Socrates’ Athens

Who was Socrates?

• A citizen of Athens• born 470 BCE to a

stone mason & a midwife.

• Full participant in life of the polis.

• Inquired into the nature of “virtue”

Greece’s Golden Age: 5th C BCE.

Athens was the cultural capital of the ancient world, known for achievements in art, science, literature, commerce and

politics.

Age of Pericles

• Pericles promoted democratic reforms

• arts & culture

• expanded Athens's power & prestige

• fl. 438 BCE

• d. 429 BCE

“Our government is called a democracy because it exists for the sake of the majority, not the few.

The law guarantees all citizens equality with respect to their private interests and yet

recognizes claims of individual excellence.”

The Sophists

• A group of traveling teachers for hire.

• Known for teaching virtue, among other subjects, such as equestrian skills, public speaking, math, science, etc.

Protagoras

“Man is the measure of all things, of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not.”

The Oracle at Delphi

Founded in 1400 BCE

Know

thy

self

• He spent time in the agora seeking a man wiser than he– among the politicians,

the poets, the generals, the priests.

– He questioned them on the nature of virtue or human excellence.

– Plato recreates these conversations in his early Dialogues.

– A group of mostly aristocratic young men followed him and imitated him.

Alcibiades

• Brilliant, talented, beautiful

• Follower of Socrates

• Elected General of Athens

• Betrayed Athens to Sparta

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)

Socrates Seeking Alcibiades at the House of Aspasia, 1861,

Regnault.

Socrates Dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure

(1791, Paris, Musйe du Louvre)

Michele De Napoli

"Death of Alcibiades" (1839)

War with Sparta

• 431-404 BCE• Athenian

democracy was utterly defeated

• Ended the “Golden Age of Athens”

Trial & Death of Socrates

• Socrates was associated with the sophists & Alcibiades by his enemies.

• He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth

And sentenced to death in 399 BCE

Socrates’ Legacy• Believed human

excellence (virtue) was knowledge

• Demanded we question ourselves and one another.

• “Follow the argument.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Plato

The Skeptics

The Cynics

The Hedonists

The Stoics Zeno

Epicurus

Aristotle

Antisthenes Diogenes

Aristippus

“Which of us goes to the better is unclear to all

but the gods.”