 B.C. into the family of a stonemason named Sophro- niscus from the deme* of Alopece; his mother, Phaena- rete, was a midwife.

Socrates was already a middle-aged man when he married Xenthippe. He fathered three children but did not concern himself with everyday needs. He had no trade: he was a true philosopher, a lover of wisdom and seeker of truth.

The facts we have about Socrates are contradictory. He never wrote anything himself, only conversing with others and asking questions to lead someone in the right direction. Socrates was always surrounded by friends, young men and old who often referred to themselves as his disciples, though he himself never considered them as such, for he did not actually head a school of philosophy. Socrates was witty, inquisitive, and derisive. He cared nothing for the position, wealth, connections or social importance of those around him. He scorned money and ridiculed the Sophists, so-called “teachers of wisdom’, who taught eloquence to many of the youths from wealthy fami- lies and charged handsomely for it. This was something to which the Athenians were not accustomed, for they did not think of philosophy as a trade requiring monetary remuneration.

The information we have about Socrates comes * Clisthenes, who lived in the 6th century B.C., divided Attica

into ten administrative regions—philae, each of which was subdi- vided into ten smaller units, or demae.

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from various sources. These include the philosopher's younger contemporaries, like the famous writer of comedies Aristophanes, and Socrates’ faithful disciples, the historian and philosopher Xenophon and Plato himself. We learn about Socrates from the so-called Socratists, the men who listened to the philosopher and then later themselves founded philosophical schools—Euclides of Megara, Phaedon of Elis, Antisthenes of Athens, and Aristippus of Cyrene. Aristotle, Plato’s disciple, gives us some important comments concerning Socrates’ ideas.

In his comedy The Clouds, staged in 423, Aristopha- nes portrays Socrates as a humoros figure, the head of a questionable school of Sophists, a deceiver and dreamer who creates a new religion and new gods (the clouds). To a certain extent Aristophanes’ harsh parody reflected the vague rumors circulating among the uneducated Athenians who were hungry for gossip. But it also is a testimony to Socrates’ fame. Only the most popular individual with the greatest influence could become a character in a play by the famous Aristophanes. Socrates, who was always at home in the streets, markets and among friendly gatherings, who was poorly dressed and barefoot, short, bald, with prominent cheekbones, an up-turned nose, thick lips and a bumpy forehead, looked like a comic mask. His strange way of speaking both in a confidential, intimate and friendly manner and at the same time ironically would confuse his interlocutor and make him suddenly feel humble and stupid. Socrates would ask questions concerning beauty, justice, friendship, wisdom and bravery, forcing people to think not only about philosophical concepts but also about the important values in life. He explained man’s role in society, his obligations, interrelationship with laws, the necessity to respect the gods, obtain an education, acquire friends and deny base desires—in other words, he taught how an individual ruled by his conscience, a sense of justice and civic duty should live.

It would seem that the questions Socrates raised would have great educational value. But the ideal man that Socrates described, modest, disinterested in money and conscientious, only served to underscore the vices and base desires of the majority; the ideal

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remained unattainable. Socrates forced people to recognize their insignificance. He was the object of anger and even hatred by those who resented his denouncement of wealth, pride and ambition. There were few with the strength to overcome their weak- nesses and begin a new life, and those without this ability deeply resented the man who awakened their consciences, revealed their ignorance, disturbed their peace of mind, deprived them of confidence in their own strength, and sowed doubt concerning long-held traditions.

For the most part the few who followed Socrates were youths from rich and distinguished families who had an abundance of material wealth. They were rebelling against parental and government authority and dreamed of quick and radical changes in society. As paradoxical as it may seem, there were some among Socrates’ young disciples who were not at all interested in gradually educating the ‘‘common”’ man or tutoring the rich nobility. The path of persuasion was long and required great patience; it seemed easier and simpler to impose restrictions on the nobility and oppress the masses, in other words, to force the people to obey unquestionably the ideal legislation. For example, Critias and Alcibiades, two public figures who sought the wisdom of Socrates, took part in an anti-democratic coups in an effort to establish an oligarchy (the rule of a few) or, to use the word employed at that time, a tyranny. They thus betrayed Socrates’ ideas. Often philosophers and Socrates’ own disciples would contradict the ideas of their teacher.

