Xenophon says
in his Memorabilia: ‘When the Thirty
were putting to death many citizens of the highest respectability and were
encouraging many in crime, Socrates had remarked. “It seems strange enough to
me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not
admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman when he
causes citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think
himself a poor statesman.” This remark was reported to Critias and Charicles
[entrusted by the Thirty to draft laws], who sent for Socrates, showed him the
law [that made it illegal “to teach the art of words” (logȏn technȇn mȇ didaskein), I.ii.31] and forbade him the
conversation with the young.’ (I.ii.32-33).
A discussion
ensued that closed as follows. Critias: “You will have to avoid your favourite
topic, – the cobblers, builders and metal workers; for it is already worn to
rags by you in my opinion.” – Socrates: "Then must I keep off the subjects of
which these supply illustrations, Justice, Holiness, and so forth?” –
Charicles: “Indeed yes, and cowherds too: else you may find the cattle decrease.” (I.ii.37, tr. E.C. Marchant) This
was an obvious threat.
Charicles’ hopȏs mȇ kai su elottous tas bous poiȇsȇis ‘else you
too might make the cows fewer’ (Marchant’s ‘else you may find the cattle decrease’) can be understood in two ways:
1. Socrates might be be one of the cows that are being made fewer, 2. Socrates
might become one of those who are causing the cows to become fewer. The second
alternative appears to have appealed to the Thirty. They summoned Socrates with
four others to Tholos and ordered them to bring Leon the Salaminian from
Salamis, as they wanted to put him to death. The four did as they were told,
but Socrates went home; having thus openly disobeyed, his death in the hands of
the Thirty appeared to be imminent. So, Plato recreated Socrates’ presence in
the Hippias Major, presenting him as
he was to be remembered.
In order to
do so, he dramatically situated the dialogue in the time of Nicias’ Peace,
between 421 and 416 B.C. It was the time when the sophists were eager to visit
Athens, time when the Athenians adored Sparta, just as they did in the
aftermath of their catastrophic defeat with which the Peloponnesian war ended
in 404; it was thanks to Sparta that Athens were not annihilated. As Socrates’
counterpart Plato chose the sophist Hippias who prided himself on his political
credentials, and most of all, on his ability to make money. By exposing him to
Socrates’ irony, Plato pointed his finger at the primary cause of what went
wrong with Critias and the Thirty. In thus presenting Socrates at his best to
his friends he appears to have found the way of preventing
the Thirty from putting Socrates to death. For how could they put to death
Socrates who thanks to Plato’s pen so greatly entertained the young aristocrats
of Athens, all those below the age of thirty, with whom Socrates could not even
talk, forbidden from doing so by Critias and Charicles?
When
Socrates narrated the incident of his disobedience to the Thirty in his defence
speech in Plato’s Apology, he ended
it with the words ‘For which I might have lost my life, had not the power of
the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end (32d7-8, tr. B. Jowett).’ But the
speech of Theramenes in defence against Critias’ accusations in front of the
Senate shows that the Thirty had plenty of time to put Socrates to death. I quoted
Theramenes’ speech in my preceding post, but in order to show that there must
have been something else than the lack of time involved, I must quote the
relevant passage more fully:
‘Up to the
time when you became members of the Senate and magistrates were appointed and
the notorious informers were brought to trial, all of us held the same views;
but when these Thirty began to arrest men of worth and standing (kalous te k’agathous ‘beautiful and
good’), then I, on my side, began to hold views opposed to theirs. For when
Leon the Salaminian was put to death, – a man of capacity, both actually and by
repute, – although he was not guilty of a single act of wrong-doing, I knew
that those who were like him would be fearful, and, being fearful, would be
enemies of this government. I also knew, when Niceratus, the son of Nicias, was
arrested, – a man of wealth who, like his father, had never done anything to
curry popular favour, – that those who were like him would become hostile to
us. And further, when Antiphon, who during the war supplied from his own means
two fast-sailing triremes, was put to death by us, I knew that all those who
had been zealous in the state’s cause would look upon us with suspicion. I
objected, also, when they said that each of us must seize one of the resident
