The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David. 1787. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS “Like a gadfly on the side of a limp horse. This is how Socrates summed up his role as a tireless agitator, working within the Athenian city. Until his death sentence in 399 BC. J.-C., the philosopher never ceased to titillate his fellow citizens, through public discussions where his interlocutors, questioned within the framework of his art of giving birth to the spirits, saw themselves finally trapped in their own contradictions and their prejudices. Bare feet in the streets Exchanges of streets, stalls and porticos, where "he was answered with punches and pulling his hair, and most of the time he was laughed at with contempt", reports Diogenes Laertius. Impassive and patient, Socrates lived 70 years in Athens, which he rarely left, to the point that Plato says he was anchored in his city more than the impotent, the blind and the disabled. Born from the union of a sculptor and a midwife, Socrates seized on maternal know-how for his own philosophical maieutics. Born in 469 and died in 399, Socrates lived through the great moments of Athens known as the century of Pericles:the imperialist apogee, the Peloponnesian War and the fall of the city, whose democratic government was shaken twice by oligarchic crises. In this classical Athens where he shone while exasperating, Socrates was a citizen like the others and fulfilled the duties incumbent on him. Hoplite soldier, he distinguished himself during the battle of Potidée, in 432, where he saved the life of his young lover Alcibiades, who tells in The Banquet with emotion the memory of the exploits of his master, enduring the cold without batting an eyelid and accustomed to wearing only an old coat and walking around barefoot. "This accursed character is an insult to the makers of skins," Diogenes Laertius tells us, ironically about this sartorial austerity; Aristophanes depicts him as a "frugal stomach, which knows how to tighten its belt and dine on a dandelion". A citizen again, in 406, when he found himself "epistate of the prytanes", be invested with the eminently important role of organizing the votes in the Assembly of Athens. That day, he was the only one to refuse to bring his voice, after the judgment en bloc, and therefore contrary to Athenian law, of the victorious generals at the battle of Arginuses. The latter had not repatriated the bodies of the soldiers who had fallen into the water during the battle, and were accused of sacrilege. Cleaning scene on the agora Citizen therefore, but also companion and father of a family; Socrates had three children. Debate remains over the legal status of the two unions he entered into; perhaps he had first for companion Xanthippe, mother of Lamprokles, then for legitimate wife a descendant of Aristide the Just, Myrto, mother of Menexenos and Sophronisque. While little is known about Myrto, Xanthippe is portrayed as a cantankerous woman; quick to insult Socrates, she did not hesitate to tear off his old pennants in the middle of the agora and to pour a basin over his head during one of their frequent arguments. Xanthippe resented the impecuniosity of his household; Socrates was said to be poor and to refuse any salary for his teachings, which distinguished him from the sophists. However, wealthy enough to be a hoplite, Socrates probably enjoyed land income. His poverty was in any case legendary, and he staged it, to the point that Xanthippe asked him to spend more on the meals of the Dionysias and expressed his embarrassment at dinners shared with wealthy Athenians. Impassive, Socrates would have endured Xanthippe's bad mood, explaining to the philosopher Antisthenes that after having tamed such a mare, he could face all his interlocutors... And, according to Diogenes Laertius, when Alcibiades advised him to get rid of her, Socrates conceded that he had become accustomed to its cries as to the continual creaking of a pulley and that Alcibiades himself was well suited to the squawking of his geese. Yes, replied Alcibiades, but at least the geese gave him eggs and chicks. Just like Xanthippe, Socrates then said to his young pupil. The teaching of Socrates was such a revolution in classical Athens that, during his trial, he was accused of corrupting youth by stretching family ties. Antisthenes like Alcibiades were in fact the disciples of Socrates, whose teaching constituted a revolution, even a subversion, in classical Athens. Athenian opinion, contrary to Plato, made little distinction between Socrates and the sophists, these new masters of knowledge who burst into the city from the 450s. In Aristophanes' comic play, The Clouds , played in 423, Socrates embodies a master charlatan at the head of a disreputable school, where the sons learn to challenge paternal authority. Still in Aristophanes, the youth who “socratize” are populated by young people who no longer wash, no longer go to the gymnasium and “laconize”, that is to say, adopt a rather undemocratic attitude... During his trial, Socrates was accused of corrupting youth, and it turned out that Socrates advocated a certain relativity of family ties and empowerment of sons from their fathers. Hadn't he offended one of his accusers, Anytos, by advising him to avoid his own son following in his father's degrading footsteps, working in the tannery? Xenophon admits it:his master taught disciples who were devoted to him body and soul and who did not let go of him, while walking barefoot like him. This fusional relationship took up the codes of male homoerotic companionship, as we read unambiguously in the Lysis , where Socrates tumbles into the gymnasium to talk about friendship with the young ephebe. But the philosopher also knew how to shake up sexual codes:Alcibiades thus testifies to the pedagogical-erotic traps set by Socrates the Erastus who, when the young disciple was about to give in to him, retracts and refuses all carnal