Antisthenes, founder of the Cynic school, and Dioge- nes, his disciple, reached the conclusion that man could achieve spiritual freedom by giving up not only material wealth but also strong family ties, moral traditions, and social duties, for all these things subjugated man to hateful state legislation that divided people into free men and slaves.

Aristippus of Cyrene searched for a higher good in liberating man from the cares of life, in advocating total abandonment to pleasures. Euclides of Megara so completely removed man from the material world that he recognized true existence only in_ ideas. Phaedon, founder of the Eleatic Eritrean school of

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Socrates. A Roman replica of a Greek statue. 4th c. B.C.

philosophy, stretched the art of philosophical argument (o its limit. He preferred to deal with ethical problems but was also a religious free-thinker. Thus, each of Socrates’ disciples one-sidedly developed certain ideas of their teacher, some delving into purely theoretical, others into practical, aspects of life.

Judging from the disparate information that has come down to us from his disciples, Socrates appears to be a very contradictory figure. His world view allows him to criticize the rule of the majority (democ- racy) and at the same time express respect for the law and the unfailing fulfilment of one’s social duty. He was ironic and doubting, and at the same time deeply convinced of the good in man. His quest for the ideal existence in no way prevented him from enjoying friendships on earth and merry banquets. He advized listening to one’s inner voice or conscience, which would help avert undignified actions; yet at the same time he maintained faith in naive myths about an afterlife for man’s soul. Socrates acknowledged his insignificance, yet was firmly convinced of his own predestination: after all, the oracle of Delphi had called him the wisest of the Greeks.

Perhaps Aristophanes was right in parodying the contradictory figure of the wandering wiseman, stretch- ing to the absurd those aspects of his character and his quests that so shocked every upright Athenian citizen. For the Athenians were accustomed to an established system, sanctified by time, that guided behavior in relationships between people, between man and the gods, and between man and the laws of their fathers.

Our most important sources of information about Socrates are the reminiscences of Xenophon and the dialogues of Plato. Their works reveal to us the Socrates who became a living legend. And since Xenophon and Plato were true friends of their mentor and rivals between themselves, their works (which have come down to us in surprisingly complete form) give us a detailed account of the man.

For Xenophon, Socrates was a moralist, a persist- ent, stubborn, somewhat exasperating talker who as- tounded everyone with his impeccable logic. Plato's Socrates was jocose and gregarious, a man who was

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at one and the same time tragic and comic, a rare combination of ascetic wisdom and buffoonery.

Let us not be over-critical in pointing to the discrepancies and contradictions about the life of Socrates in the works of Xenophon and Plato. Even if they exaggerated some of his characteristics and diminished others, even if they consciously avoided or consciously invented some things, and even if they created a living legend (devoutly believing it to be the truth), these two men— Xenophon and Plato— knew Socrates, associated with him and at their own risk recorded his words. Unlike us, they were his contemporaries. We, on the other hand, his descend- ants, using modern methods of philosophical and philological research (often with the help of comput- ers) strive to make our own conjectures and to un- derstand the real Socrates some two thousand and four hundred years after his death.

Let us not be hyper-critical, for even a legend reflects the quests and aspirations of a man of a definite epoch, and even a myth contains at least a grain of truth. Socrates was a man who became a legendary figure in his own time. But if that legend helped to produce the philosopher Plato (and later Aristotle) and became the central core of all his (Plato’s) multi-volume works, we can only be grateful to such poetic inspiration and imagination that compels us, thousands of years later, to reflect and emotionally experience events that occurred in the distant past.

Let us leave the skeptics behind and turn to the legend as described by Xenophon and Plato.

