SOCRATES 483 SOCRATES SOCRATES, a great Athenian philoso- pher, the son of Sophroniscus and Phae- narete; born near Athens in 469 B. C. He was brought up to his father's call- ing, that of a sculptor, and for a time gained his living by it. He was, however, naturally an eager student, and by means of the best teachers and the best works accessible to him got the best education his country and his age could give him. He was one of the disciples of the great Anaxagoras and of his successor Arche- laus, and soon gave himself up entirely SOCRATES to philosophy. He led an active social life, married — unhappily for himself, Xantippe — served his country as a sol- dier, distinguished himself by his cour- age and extraordinary endurance at the siege of Potidaea, at the battle of Delium, and at Amphipolis. At Potidaea he saved the life of his pupil Alcibiades, and at Delium the life of his pupil Xenophon. His robust constitution made him indif- ferent to the extremes of temperature; he could dress alike and go barefoot all the year round. He seems to have in- clined rather to the aristocratic than the democratic party. Critias, one of the Thirty Tyrants, had been his pupil; Theramenes was his friend ; so was Char- mides. Yet he fearlessly rebuked Critias for his vices, and thereby made him his enemy; and he with equal courage and disregard of consequences denounced the proceedings of the Thirty, and in one im- portant case refused to obey their com* mand. On the trial of the six generals after the battle of Arginusas he firmly opposed the injustice of the sentence. It was, however, as a teacher that Soc- rates made himself the foremost man of Athens. He wrote no book, he did not establish a school or constitute a system of philosophy. But he almost lived abroad, and mixed with men familiarly. He talked and questioned and discussed, not for pay, but from the love of truth, and a sense of duty. He was persuaded that he had a high religious mission to fulfil, and that a divine voice (afterward spoken of as his Dsemon or Genius) , habit- ually interfered to restrain him from cer- tain actions. Socrates was distinguished chiefly by his theory of virtue. Virtue, he said, consisted in knowledge. To do right was the only road to happiness ; and as every man sought to be happy, vice could arise only from ignorance or mis- take as to the means; hence the proper corrective was an enlarged teaching of the consequences of actions. So early as 424 B. c. he was attacked by Aristophanes, in his comedy of the "Clouds" as the arch-sophist, the enemy of religion, and corrupter of youth; sub- stantially the same charges as those on which he was prosecuted 20 years later. He was made to appear not only hateful but ridiculous — a result the more easy to be attained because of his singularly ugly physiognomy, so easily rendered by the comic mask. He was persecuted during the tyranny of the Thirty, and after their fall he was impeached by Anytus, one of their leading opponents, with whom were associated Melitus, a tragic poet, and Lycon, an orator. He was charged with not believing in the gods which the state worshiped; with introducing new divin- ities; and with corrupting the youth. Death was proposed as the penalty. Soc- rates refused to make use of a speech prepared for his defense by Lysias, and defended himself in a tone of confident innocence which aggravated the ill-will of his judges. He was condemned by a ma- jority of six only; but his additional speech in mitigation of the sentence raised the majority against him to 80. Thirty days elapsed between his sentence and its execution. During that period Socrates had the society of his friends and con- versed with them as usual; the last con- versation being on the immortality of the soul. He refused the offer of some of his friends to procure means of escape for him; drank the hemlock cup with perfect composure, and so died in the 70th year of his age in 399 B. c. Socrates opened a new era in philoso- phy, and without founding a system he originated, by rousing men to reflection