commerce, thus assuming the role of the fierce eromenos. In short, despite Seneca's portrayal of him as "a very ugly man with a snub nose, receding hairline, hairy shoulders, and bow legs," Socrates captivated his students and, according to Xenophon, the fathers felt great jealousy. Against the weight of numbers For the Athenians, the corruption of youth by Socrates went beyond the horizon of the philosopher-sulphurous meetings of the master. Socrates also bore the brunt of the political escapades of his disciples, primarily Alcibiades and Critias. Alcibiades, an ambitious young aristocrat suspected of belonging to an anti-democratic faction, had steeped himself in 415 in a troubled history of sacrilege which frightened the Athenians, then in full expedition to Sicily; Sentenced to death in absentia, Alcibiades deserted and, a traitor defector, took refuge in Sparta. The second, Critias, was one of the 30 tyrants who set Athens to fire and blood in 404-403. Didn't Socrates himself stay in Athens when democracy was overthrown? This behavior, like many others, earned Socrates to be considered a misodêmos , an "enemy of the people", even a tyrannikos , a friend of tyrants, as Polycrates designates him, a sophist author of a pamphlet dating from the 390s and justifying the condemnation of the master. Xenophon and Plato attest to this, Socrates roundly criticized two essential foundations of Athenian democracy:the principle of majority and the drawing of lots. He thus asserted that "it is madness to choose with a bean the magistrates of a State, while no one would want to employ a pilot designated by a bean, nor an architect, nor a piper". He also lamented that the passengers of a ship were allowed to command to the detriment of the captain, the only one to master the art of navigation. The philosopher condemned the ignorance of the people as much as the weight of numbers. A supporter of the government of those who possess knowledge, Socrates could only irritate his fellow democrats; in 399, the soft horse finally got the better of the gadfly. Find out more Socrates, by Louis-André Dorion, Que sais-je?, 2018.What is ancient philosophy? , by Pierre Hadot, Gallimard (Folio), 2015.Lives and doctrines of illustrious philosophers, Diogenes Laertius, The Pocket Book, 2009.Memorable, Xénophon, Les Belles Lettres, 2015. Timeline 423 BC. Aristophanes represents Socrates in his comedy The Clouds . In 422, the philosopher fought against Sparta at Amphipolis.420 BC. Because the oracle of Delphi declared that he was the wisest of men, Socrates redoubled his efforts.412 BC. Socrates rejects the invitation of King Archelaus of Macedonia to come to his court, where Agathon and Euripides already live.404 BC. Socrates disobeyed the order to capture the democrat Leo of Salamis to hand him over to the regime of the Thirty of Athens.399 BC. Accused of impiety and corruption of youth, Socrates is sentenced to death. His punishment is to drink hemlock.380-375 BC. Plato, disciple of Socrates, writes his dialogue Phaedo , in which he attributes to his master the theory of the immortal soul. Majority opinion In his Criton , Plato recreates a dialogue between Socrates and Crito, during which the philosopher refutes the idea of his student on the importance to be given to the opinion of others. "When it comes to the just and the unjust, the ugly and the beautiful, the good and the bad, which we now deliberate, is it the opinion of the many that we should follow and fear, or that of the sole competent judge, if any? And this one judge, should we not respect and fear him more than all the others together? For if we do not obey him, we will corrupt and spoil what, as we said, improves through justice and is lost through injustice. "So we must not, my excellent Crito, trouble ourselves so greatly about what the multitude will say of us, but rather about what the man competent in the just and the unjust, our only judge, and the truth even can tell. Thus you start the discussion badly, by first advancing that we must worry about the opinion of the crowd on the right, the beautiful, the good and their opposites. » Haro on the sophists In the Protagoras , Socrates calls on a friend on his way to the home of the famous sophist to follow his teaching. "Do you know to what risks you are going to expose your soul! If you were to entrust your body to someone, would not the sense of the risk to which you expose it […] make you examine with minute care whether or not you should entrust it to them, would it not make you not call your friends and loved ones for consultation […]? "And, on the contrary, for that which you value more highly than your body, I mean your soul, for that in which lies all possibility of happiness or unhappiness in the things which concern you, […] on the contrary , said I, when it comes to this, you would not consult with your father, or with your brother, or with any of us, who are your familiars, to know whether you should [or not] entrust your soul to this stranger who has just arrived! » Man superior to animal Xenophon, in his Memorables , refers to the philosopher's idea of human superiority over animals. " How ! Don't you think they care, they who first granted man, alone of all animals, the ability to stand? However, this attitude allows him to carry his sight further, to better contemplate the objects which are above him, and to be less exposed to dangers. They placed on top the eyes, the ears, the mouth; and, while they gave to the other animals attached to the ground feet which only enabled them to change their place, they also granted to man hands, with the aid of which we accomplish most of the acts which make us happier than animals. “All other beings have a language; that of man is the only one made in such a way that […] it articulates sounds […]. Shall I speak of the pleasures of love, the faculty of which, limited for other animals to one season of the year, extends for us without interruption until old age? »