Socrates lived at a time when Athenian democracy was flourishing (the latter half of the Sth century B.C.), after the defeat of the Persians (the first half of the same century). It was a time characterized by a heightened interest in the human personality. The ancient Greek tragedies beautifully reflect the flowering of science, art, philosophy, the spiritual freedom of the individual and his awareness of his potential and independence. The dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides paint a portrait of their contemporaries who rebelled against ancient tradition and religious practices. The time had long passed when man could

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not envision himself outside his tribe, when he thought of himself as one with Mother-Nature, a part of the eternal cycle of life and death. The philosophers of the 6th and Sth centuries B.C. who spoke about the essence of man’s existence and disclosed the secrets of nature and composed poems and treatises under the common heading of “Nature’’, gradually, and initially very tentatively, moved on to the study of ethics. Nature was outside morality, and the Ancients saw the correspondence of human endeavor to the laws of nature as the criterion for all things.

But the citizens of the Greek city-state of the 6th-5th centuries B.C. lived according to the laws of their state, developing an ideal based on kalokagathia. By the second half of the Sth century B.C. (a time when contradictions were heightened not only between the Greeks and the Persians but also between the Greek city-states seeking new territory, wealth and markets), it was the enterprising, industrious, and educated individual, the man with a good knowledge of law, who played a leading role in society. This is when the Sophists appeared, men who taught wisdom for money and who, like their founder Protagoras, believed man to be the measure of all things, the center of social life and the crown of nature. A clever turn of phrase, it seemed, could be more powerful than a weapon if someone knew the art of argument, eristic in Greek, and could ‘“‘make game of people, thanks to the difference in the sense of the words, by tripping them up and overturning them”. Sophists like Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias taught eristic; eloquence and rhetoric became import- ant sciences. For the right sum of money, anyone could learn the tricks of Sophist rhetoric—sophism.

The Sophists initially sought to teach the mechanics of logic and persuasion and thus supply the individual with an important tool to deal with vicissitudes in his private and social life. However, their teaching gradual- ly evolved into word-play and empty rhetoric. The important thing was that for the Sophists man was the criterion for surrounding life, therefore, in his own, often selfish greedy interests he could act without any restriction or moral compunction. Everything was permitted, and all moral norms were relative,

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depending on how they were perceived by the Sophist. Many men learned the art of eloquence from the Sophists, but eventually these philosophers became the object of dislike and even derision. One important reason for this was that many of the politicians in Athens, which was already losing its vitality and had begun to fight adventurist wars, had been taught by the Sophists and had cleverly deceived the trusting public. Socrates was to make his mark in Athenian society at a time when men were fascinated by the limitless capabilities and possibilities of the individual who knew how to express his thoughts and could win any argument.

As a young man Socrates worked with his father and was even considered to be a fine sculptor. When he was about twenty-five he sought wisdom from the Sophist Prodicus of Ceos, a man of his own age who, unlike other Sophists, considered moral principles to be very important. Prodicus studied the philosophy of language, examining the different semantic meanings of words. It is possible that the study of eloquence let the young Socrates to meet Aspasia, the wife of Pericles who was famous for her beauty and love of philosophy. Many years later Socrates would recall how he studied rhetoric under Aspasia and was very nearly slapped by her for his forgetfulness. He even remembered and retold a speech she had written for Pericles on the occasion of the burial of slain Athenian warriors. Along with rhetoric, Socrates studied music. His teachers were Damon, who had been the mentor of Pericles, and Conon. Music led to mathematics and astronomy, and Socrates’ teacher in these fields was Theodorus of Cyrene, a geometer, astronomer and musician. The method of conversation based on questions and answers (dialectics) he learned from a remarkable woman, Diotima, a priestess and prophetess who is said to have kept the plague away from Athens for ten years. This extremely erudite woman stunned Socrates with her great intellect and subtle logic. So, it should not surprise the reader that women should have played an important role in teaching Socrates the art of eloquence: Greece had long been famous for such poetesses as Sappho (7th-6th centu- ries B.C.) and Corinna (6th-5th centuries B.C.).

