It isn't stylish to sit
beside Socrates and blabber away,
discarding artistry
and ignoring the most important things
about the tragedian's art.
To spend one's time fecklessly
on pretentious talk
and nit-picking humbug
is to act like a lunatic.
(Clouds 1491—9 translation by Jeffrey Henderson)
In the fantasy of the play, the old-fashioned dramatist Aeschylus beats Euripides in a contest of words, and his victory signals defeat for Socrates as well as for Euripides. Those crazy intellectuals may be smart, the Frogs sug- gests, but they are not what a country needs in wartime.
Aristophanes' conservative views must have been echoed by many of those who enjoyed his plays.
In some circles, Socrates' reputation as a moral teacher must have been reasonably good. A tantalising quotation from the orator, Lysias, expresses surprise that his opponent in a court case, Aeschines of Sphettos, was behaving dishon- ourably, despite having been taught by Socrates. Lysias com- ments, 'I thought that as he had been a pupil of Socrates, and talked so much impressive talk about justice and virtue, he would not have attempted or ventured upon conduct char- acteristic of the worst, most dishonest people.'
But we do not have the whole speech from which this line comes, and the evidence of this fragment could go either way. Lysias might be expressing genuine surprise, or ironi- cally suggesting that in fact, the followers of Socrates are usually, like Aeschines, all talk and no trousers.
The real test of any moral teacher is how well his students behave, and how beneficial their actions are for the whole community. By this criterion, Socrates failed miserably. His two most famous pupils, Critias and Alcibiades, each in different ways did enormous harm to the city of Athens. Polycrates, in his posthumous Prosecution of Socrates, cited the connections with Alcibiades and Critias as conclusive proof that Socrates' teaching had harmed the democratic city.
Critias was the uncle of Plato, a rich and well-born man, probably only about ten years younger than Socrates. Details of his earlier career are scanty, although we know that he committed a crime of some kind and was exiled to Thessaly in the latter years of the war. He returned to Athens in 404 bc and was one of the five leaders who incited the people to bring down democracy. He became a prominent member of the Thirty Tyrants, eager to kill as many of his fellow citizens as he could.
Socrates' link with Critias might alone be enough to explain his prosecution in a city which was still recover- ing from the abuses and assassinations suffered under the rule of the militia. We have one important piece of evidence that near-contemporaries believed Socrates was killed simply because of his acquaintance with Critias. The orator Aeschines (to be distinguished from Aeschines of Sphettos, the Socratic), in a speech written about fifty years after the trial of Socrates (Against Timarchus), asked the jury, 'Did you, O men of Athens, execute Socrates the sophist because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who put down the democracy . „?' Aeschines clearly expected the obvious reply to his rhetorical question to be 'Yes: Socrates was killed for teaching Critias'. Contemporary fourth century Athens should, Aeschines suggests, follow the Socratic example and kill another anti-democratic sophist - Aeschines' enemy, Demosthenes.
Socrates probably fell out with Critias after his return to Athens. Critias was infatuated with a young man called Euthydemus and kept pressing himself on him, even when Euthydemus tried to say no. Socrates said, 'Critias seems to have the feelings of a pig: he can no more keep away from Euthydemus than pigs can help rubbing themselves on stones' (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.27-40).
Critias retaliated by trying to create legislation to shut Socrates up. He devised a law forbidding people to teach 'the art of words' and explained that Socrates ought not to talk to anybody under the age of thirty - an absurd provision, as Socrates himself pointed out, since it would prevent him buying a loaf of bread in the market if the baker happened to be under age. Critias failed to devise a law to silence Socrates; he could be silenced only by death. Critias himself was killed by the returning democrats in 403 bc.
It is paradoxical that Socrates should have been blamed for teaching a man who, by the end of his life, hated him so much. One possible explanation is that the enmity between Socrates and Critias has been exaggerated by our pro- Socratic sources. Perhaps the story of the quarrel was made up by Xenophon. But we need not suppose so. It is quite possible that Critias was, in the 430s and 420s, a promi- nent member of the Socratic circle, but fell out with him in later life. Outsiders to the Socratic circle might very well not have known that Critias and Socrates had quarrelled, especially as Socrates remained on intimate terms with other members of Critias' family. At the time Socrates was prosecuted, several younger relations of Critias were cer- tainly committed students of the philosopher - including his nephew, Plato. There must have been those who feared that, if Socrates was not stopped, he might foster a whole new generation of Critiases.
Socrates' relationship with Alcibiades was more inti- mate than his relationship with Critias, and if anything, it was even more damaging to his reputation. Alcibiades was a wealthy aristocrat, known as the most beautiful boy of his generation. He was a party person, a heavy drinker and an enormous flirt - in both his personal and his political rela- tionships. He was clearly an extraordinarily charismatic man who inspired desire and admiration in all those who saw him. He was a brilliant leader who made every soldier in his command worship him. He was also an extremely clever military strategist. The Athenian public had a love- hate relationship with Alcibiades: he was condemned but
4. This anonymous nineteenth-century image shows a naked, but lusty, old Socrates reaching towards the genitals of the young Alcibiades, who lies back, passive and perhaps half-asleep. According to Plato's account, the relationship really worked the other way around: Alcibiades tried to pursue Socrates, but Socrates refused to go all the way.
then recalled by the city no fewer than three times over. Repeatedly, the Athenians decided that Alcibiades had at last gone too far - only to demand his return when the war took another turn for the worse.
In the course of his brief but intense career, the unreliable Alcibiades served Sparta and Persia as well as Athens. In 415 bc he was involved in the profanation of the Mysteries and perhaps also in the mutilation of the herms. He was absent at the time and managed to escape a formal triaclass="underline" instead, he defected to the Spartan side. He was assassinated in 404 bc, perhaps by the Spartans, who knew that while Alcibiades was alive the Athenians would always long for him back.
Socrates was a friend and teacher of Alcibiades in his youth. They were also, in some sense, lovers. In fifth-century
Athens a romance between a beautiful male teenager and a paunchy middle-aged philosophy teacher would not necessarily have seemed sordid. Nor would the sexual asso- ciation, in itself, necessarily have damaged the later careers of either party. It was normal for older men to court and have sex with boys in their late teens, until the age when the beard was fully sprouted. In a society where women were almost entirely uneducated, man-boy relationships offered the opportunity for a greater meeting of minds than was possible within most marriages. The custom was considered good for the boy as well as for the man, since an intelligent lover could teach him how a gentleman ought to behave. A fairly clear set of social conventions surrounded the prac- tice of relationships between boys and men ('paederasty'). An older male slave acted as a chaperon for a well-bred boy, to ward off any unwanted admirers. There was normally a sharp distinction between the lover, who did all the running, and the beloved, who accepted his attentions.