The notion of Socrates as a typical man, and of the death of Socrates as merely representative of universal mortality, survived into Aristotelian logic. Here is Aristotle's famous syllogism:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Socrates died, according to this simple deduction, because he was a human being. Dying is universal, not distinctive.
But some people - and Socrates was one of them - seem to make death their own, and invest the universal with the stamp of the particular. Socrates' own personality plays a great part in the stories told about his death.
At his trial - as all contemporaries agreed - Socrates showed extraordinary haughtiness in his way of talking to the jury. He was initially found guilty by a fairly small majority: 280 voted against him out of 500 (or possibly 501). It is worth noting that the votes were very close; as Socrates remarked, 'If only thirty votes had changed sides, I should have got off' (Plato, Apology 36a). After the conviction there was a second round of voting to determine the penalty. This was normal procedure under Athenian law.
We are also told - by a fairly unreliable late source, Diogenes Laertius - that a larger number of people voted for the death penalty than had initially voted to find him guilty. This suggests that certain jurors who had thought Socrates innocent of the charges then voted to have him executed.
Diogenes' claim is extraordinary, and may be based on a misunderstanding. But it seems at least possible that it is true. After all, the jury's voting pattern seems to fit well with accounts of how contemporaries responded to Socrates. They were struck - and impressed or alienated - as much by his style of conversation, his strange behaviour and the odd look in his eyes as by any particular philosophical or political belief.
If, then, Diogenes is to be believed, Socrates was not put to death as a direct result of the actual crimes with which he had been charged - impiety and corruption - nor even for his political beliefs, which can hardly have altered between the time of conviction and the passing of the sentence. Rather, he was executed for his manner. It is certainly true that he infuri- ated his contemporaries, and carried on behaving in a super- cilious and enraging way even under the threat of death.
When given the option of proposing what sentence he believed he deserved, Plato tells us that Socrates conceded that he would be willing to pay a fine: his rich friends could put up the money. But before this concession, he claimed that if he were to get the reward he really deserved, he should get free meals for life in the city dining hall - a privilege reserved for foreign dignitaries and the most celebrated citi- zens, such as victorious Olympic athletes. If Socrates really said this, the jury would certainly have been shocked. The
3. Socrates was known for his snub nose, his bald head, his goggly eyes, and his thick lips. His notorious ugliness belied the beauty of his soul.
city did not subsidise education. Nor did it pay to support those who wanted to spend all their time discussing philos- ophy. Socrates' impenitent smugness may have influenced the final vote that he should drink the hemlock.
Socrates' behaviour - always peculiar, often arrogant or aggressive or underhand - enraged enormous numbers of those with whom he came into contact in the course of his long life. Part of the irritation can be tied to his 'philosophy' in a loose sense. As we have seen, he adopted a method of philosophical practice that was guaranteed to upset a large number of people. Socrates spent his life proving to his contemporaries that none of them knew anything about anything, and doling out moral advice. He criticised many of the city's most prominent people, claiming that nobody in Athens - not poets, not politicians, not craftsmen - was really wise in any important way. This must have hurt the pride of a city that boasted of its wisdom. It is hardly sur- prising that he made rather a lot of personal enemies.
Before we turn to the specific people with whom Socrates associated, we should consider why he seemed so strange and so extraordinary in his own time - not in his philosophi- cal beliefs, but in his appearance, his way of speaking and his way of life. Socrates was not good-looking. As many ancient sources tell us, he was bald, fat and snub-nosed - a far cry from classical and neo-classical ideals of beauty. He had big, wide-set, goggly eyes.
To modern viewers, Socrates' supposed ugliness may make him seem cuddly and more approachable than most philosophers. Like Shakespeare's Falstaff, whom Harold Bloom calls 'the first human being in literature', he was a highly individualised, convivial old fellow. The Hostess' moving account of Falstaff's death (in Shakespeare's Henry V, II. 3) seems to recall that of Socrates in the Phaedo - although Falstaff is no philosopher, and dies babbling of green fields and calling for more sack. Falstaff's limbs, like those of Socrates, grow gradually more and more numb, until 'all was as cold as any stone'. In both cases, the pathos of the death scene is all the greater, since these two old men have been so vigorous, and so youthful up to the very end.
Socrates had something childlike about him. Aristophanes and Plato tell us of his fat belly, fearless gaze, disarming sim- plicity and waddling walk - all babyish or toddler-like char- acteristics. His expression was beguiling in its apparent lack of guile.
To the beauty-loving Athenians, however, Socrates was known for his ugliness. The master's appearance was a chal- lenge for Socrates' ancient admirers. How could such an unattractive person have such a beautiful soul? The Greek word kalos means both 'beautiful', 'noble' and 'good'. It was a paradox for Plato and Xenophon to find Socrates kalos in a moral sense but far from kalos in his looks.
Socrates was often said to look like a satyr. Satyrs, in Greek mythology, were creatures like men, but with snub noses, bald heads, furry tails and permanent, huge erec- tions. They were associated with Dionysus, god of wine and excess, and enjoyed sex, getting drunk and playing silly tricks on people. But Socrates, despite his appearance, was known for his self-restraint. According to Plato, he could go a long time without food or sleep, but could also drink more than anyone while staying sober. Xenophon, whose version of Socrates is importantly different from Plato's (as we will see in more detail in the next chapter), gives an alternative explanation for why Socrates never seemed to get drunk: it was because he never drank too much.
Palmistry experts say that the left hand is the hand we were born with; the right is what we make of it. Similarly, according to one ancient story, Socrates' face represents what he was born with; his soul is what he made of it. The sharp distinction between the two, in the case of Socrates, represents the power of good self-discipline. A physiogno- mist asked him, 'How is it that you look so much like a satyr and yet are so temperate?' Socrates explained that the face reveals only the nature we were born with, not the nature we make for ourselves. Born with greater natural lusts than anyone, he has trained himself to desire only the good.
Plato draws a rather different lesson from the ugliness of Socrates. Socrates is like certain statues of the satyr leader, Silenus, which are made so that they open up to reveal gods inside. Similarly, Socrates has a beautiful soul inside an ugly face and body. His appearance does not fit his true nature. It shows the conflict between false appearances and true reality.