Socrates

Socrates married Xanthippe, who is especially remembered for complaining about lack of money. They had three sons, Lamprocles named after Socrates’ maternal grandfather, Sophroniscus named after his father and Menexenus.

Socrates spent the last month of his life imprisoned in Athens. His well-wishers proposed to bribe the guards so that he could escape. But Socrates refused mainly because it would indicate he feared death, which no true philosopher should. Moreover, as a loyal citizen he respected Athenian laws.

On the day of his execution, he was handed over a cup of brewed hemlock, which he was ordered to drink. Socrates calmly drank the poison and then as ordered by the guards, started walking around the room until his feet became numb. Thereafter, he lay down, calm and happy.

According to Greek biographer, Diogenes Laërtius, Socrates was born on "the sixth day of Thargelion”. However, the exact year of his birth is not known. Historians believe that he was born sometime between 471 and 469 BC, majority of them holding 470 BC as his birth year.

He was born in Alopece, a suburb located just outside the city wall of Athens, into the Antiochis tribe. According to tradition, his father, Sophroniscus, was a stone mason or a sculptor, a fact that is often doubted by modern scholars.

His mother, Phaenarete, was a ‘maia’, which loosely translated means a midwife. Since the role of a maia was generally performed by women from good family, it is believed that her family had a higher status than that of Sophroniscus.

Socrates was possibly his parents’ only child. However, he had a half-sibling named Patrocles, born out of his mother’s second marriage to Chaeredemus. Apart from that little is known about his family background or childhood.

Since he was not from a noble family, it has been assumed that he joined his father’s profession after acquiring basic education. It was traditionally believed that the statues of the Charites, which stood near the Acropolis, were crafted by him. However, modern scholars refute such an idea.

It is not known why or when Socrates started his intellectual pursuit; but according to Xenophon, he soon started visiting the workshops surrounding the central public space to meet the merchants there. Here, he met Simon the Shoemaker, who later became his disciple and wrote his first ‘Dialogue’.

Socrates had a unique teaching method. Instead of lecturing, he would ask questions and then discuss possible answers. They would lead to further questions and eventually to further answers and finally into a deeper understanding of the subject. The process later became known as ‘Socratic Method’

Gradually, he started becoming popular, especially among the city’s youth, gathering around himself select band disciples, most famous of them being philosopher Plato and historian Xenophon. Slowly, he began to ignore his original trade, devoting himself entirely to philosophy.

There is confusion about how he supported himself in this later phase of his life. While Xenophon and Aristophanes wrote that he accepted payment from his students, Plato had refuted the charge, citing his poverty as proof. His wife was also known to complain about his lack of money.

In 423 BC, he became known to the broader public through Aristophanes’ play, ‘Clouds’. In this caricature, he was depicted as a scruffy and untidy fool, whose philosophy amounted to teaching how to get out of debts. While the second part was unfair, he indeed cut a strange figure in Athens.

Socrates had always stayed away from politics. But in 406 BC, he was made a member of the boule, which in ancient Greece was a council consisting of 500 citizens entrusted with running the daily affairs. This was the only known instance of him holding public office.

During his tenure, the generals of Athenian army were brought to trial allegedly for failing to rescue surviving sailors during a storm. In the first round of the trial the generals won sympathy.

Before the second round began, it was decided that the assembly should vote on their guilt or innocence without further debate. The decision, although unconstitutional, was taken on political compulsion. It was important for the ruling elite to blame somebody for their defeat in the Peloponnesian War.

By chance, Socrates was the epistates, the supervisor of the debate, on the day that the generals were put to final trial. Although he tried to save them, declaring that he would do nothing which was against the law, his attempt was outmaneuvered and the generals were executed.

When in 404 BC, the Oligarchy of Thirty came to power they started feeling threatened by Athenian general, Leon of Salamis. To put him out of their way they ordered Socrates and four others to bring Leon from Salamis to Athens so that he could be put to death.