aliens; for it was entirely clear that if these men were put to death, the
whole body of such aliens would become enemies of the government. I objected
likewise when they took away from the people their arms, because I thought that
we ought not to make the state weak; for I saw that, in preserving us, the
purpose of the Lacedaemonians had not been that we might become few in number
and unable to do them service; for if this had been what they desired, it was
within their power, by keeping up the pressure of famine a little while longer,
to leave not a single man alive.’ (Xenophon, Hellenica II.iii.38-41)
The sequence
of these events as Theramenes narrates them can be viewed as sequence in
time. Niceratus, the son of Nicias, is named as one of Polemarchus’ guests in
Plato’s Republic (327c2). The Thirty
had to dispose of Niceratus before putting Polemarchus and other chosen
resident aliens to death. In spite of Theramenes’ criticism, the Thirty still
tried to get him on their side, as the following passage from Xenophon’s Hellenica indicates: ‘One measure the
Thirty resolved upon, in order to get money to pay their guardsmen, was that
each of their number should seize one of the aliens residing in the city, and
that they should put these men to death and confiscate their property. So they
bade Theramenes also to seize anyone he pleased; and he replied: “But it is not
honourable (kalon, i.e. Jowett’s
‘beautiful’ in the Hippias Major), as
it seems to me,” he said, “for people who style themselves the best citizens (beltistous) to commit acts of greater
injustice than the informers used to do. For they allowed those from whom they
got money, to live; but shall we, in order to get money, put to death men who
are guilty of no wrong-doing?”’ (II.iii.21-22,). Theramenes’ refusal to get
involved in this money grabbing appears to have been the last straw. But even
then their execution of Theramenes couldn’t be undertaken without
time-consuming preparation, as the following passage shows: ‘Then the Thirty,
thinking that Theramenes was an obstacle to their doing whatever they pleased,
plotted against him, and kept accusing him to individual senators, one to one
man and another to another, of injuring the government. And after passing the
word to some young men, who seemed to them most audacious, to be in attendance
with daggers hidden under their arms, they convened the Senate (sunelexan tȇn boulȇn).’
(II.iii.23, translation from the Hellenica
C.L. Brownson)
***
The Hippias Major opens with Socrates
greeting Hippias: ‘It is Hippias, the beautiful (kalos) and wise (sophos)!
It’s ages since you descended on Athens!’
Hippias
answers: ‘I have had no time to spare, Socrates. Elis looks on me as her best
judge and reporter of anything said by other governments, and so I am always
the first choice among her citizens to be her ambassador when she has business
to settle with another state. I have gone on many such missions to different
states, but to Lacedaemon [i.e. Sparta] most often, and on the most numerous
and most important subjects. That is the answer to your question why I am so
seldom in this part of the world.’
Socrates meets
Hippias’ boasts with irony: ‘Still, Hippias, what a thing it is to be a
complete man, as well as a wise one! As a private person, your talents earn you
a great deal of money from the young, and in return you confer on them even
greater benefits; in public affairs, again, you can do good work for your
country, which is the way to avoid contempt and win popular esteem (eudokimȇsein en tois pollois). Yet I wonder for what possible
reason the great figures of the past – Pittacus and Bias and the school of
Thales of Miletus, and others nearer our own time, down to Anaxagoras – why all
or most of them clearly made a habit of taking no active part in politics.’ Hippias
takes Socrates’ words as an expression of sheer admiration: ‘What reason do you
suppose except incapacity, the lack of the power to carry their wisdom into
both regions of life, the public and the private?’ (281a1-d2, translation from
the Hippias Major in this text is by
B. Jowett)
With the
words ‘[they] clearly made a habit of taking no active part in politics’ Jowett
translates Plato’s phainontai apechomenoi
tȏn politikȏn praxeȏn, but Pittacus,
Bias and Thales were concerned with political matters. The term praxis may mean ‘doing’, ‘activity’,
‘transaction’, ‘business’, and it is often used when speaking specifically of
money making. In the given context Socrates’ words mean ‘[they] appear to have
abstained from political money making activities’; Hippias’ answer clearly shows
that Socrates’ tȏn politikȏn praxeȏn means just
that: ‘political money making activities’.
