СНАР. III. and certainly soon gave up. Considering it to be his special calling to labour for the moral and intellectual improvement of himself and others, this conviction forced itself so strongly upon him, as to appear to him in the light of a divine revelation.2 He was, moreover, confirmed therein by a Delphic oracle, which, of course, must not be regarded as the cause of, but rather as an additional support to, his reforming zeal.3 How and when this conviction first A. Plato (Rep. vi. 496, B.) seems to have had the case of Socrates in view. Porphyry leaves it open whether Socrates or his father practised sculpture; nor is anything proved by the story that the Graces on the Acropolis were his work (Diog. Paus. i. 22). No allusions are found in Aristophanes, Plato, and Xenophon to the sculptor's art. Hence we may conclude that if Socrates ever practised it, he gave it up long before the play of the Clouds was acted. Duris and Demetrius of Byzantium (in Diog. ii. 19), in stating that he was a slave, and that Crito removed him from a workshop and cared for his education, appear to confound him with Phædo. 2 Plato, Apol. 33, C.: èuoì dè TOÛTO . προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντείων καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπερ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε ποιεῖν. 3 According to the wellknown story in the Apol. 20, E., which has been repeated countless times by succeeding writers, the matter stands thus: Chærephon had asked at Delphi if there were a wiser man than Socrates, and the priestess had answered in the negative. The Iambics which purport to contain the answer in Diog. ii. 37, and Suid. σopós belong of course to a much later period. Whereupon, says Socrates, he had thought over the sense of the oracle, and, in the hope of finding it, he had conversed with all who made pretensions to knowledge. At last he has found that neither he himself nor any other man was wise, but that others believed themselves to be wise, whilst he was conscious of his want of wisdom. He considered himself therefore pledged in the service of Apollo to a similar sifting of men, to save the honour of the oracle, which declared him, although one so wanting in wisdom, to be the wisest of men. Allowing that Socrates really said this-and there is no doubt that he uttered it in substance-it by no means follows that his philosophical activity dated from the time dawned on him, cannot be determined. Most probably it grew gradually in proportion as he gained more knowledge of the moral and intellectual circumstances of his time, and soon after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war he had found in the main his philosophical centre of gravity.1 From that time forward he devoted himself to the mission he had assumed, regardless of everything else. His means of support were extremely scanty,2 and his domestic life, in company with Xanthippe, was far from happy.3 Yet neither her passionate Else of the Pythian oracle. (Plut. Gen. Socr. c. 20) is al- This is proved by the part 2 See p. 54, 1. The name of Xanthippe is not only proverbial now. Later writers of antiquity (Teles. in Stob. Flor. 5, 64; Seneca De Const. 18, 5, Epist. 104, 177; Porphyry (in Theod. Cur. Gr. Aff. xii. 65); Diogenes (ii. 36); Plutarch (Coh. Ira, 13, 461), who however tells the same of the wife of Pittacus, Tranq. An. ii. 471; Elian (V. H. xi. 12); CHAP. III. CHAP. character would he allow to ruffle his philosophic III. Athenæus (v. 219); Synesius, &c.), tell so many little stories and disgraceful traits of her that one almost feels inclined to take up the cudgels in her behalf, as Heumann has actually done (Acta Phil. i. 103). What Xenophon (Mem. ii. 2; Sym. 2, 10) and Plato (Phædo, 60, A.) say of her, shows that she cannot have been altogether badly disposed. At least she was solicitous about her family, though at the same time she was extremely violent, overbearing, and hard to deal with. It is remarkable that Aristophanes in the Clouds says nothing of the married life of Socrates, which might have afforded him material for many a joke. Probably Socrates was not then married. His eldest son is called twenty-five years later (Plato, Apol. 34, D.; Phædo, 60, Α.) μειράκιον ἤδη, and there are two young children. Besides Xanthippe, Socrates is said to have had another wife, Myrto, a daughter or grand-daughter of Aristides: after Xanthippe according to Aristotle (in Diog. ii. 26; conf. Stob. Floril 86, 25, Posidon in Ps. Plut. De Nob. 18, 3; less accurate is Plutarch's Aristid. 