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Corinna taught the art of poetry to the famous poet Pindar; Theano, Timikha and Aristoclea were famous women philosophers; and Hypatia was a famous philo- sopher and mathematician at the time when ancient Greece began to decline.

Legend has it that as a young man of twenty Socrates met the philosopher Parmenides, famous as the founder of the Eleatic school and author of the poem Nature. Parmenides taught an integral, whole and immutable existence cognizable by man’s inquisi- live mind. For him there could never be “nothingness”, “non-existence” or “incomprehension”.

It is said that Socrates listened to the words of Archelaus, a student of the famous Anaxagoras (5th century B.C.). Like Aspasia, they both were from cities on the Ionian coast, the birthplace of philosophy, science and poetry. Archelaus opened a school in Athens. He believed the cosmos and human existence represented an aggregate of different elements of nature—earth, water, fire and air. By Socrates’ time, this theory was already becoming outdated.

Anaxagoras theorized the existence of a cosmic Reason that ruled the Universe. This Reason carried out all major functions which had heretofore been ascribed to nature. Thus, in the philosophical under- standing of the world, nothing was more lofty than human reason and the mind was omnipotent.

Anaxagoras was very popular in Athens during the time of Pericles, and although the two men were almost the same age, Anaxagoras taught Pericles philosophy. Anaxagoras was a close friend to Peric- les and Aspasia, and also the dramatist Euripides. He was considered to be a free-thinker. The books he wrote, in which he denied the divine nature of heavenly bodies, could be read for no more than a drachma, and Greek youths relished them. Since Socrates was inquisitive about man’s intellectual and spiritual abilities, it is highly probable he studied under Anaxagoras.

The trial of Anaxagoras, instigated by religious zealots and the enemies of Pericles, was unprecedented for Athens. Socrates remembered it to the end of his life. Anaxagoras was tried for being impious. The judges introduced a proposal that all those who did

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not honor the gods according to established practice or sought to explain heavenly phenomena in scientific terms should be considered state criminals. Pericles spoke out in defence of Anaxagoras, who, like all those accused of impiety, faced the death penalty, It was only due to his intervention that Anaxagoras was spared. Exiled from Athens, he settled in Lampsa- cus and died there in 428 B.C., when Socrates was forty years old.

His interest in matters of philosophy and the prob- lems of the meaning of life did not prevent Socrates from fulfilling his duty to Athens. During the Pelopon- nesian War he participated in the siege of Potidaea (432-429 B.C.), and fought courageously in the battles of Delium (424 B.C.) and Amphipolis (422 B.C.).

Plato wrote that Socrates would become so engrossed in his contemplation of ideas that once, in the Athenian camp at Potidaea, he stood motionless in the same spot for an entire day and night, much to the surprise of the other men. He is said to have saved the life of Alcibiades during the battle at Potidaea. When the Athenian warriors retreated he and Laches, a military leader known for his bravery, continued fighting. Thus, even then it was evident that Socrates was a man who could defend himself.

One day something happened that changed the philosopher's entire life. Chaerephon, one of Socrates’ oldest and most ardent friends, went to see the Oracle of Apollo in the sacred city of Delphi. He asked the god if there was anyone in the world wiser than Socrates. According to tradition the oracle answered either that Socrates was the wisest of ali men living, or, she said: “Sophocles is wise, Euripides is wiser, Socrates is the wisest of all.”

Socrates, who had always maintained: “I am conscio- us that I know practically nothing,” was deeply af- fected by this judgement. He became obssessed with the need to teach his fellow citizens true know- ledge, for he believed, ‘‘...wisdom is good and ignorance bad.”

Thus, at the age of forty, Socrates felt a calling to be a teacher of truth. But except on rare occa- sions (when, with Archelaus, he visited the island of Samos, or went by himself to the sacred city of

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Delphi and the Isthmus of Corinth), he remained in Athens.