The ensuing
discussion evolves in the same way; Hippias is so deeply immersed in his
self-admiration that all Socrates’ irony is understood by him as Socrates’
admiration of him. Socrates: ‘Then we should be right in saying that just as
the other arts have advanced until the craftsmen of the past compare ill with
those of today, so your art, that of the sophist, has advanced until the old
philosophers cannot stand comparison with you and your fellows?’ – Hippias:
‘Perfectly right.’ – Socrates: ‘So if Bias were to come to life again for our
benefit, by your standard he would be a laughing-stock, just as according to
the sculptors Daedalus would look a fool if he were to be born now and produce
the kind of works that gave him his reputation?’ – Hippias: ‘Exactly,
Socrates.’ (281c9-282a4)
In
‘corroboration’ of Hippias’ views Socrates refers to the sophist Gorgias who
visited Athens as an ambassador of Leontini – ‘the ablest statesman of his
city’ – who spoke most eloquently in the Assembly and by giving demonstrations
of his wisdom to the young ‘took away with him a large sum of Athenian money’.
After referring in the same vein to the sophist Prodicus, Socrates remarks:
‘None of the great men of the past ever saw fit to charge money for his wisdom (ȇxiȏsen argurion misthon
praxasthai tȇs heautou sophias), or to give demonstrations of it to
miscellaneous audiences; they were too simple ever to
realize the enormous importance of money (argurion
hȏs pollou axion eiȇ). Either of
the too I have mentioned has earned more from his wisdom than any other
craftsman from his art, whatever it may have been. And so did Protagoras before
them.’ – Hippias: ‘Socrates, you know nothing of the real charms of all this
business (ouden oistha tȏn kalȏn peri touto). If you were told how much I have
earned, you would be astounded. To take one case only – I went to Sicily once
while Protagoras was living there; he had a great reputation and was a far
older man than I, and yet in a short time I made more than 150 minas; why, in
one place alone, Inycus, a very small place, I took more than 20 minas … ‘
(282c6-e 4) – Socrates: ‘What honourable, what powerful testimony to your own
wisdom and that of your contemporaries, and to their great superiority to the
men of the past … it is a popular sentiment that the wise man must above all be
wise for himself (ton sophon auton hautȏi malista dei sophon einai); of such wisdom the criterion is in the end the ability to
make most money (toutou d’ horos estin
ara, hos an pleiston argurion ergasȇtai). (282e9-283b3)
As we know
from Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Hellenica, and from Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes, Critias and his
associates misused their political power for the sake of enriching themselves.
Within the dramatic context of the Hippias
Major Socrates’ irony is directed at Hippias, but on the dating of its
composition, which I propose, every contemporary reader would read it as directed
at the Thirty.
In an
attempt to shake up Hippias’ self-admiration Socrates asks:’Now tell me, in
which of all the cities you visit have you made the most money? In Lacedaemon
[i.e. in Sparta], I take it, which you have visited most often?’ – Hippias:
‘Certainly not, Socrates … I have never made money there at all.’ – Socrates:
‘What a truly extraordinary thing! Then is not your wisdom fitted to advance in
virtue her pupils and associates?’ (283b1-c4)
The humour with which
Plato exposes Hippias’ money-making educational skills to Socrates’ irony
derives its force from Socrates’ well-known admiration of Sparta – Socrates’
pro-Spartan sympathies were satirized by Aristophanes as early as 423 in the Clouds (214-17). In his Birds, staged in 414, the great
influence of Socrates on his fellow-citizens is closely associated with the
widespread adoration of Sparta: ‘all men were madly in love with Sparta … they
all imitated Socrates’ (elakȏnomanoun hapantes anthrȏpoi … esȏkratoun,
1281-2) – and from the high esteem in which Sparta was held in Athens after her
victory in the Peloponnesian war. Hippias parries Socrates’ sarcastic jibes
concerning his zero earnings in Sparta by stating that the ancestral tradition
forbids the Spartans to change their laws and to educate their sons in a
different way from what is customary. This opens the door to the discussion of
the relation of the law to the greatest good (agathon megiston, 284d4).