27 which Athen. xiii. 555 follows); before her according to another view (also in Diog.); and at the same time with her according to Aristoxenus, Demetrius Phaler., Hieronymus Rhod., Satyrus, and Porphyry, in Cyril. c. Jul., vi. 186, D.; so that he had two wives at once. The fallacy of the last view has been already exposed by Panæætius (accord ing to Plut.), and in modern times most thoroughly by Luzac (Lectiones Atticæ, Leyden, 1809). Not only is such a thing incompatible with the character of Socrates, but amongst his cotemporaries, foes and friends, Xenophon, Plato, Aristophanes, and other comic poets, including Timon, there is no allusion to a relation, which would most undoubtedly have, had it existed, caused a great sensation and have provoked attack and defence, and derision in the highest degree. The laws of Athens never allowed bigamy, and the decree purporting to be in favour of it, by which Hieronymus attempts to give probability to his story (the same to which reference is made by Gell. N. A. xv. 20, 6, from the supposed bigamy of Euripides) either never was passed, or must bear a different meaning. The only question is, whether there can be any foundation for the story, and how its rise can be explained. Shall the Pseudo-Aristotle be believed, who says that Myrto was his second wife, and the two younger sons her children? But this cannot be reconciled with the Phædo 60, A., let alone the fact that Myrto, as a daughter of Aristides, must have been older than Socrates (whose father in Laches, 180, D, is mentioned as a school companion of her brother), and far too old then to bear children. Or shall it, on the contrary, be conceded (with Luzac) that Myrto was Socrates' first wife, and that he married 1 composure, nor could domestic cares hinder the oc place, all the biographers (a few unknown ones in Diogenes excepted), and particularly the Pseudo-Aristotle, from whom all the rest appear to have taken the story, say that he married Myrto after Xanthippe, and that Sophroniscus and Menexenus were her children. Thirdly, Socrates cannot possibly have married the sister or the niece of Lysimachus, the son of Aristides, before the battle of Delium, since at the time of the battle (Lach. 180, D.) he did not know Lysimachus personally. Nor can his first marriage have been contracted after that date, since Xanthippe's eldest son was grown up at the time of his death. And lastly, in Plato's Theætet. 150, E., shortly before his death, Socrates mentions this Aristides, as one of those who had withdrawn from his intellectual influence without detriment to his relationship as a kinsman. Thus the connection between Socrates and Myrto seems to belong altogether to the region of fable. The most probable account of the origin of the story is the following. We gather from the remains of the treatise Teρl evyeveías (Stob. Flor. 86, 24, 25; 88, 1 13), the genuineness of which was doubted by Plutarch, and certainly cannot be allowed, that this dialogue was concerned with the question, whether nobility belonged to those whose parents were virtuous. Now none were more celebrated for their spotless virtue and their voluntary poverty than Aristides and Socrates. Accordingly the writer brought the two into connection. Socrates was made to marry a daughter of Aristides, and since Xanthippe was known to be his wife, Myrto Iwas made to be his second wife and the mother of his younger children. Others, however, remembered that Xanthippe survived her husband. They thought it unlikely that Socrates should be the son-in-law of a man dead before he was born, and they tried to surmount these difficulties in various ways. As regards the first difficulty, either it was maintained that Myrto was his second wife and that the younger children were hers, in which case it was necessary to place her side by side with Xanthippe, as Hieronymus actually did, and invented a decree of the people to make it probable; or to avoid romance, this supposition was given up, and Myrto was made to be his first wife, who then can have borne him no children, since Lamprocles, his eldest son, according to Xenophon, was a child of Xanthippe. The second difficulty could be For note see next page. СНАР. III. 9 CHAP. cupation which he recognised to be the business of 1 See Xenophon 1. c., not to mention later anecdotes respecting this subject. 2 Plato, Apol. 23, B.; 31, B. 3 Conf. Xen. Mem. i. 6, 1–10, where he argues against Antiphon, that his is a thoroughly happy mode of life, ending with the celebrated words: τὸ μὲν μηδενὸς δέεσθαι θεῖον εἶναι, τὸ δὲ ὡς ἐλαχίστων ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ θείου. 4 The contentment of So- Xen. Mem. i. 2, 1; 3, 5; Plato, 5 Xen. Mem. i. 6, 4; iv. 8, 6. 6 6 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 5; i. 5, 6; i. 6, 3; Plato, Apol. 19, D. 31; B.; 33, A.; Euthypro, 3, D.; Symp. 219, E. In the face of these distinct testimonies, the statement of Aristoxenus (Diog. ii. 20) that from time to time he collected money from his pupils, can only be regarded as a slander. It is possible that he did not always refuse the presents of opulent friends(Diog. ii. 74, 121, 34; Sen. de Benef. i. 8; vii. 24; Quintil. Inst. xii. 7, 9). Questionable anecdotes (Diog. ii. 24, 31, 65; Stob. Flor. 3, 61; 17, 17) would prove nothing, to the contrary, but no dependence can be placed on these authorities. He is said to have refused the splendid offers of the Macedonian Archelaus and the Thessalian Scopas (Diog. ii. 25; Sen. Benef. v. 6; Arrian or Plut. in Stob. Floril. 97, 28; Dio Chrys. Or. xiii. 30), and this tale is confirmed as far as the first-named individual is concerned by Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 23, in a passage which Bayle, Dict. Archelaus Rem. D. disputes without reason. |