Thomas Disch's dystopian futurist novel, 334 (1974), describes a young college student in the early twenty- first century struggling to make sense of a reproduction of David's painting, The Death of Socrates. The task seems, at first, impossible: 'He stared at the picture of Socrates in the bad light. With one hand he was holding a big cup, with the other he was giving somebody the finger. He didn't seem to be dying at all.' The inability of this boy to understand the gestures in the painting reflects the poverty of the world he lives in, which is dominated by desire and aggression ('the finger'). But Socrates turns out to be relevant even in this bleak future, as a reminder of what is missing. The authori- ties, in Disch's world, pretend to be able to know everything about everybody. They provide tests and assemble statistics, to decide which citizens may have children and which may not. What the future still needs is Socrates' awareness of his own ignorance. Even though he does not understand David's work, the student finds himself crying over it: 'A tear fell into Socrates' cup and was absorbed by the cheap paper'.
Two more recent science fiction novels suggest a more hopeful vision of how Socrates can still save the world. The continuing dominance of this ancient philosopher over modern imaginations is shown very clearly by these works, which depict what would happen if the original death were reversed, and Socrates were brought back to life in the present or the future.
In God's Name (2001), written under the pseudonym Robert Verly, begins with God, who has realised that nobody on earth really understands Him/Her/It. The solution, of course, is to bring back Socrates from Limbo. He appears, in a rather Xenophontic guise (where Xenophon meets Benjamin Franklin), and explains that all religions are wrong, the
American Founding Fathers were right about almost every- thing and we should all be less judgemental of one another. He is glad to learn some new scientific facts about black holes and happy to have been of use, although he recognises that 'beneficial changes came more from inevitable trends of history than from his efforts'. Eventually his soul - or rather, his plasma - will be recycled all over again.
A slightly less crazed experiment with reversing the events of 399 bc is Paul Levinson's The Plot to Save Socrates (2006). This novel describes what happens when a New York graduate student of the 2040s sees part of a new Platonic dialogue, set just after the Crito and ready-translated into implausible nineteenth-century English in the manner of Benjamin Jowett. The student herself wishes Socrates had stayed alive to fight for a better world. In the new text, he is offered another chance to escape from prison and death. A clone can take the hemlock in Socrates' stead, while he himself will be whisked away in a time machine. Through the rest of the novel, the student travels through time, back to Socrates' prison cell as well as to Alexandria and nine- teenth-century London, in search of the truth. Perhaps, she realises, Socrates never really died at all.
The major premise of the book is fundamentally silly, since obviously the ethical problem of whether Socrates should have escaped from prison remains the same whether he uses a time machine, cloning or a chariot. But the book raises important and interesting questions. How has the death of Socrates already changed our world? And does this event belong only to Plato or can it be appropriated and reappropriated by all of us?
Plato's creation of Socrates' character, and of the scene of his death, can be seen as a kind of identity theft. The myth of the death of Socrates has been stolen so many times that it is, by now, unclear to whom it really belongs.
This idea is strikingly expressed in a piece by the Swiss dramatist Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-90; most famous for his play The Visit, 1956). Durrenmatt's Socrates is a jolly, fat, popular old man, a heavy drinker, whose sole failing is a tendency to steal knick-knacks from his hosts' houses when everybody but himself is lying about drunk. He donates the spoils to an 'antiques' shop run by his wife, Xanthippe. Plato, an 'introverted intellectual' who has 'resolved to change a world he held in contempt', persuades Socrates to allow him to perform a much more serious kind of theft or bor- rowing: Plato 'steals' Socrates' conversations, to create his own written dialogues. He passes off that dangerously anti- democratic text, the Republic, as Socrates' own opinions, and Socrates is put on trial. Socrates, a relaxed, lackadaisical man who has no sense either of strategy or of words as private property, is unable to learn his own defence speech; he is condemned to death.
But, in a surprising twist, Aristophanes offers to die in Socrates' stead. After all, Aristophanes remarks, it would be a pity to waste such a dramatic script as Plato's Phaedo, which he has already composed. Socrates would be sure to fluff the lines. Aristophanes suggests that there are two quite different ways of dying with integrity. For himself, as a dramatist, it makes sense to die in character, in the last great performance of his life. For Socrates, on the other hand, there is still time to die as Socrates, not as Plato's version of himself. Socrates is shipped off to Syracuse, where Plato hopes that he will be able to convince Dion the tyrant to become a philosopher. 'Unfortunately, Dion had vowed that anyone who drank him under the table had to die. Socrates drank Dion under the table. Now Socrates had to drink the hemlock after all.' But Socrates flouts Dion's expectations of a big spectacle by dying without saying a single word.
The piece ends with a great speech by Socrates' wife, Xanthippe, in which she gives words to Socrates' silent death. She declares that Socrates was the only man who knew what all women know: how to be himself, rather than simply play at being himself. In the final twist of the story, Xanthippe reveals that she has bought the enslaved Plato, using the profits from the shop which Socrates stocked with his thefts. Plato, the only character in the story who claims absolute knowledge of himself and believes in his inalien- able right to his own words and opinions, becomes an object for Xanthippe's new shop.
Durrenmatt's Plato, who thinks he can change the world, can be possessed by others. But Aristophanes, Socrates and Xanthippe, who make no such claims, remain free to be them- selves, without play-acting, ownership or robbery. Xanthippe tells us that her husband's death by hemlock was simply 'the natural consequence of being such a good drinker'. 'Socrates died as Socrates', she declares. Xanthippe, who has been so often excluded from the story of her husband's death, finally gets the last word.
FURTHER READING
general
Translations from Greek and Latin are, except where stated, mine. There is a huge bibliography on Socrates. The follow- ing suggestions are certainly not exhaustive, and do not reflect everything I read while writing this book.
There are two good collections of texts and quotations about Socrates in English: The Socratic Enigma, edited by H. Spiegelberg (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), and Socrates: A Source Book, edited by J. Ferguson (Buckingham, Open University Press, 1970). Unfortunately both are out of print, but they can be tracked down in second-hand shops or libraries.
An excellent collection of essays about Socrates and the Socratic tradition, A Blackwell Companion to Socrates, edited by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar (Blackwell 2006) appeared just as I was finishing this book.