Socrates:
‘What! Does the ancestral tradition of the Lacedaemonians require them to do
wrong instead of right?’ – Hippias: ‘I shouldn’t say that myself, Socrates.’ –
Socrates: ‘Will they not do right by giving their young men the best education
in their power?‘ – Hippias: ‘Certainly, but it is illegal for them to give them
a foreign kind of education; you can be certain that if anyone had ever made
money there by education, I should have made far the most, for they listen to
me with enjoyment and applause. But as I have said, it is not the law.’ –
Socrates: ‘Would you say that law is an injury to the state, or a benefit?’ –
Hippias: ‘It is made, I take it, with a view to benefit, but sometimes it does
positive harm if it is ill made.’ – Socrates: ‘But surely the legislators make
the law on the assumption that it is a principal good of the state (hȏs agathon megiston
polei tithentai ton nomon), and that without good a well ordered state is impossible?’ – Hippias:
‘True.’ – Socrates: ‘When, therefore, would-be legislators miss the good (hotan ara agathou hamartȏsin hoi epicheirountes ton nomon tithenai), they have missed law and legality
(nomimou te kai nomou hȇmartȇkasin); what do you say?’ (284b8-e1)
When Plato
wrote these lines, he musty have been thinking of the law that made it illegal
to teach ‘the art of words’ (logȏn technȇn), which Critias inserted and which
he used to forbid Socrates to discuss philosophy with ‘anyone under thirty
years of age’.
Hippias replies:
‘Speaking precisely that is so; but mankind [anthrȏpoi, ‘men’] are not accustomed to put it
that way.’ – Socrates: ‘The men who know, or those who do not?’ – Hippias: ‘The
multitude [Hoi polloi, ‘the many’].’
– Socrates: ‘This multitude (hoi polloi),
is it composed of men who know the truth (eisin
d’ houtoi hoi eidotes t’alȇthes;)?’ – Hippias: ‘Certainly not.’
(284e1-5)
When Plato
wrote these lines, he was very far from envisaging the restoration of democracy
– in which hoi polloi (‘the many’)
would as a matter of course have the upper hand – and far from any hope that he
might be tempted to engage in politics even if the democracy were to be
restored.
The
discussion goes on with Socrates asking Hippias: ‘You maintain that it is more
beneficial for Lacedaemonians to be brought up in your education, a foreign
one, than in the native form?’ – Hippias: ‘Yes, and I am right.’ – Socrates:
‘And that what is more beneficial is more lawful – you maintain this also,
Hippias?’ – Hippias: ‘I said so.’ – Socrates: ‘Then on your argument it is more
lawful for the sons of Lacedaemonians to be educated by Hippias, and less
lawful for them to be educated by their fathers, if they will in fact get more
benefit from you?’ – Hippias: ‘But they will.’ – Socrates: ‘Then Lacedaemonians
break the law by not entrusting their sons to you, and paying you handsomely
for it.’ – Hippias: ‘I agree; as you appear to be arguing my own case, I do not
see why I should go into opposition.’ – Socrates: ‘Then, my friend, the
Lacedaemonians prove to be law-breakers, and the law-breakers in the most vital
matters – the very people who are reputed to be the most law-abiding.’
(284e10-285b7)
If we are to
enjoy this culmination of the discussion on law and legality, we must take on
board the great prestige that Sparta held in the Greek world – and in Athens in
particular – at the time in which the Hippias
Major was written. The Peloponnesian war would have ended with the
annihilation of Athens, were it not for Sparta. Xenophon reports on the
assembly of the allies at Sparta in 405, which decided the fate of Athens: ‘The
Corinthians and Thebans in particular, though many other Greeks agreed with
them, opposed making a treaty with the Athenians and favoured destroying their
city. The Lacedaemonians [i.e. the Spartans], however, said that they would not
enslave a Greek city which had done great service amid the great perils that
had befallen Greece [i.e. during the Persian wars], and they offered to make peace.’
(Hellenica II.ii.19-20) The moral and
political prestige that the Spartans thus won in the eyes of the Athenians –
and in the eyes of the Greek world at large – was short-lived. Xenophon’s Anabasis gives us glimpses of their arbitrary
rule that marked their undisputed hegemony: ‘The Lacedaemonians stand as the
leaders of Greece, and they can, in fact any single Lacedaemonian can
accomplish in the cities whatever he wants’ (Anabasis VI.vi.12). Thus, the Spartan admiral Anaxibius colluded
with the Persian satrap Pharnabazus and deceived the Greek army that won the
admiration of all Greece, asking it to leave Asia Minor and go to Byzantium. He
promised them regular pay, but reneged on his promise as soon as the army
arrived at Byzantium, ordering Aristarchus, the Spartan governor of the city to
sell into slavery all Greek soldiers found in Byzantium (the army as a whole
camped outside the city walls). Aristarchus sold into slavery no fewer than
four hundred soldiers (Anabasis
VII.i.2-ii.6)
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