Socrates’ fame exceeded that of the Sophists, who taught the art of argument for the sake of the argument itself. Often the Sophists disregarded the truth, even purposefully contradicting it and turning black into white. They could demonstrate their skill quite effec- tively, even without a profound knowledge of the subject. And they were not too modest to sing their own praise, like Hippias of Elis or Thrasymachus, or like Protagoras or Gorgias, who were surrounded by disciples and admirers.

Socrates had his own group of friends, disciples and admirers. But he did not accept money for teaching, and he himself provided an example of modest living. He would hide his knowledge of a subject during the course of a discussion and outwardly appeared to be on an equal footing with the novice, together with whom he would set out in search for the truth. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates was not lover of empty argument but a dialectician (from the Greek dialego- mai—I talk), a master of reaching the crux of a problem by means of questions and answers in a relaxed atmosphere. Socrates jokingly referred to the exchange of opinions, the discarding of false paths and gradually approach to true knowledge as the art of midwivery, for new ideas were being born.

Sincere truth-seekers came to Socrates, but so did the merely curious, both young and old, who were attracted by his fame. Socrates had friends among the philosophers-Pythagoreans—Simmias and Cebes, who were his own age. One of his most faithful friends was Criton, also a man of his own age who, though not a philosopher, was a kind and noble man. He had friends in all parts of Greece, in Thessaly, Thebes, Megara, and Elis. During the Peloponnesian War, Euclid of Megara risked his life to travel by night to Athens to hear Socrates speak. After Socrates arranged for the ransom of Phaedo of Elis, who had been taken prisoner and enslaved, he became his devot- ed disciple. Some men, such as Chaerephon, Apollo- dorus, Antisthenes, Aristodemus, and Hermogenes, were such fervid admirers of Socrates they were willing to give up all their worldly possessions for him.

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Chaerephon spread the news of Socrates’ wisdom, which had been acknowledged by Apollo himself, Refusing his father’s wealth, Hermogenes lived in poverty, seeking morality under the tutelage of Socra- tes. Apollodorus and Antisthenes stayed close to Soc- rates, each day recording everything he said and did. Aristodemus was one of Socrates most ardent admirers, He was often present during philosophical debates and would later repeat what was said to everyone interest- ed in the life of the Teacher.

Xenophon, a writer, philosopher and historian, met Socrates in an unusual way. Apparently, one day Socrates met Xenophon in a narrow passage and blocked his path with his stick while he inquired where food was sold. Upon receiving a reply, he asked another question: “And where do men become good and honorable?” When Xenophon appeared puzzled, Socrates said imperiously: “Then follow me and learn.” This is why when Xenophon had to travel to Asia Minor as a military leader on behalf of the heir to the Persian kingdom, Cyrus the Younger, he sought advice from Socrates, who sent him to the Oracle of Delphi.

Such arrogant aristocrats as Alcibiades, Critias and Callicles also sought the company of Socrates. Archela- us, the Macedonian ruler, invited Socrates to his court, but the philosopher refused. Socrates turned down invitations from Scopas of Cranon and Euryloc- hus of Larissa as well.

Socrates was very sociable. He would spend hours in the gymnasium,* the palestra,** at the agora,*** or seated at a banquet table. And wherever he was he talked, taught, offered advice and listened. Some- times a famous personage would arrive in Athens, and Socrates would hurry to meet and argue with him. For example, in 432, Protagoras, the most inveterate and intellectual of all the Sophists, came to Athens

* Gymnasium—facilities in ancient Greece where young men were given an all-round education, including classes in physical fitness, philosophy, politics and literature.

** Palestra—often affiliated with the gymnasium. It was here boys learned wrestling, gymnastics, swimming and other sports. ** Agora—the name used by the ancient Greeks for a public g and the place where it was held (a common city square).

