Yet no one ever heard him say, or saw him do anything impious or irreverent. He would talk to anyone who chose to stop and listen.
Early in the morning, he would walk along one of the main streets of Athens or be at one of the several wrestling-grounds, at noon he would appear in the marketplace and in the evenings, he would be wherever the largest crowds were found. In the opening paragraph of Memoribilia, Xenophon describes the life and method of Socrates as almost prophetic.
These charges are clear evidence that Socrates had influenced the youth to stand up against the established order and practices to create a just society. Socrates was charged with “ridiculing the gods” and “corrupting the youth” through his teachings. People in power felt threatened and wanted to get rid of Socrates. The city elders were mocked by the youth, who, for the most part, followed Socrates. The Athenians had turned against him because he would question their leaders, prove them wrong or ignorant and embarrass them.
After all, he was tried in an open court where five hundred citizen jurors sat on judgment and found him guilty by a majority of 280 to 220, and condemned him to death by a vote of 360 to 140. Like all social reformers, Socrates had many foes. Plato quotes Socrates telling his judges, “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. In his death, he taught that it is virtuous to submit to the laws and not ‘overthrow’ them even if the laws are, at times, unjustly implemented. They cannot be regarded as good when they go in one’s favour and bad when they go against.
Timeless quotes greek political free#
After a short discourse, he comes to the conclusion that laws in a democratic, free nation are an indivisible whole. However, Socrates engages him in a a dialogue to see whether it was better to obey the law and die, or to escape justice and live. Crito had bribed the prison guards and had come to spirit away his friend. The dialogue with Crito, a rich friend of Socrates occurs a couple of days before the latter is due to be administered the hemlock -the cup of poison. Crito should be taught to every schoolchild as a way of creating social responsibility and affiliation to society. Plato’s dialogue titled Crito is one of the most moving writings ever and forms basis of modern concept of the Social Contract the very foundation of democracy. Xenophon wrote many books including the much acclaimed Anabasis widely translated and made in to a film in Hollywood.īoth Plato and Xenophon have written extensive and detailed accounts of Socrates covering his career, dialogues, trial, defense and death.
The other was scholar and general Xenophon, one of the heroes and commanders of the much celebrated Ten Thousand the band of Spartan and Greek mercenaries who participated in the Persian civil war of 401 BC on the losing side but then heroically fought their way back to their own country. They were Plato, the celebrated philosopher who along with his student, Aristotle, is considered as the founders of modern Western philosophy. We know of his life and work through two of his extremely able followers, who themselves continue to be relevant even with the passage of two and a half millennia. Socrates left no written record of his own neither a biographical note nor a treatise of his thinking. However, the most respected philosopher among them was Socrates, a sage for all times. The Classical Greek world in general and the city of Athens in particular produced many wise men including Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Solon, Anaxagoras, Protagoras and a host of others.
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