SOCRATES

Athens, 470 - 399 B.C.

PLENTY IS NOT NECESSARILY GOOD

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One of the wisest men of antiquity. He was born in Athens in 470 BC, and was the son of the sculptor Sophroniskos and the midwife Fainaretis, from the municipality of Alopekis. At first he tried to follow his father's profession, and the Three Graces, a statue preserved during the reign of Pausanias, was his work. But he quickly abandoned sculpture to devote himself to philosophy, to which he devoted his entire life, teaching, not in a school, but debating in every part of the city with people of all classes and with the main objective of moral, religious, social and political issues.

His dialectical ability, his subtlety and his intellectual originality with his perfect moral character, attracted the young aristocrats with whom he was particularly associated. Unlike his Sophist contemporaries, Socrates received no remuneration for his teaching. During the Peloponnesian war, he fulfilled his duty to the homeland, and fought with the greatest bravery and courage in Potidaia where he saved the life of Alcibiades (432), in Delio (424) and in Amphipolis (422). He was overseer of the Prytanes and opposed the illegal vote by which the Athenian municipality condemned to death the nine generals, who, after winning the naval battle of the Arginusae, were forced by the storm to leave the fallen unburied. Nor did he obey the thirty tyrants,

Because Socrates combated the pernicious theories of the various sophists and criticized the system of the democratic state, calling the election of princes by cyamus stupid, he made many enemies, some of whom, like Aristophanes, continued with the sophists, who considered them the cause of the misfortunes of the city. Thus the sage was accused of disrespect by the politician Anytos, the poet Melitos and the orator Lykonas and, also, of corruption of the young. Melitos was the rapporteur of the charge and he drew it up. The text said: "Socrates wrongs those whom, the city thinks they are gods, does not think they are, but introduces new demons · he also wrongs and corrupts the youth · the price is death." Socrates could avoid condemnation if he accepted an apology or begged for mercy from the judges, as was customary at the time. Not only did Socrates not do such a thing, but when the wise man was found guilty, and the penalty to be imposed was discussed, according to the Attic Law, Socrates haughtily and courageously declared that it was impossible for him to interrupt the work of educating the youth, a work which he has hitherto done according to the will of God. Socrates' haughty attitude infuriated the judges, and eighty of them, who had previously voted for acquittal, now also voted for the death penalty.

Because the execution of the death sentence was delayed, due to the Delos theory, Socrates remained thirty days in prison, where his friends visited him, but he persistently refused his salvation by escape, which his friends had prepared for him, considering it as dishonorable act. So he drank the hemlock with unshakable calmness and divine exhilaration, calmly philosophizing even on his dying day. The Athenians soon repented of the sage's death, and in many ways honored his memory. It is even said that, when the tragedy of Euripides was being performed in the theater, which had as its premise the unjust death of Palamedes, while the dance was singing, saying "ekanete, ekanete, ton pasofon, oh Danaoi, tan ouden algynousan aedona mousan, ton Ellinon ton ariston", the crowd of spectators burst into tears.

All sources agree on the character of Socrates. His external form had nothing of the Greek beauty and the type of the physiognomically developed Greek. He was ugly, with protruding eyes, a short and thick nose with upturned nostrils, thick lips, a bald head and a bulging belly, but mentally and spiritually he was a wonderful type and distinguished for his delicacy, his wit, his originality, his useful ethos, his restraint and self-sufficiency for the peace and serenity of his soul and, as Plato says, he was "the best, the most prudent and the most just of the Greeks".

Socrates wrote nothing and what we know about him comes from the writings of Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle. However, these sources present a somewhat different image of Socrates' philosophy. Xenophon accepts Socrates as a reformer of society, while others, relying on Plato, represent him mainly as a moral teacher, and others, finally, agreeing with Aristotle, accept Socrates, not as a moral teacher but as a dialectician. The philosophy of Socrates, in its scientific form, is dialectical, which in its application to concrete things becomes moral. Like the Sophists, Socrates also has as the basis of his philosophy not nature, but man, thus bringing down, as Cicero said, philosophy from heaven to earth.

SOCRATES

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