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for a second time (later his books would be burned in the same city and he himself would be forced to flee to Sicily where he would perish during a storm). In one of his dialogues (Protagoras), Plato relates how the most notable Athenians and eminent Sophists met in the home of the wealthy Callias, where Protago- ras was staying. Amid other Sophists and inquisitive youths, Socrates engaged Protagoras in a sharp and ironic dialogue. Present were Alcibiades and Critias, the sons of Pericles, and Agathon. In another year the Peloponnesian War would begin, at the start of which Pericles and his two sons would die of the plague.

Legend has it that Socrates lived such an ascetic life that in the terrible plague epidemic of 429, when thousands died or left the city, he never caught the disease.

Among Socrates’ circle were men who were not his true friends. In 422, at the banquet of the wealthy Callias, about which Xenophon tells in his S ymposium, Socrates spoke about the superiority of spiritual love and demonstrated that friendship was the most impor- tant quality among human relationships. He had no reason to suspect that many years later Lycon, a famous orator who sat next to him, would demand his death in court. Nor did Socrates’ disciples Antisthenes and Hermogenes know that they would stand at their Teacher’s deathbed. For the moment they were engaged in a lively discussion, they watched with interest the performance of the actors who masterfully danced the marriage of the god Dionysus and Ariadne, they lis- tened to the flutist and harpist, and they observed the skilful movements of the dancer-acrobat.

In his Republic, Plato describes a discussion reputed- ly held a year later in the home of the respected Cephalus near Athens. Here Socrates talks about the most important social problems: what is the ideal State and how should its citizens be brought up.

We know from Plato’s dialogue Symposium that those very young men who met with Socrates in the hospitable home of Callias would gather again, reputed- ly in 416, at a banquet table* in the home of the

* The Greek word symposion means “drinking together”, “‘ban- quet”, “table talk”.— (Author).

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famous tragic poet Agathon, the man who as a youth had himself listened to the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates.

But then Athens began to experience times of trouble. Weakened by defeats in the Peloponnesian War (411), the democratic society had been under- mined by the activities of Alcibiades and the so-called Oligarchic Council of the Four Hundred. The consti- tution was re-examined, and established freedoms were curtailed. And although democracy was restored in 410, the people were extremely critical of the abuse of power by the leaders of certain parties and dema- gogues.

Unwittingly, Socrates came to play a leading role in the events of the last years of the fifth century. It was in 408 that Plato met Socrates. We do not know the details of that meeting, but, according to tradition, it must have been marked by an unusual occurrence. Supposedly Socrates had a vision of the meeting in a dream. The swan in his dream—Plato—at last found his teacher, to whom he would be faithful his entire life and whom he would glorify in a poetic chronicle of his life. From this day on Plato gave up all his former pursuits—music, poetry, physi- cal exercise, the theatre and his previous study of philosophy (under the tutelage of Cratylus, who inter- preted in the extreme the teachings of Heraclitus concerning the transience of all matter and concluded that knowledge was unverifiable and relative). Socrates gave Plato what he so desperately needed: firm faith in the existence of truth and higher values in life, which could be understood through joining the realm of good and beauty by means of attempting the difficult task to achieve inner self-perfection.

The peaceful pursuit of philosophy was never far emoved from politics. Socrates and Plato were soon discover this inescapable fact. The city leaders of hens were trying to restore the previous political er and institute strict observance of the laws. this end they turned to religious sentiment and nt customs, but in their quest for power, they selves violated democratic traditions. In 406, after attle at Arginusae, Socrates became involved in Tragic episode of the ten Athenian military generals.

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Athenian ships led by ten military strategists won a brilliant victory over the Peloponnesians. However, a storm arose, and the Athenians were unable to bury their dead. Fearing punishment, four of the strategists fled; only six returned to Athens. First the returning six were rewarded for their victory, then they were accused of violating ancestral religious rites. The city leaders wanted to punish the strategists quickly in order to intimidate the Athenian citizens. They demanded that the fate of all six be decided on one day, and that votes be cast for the entire group, not the individual men.

It so happened that in 406 Socrates had been elected a member of the Athenian Council of the Five Hundred (Boule), which was open to all citizens who had reached