Socrates

Sōcrătes, is, m., = Σωκράτης.

• The celebrated Greek philosopher: parens philosophiae, Cic. Fin. 2, 1, 1: fons et caput philosophiae, id. de Or. 1, 10, 42: ab Apolline omnium sapientissimus dictus, id. Ac. 1, 4, 16; Plaut. Ps. 1, 5, 50 (464).—Voc. Socrate, bis, Cic. Fragm. p. 477 Orell.—As an appellative, in the plur.: ut exsistant ... Socratae simul et Antisthenae et Platones multi, Gell. 14, 1, 29; cf. Lachm. ad Lucr. 2, p. 50.
• —Hence, Sōcrătĭcus, a, um, adj., = Σωκρατικός, of or belonging to Socrates, Socratic: philosophi, Cic. Off. 1, 29, 104: viri, id. Att. 14, 9, 1: domus, Hor. C. 1, 29, 14: sermones, Cic. de Or. 3, 18, 67; Hor. C. 3, 21, 9: lepor subtilitasque, Cic. Rep. 1, 10, 16: chartae, Hor. A. P. 310: sinus, i.e. devoted to philosophy, Pers. 5, 37: Xenophon, Nep. Ages. 1: cinaedi (in reference to Alcibiades, the favorite of Socrates), Juv. 2, 10.—As subst.: Sōcrătĭci, ōrum, m., the followers or disciples of Socrates, Cic. de Or. 3, 16, 61 sq.; id. Off. 1, 1, 2 et saep.—
• II A Greek painter, Plin. 35, 11, 40, § 137.—
• III A Greek sculptor, Plin. 36, 5, 4, § 32.

Sōcratēs, is, m. (Σωκράτης), der berühmte Philosoph zu Athen, Zeitgenosse des Xenophon u. Alcibiades, der beschuldigt wurde, an keine Götter zu glauben und die Jugend zu verführen u. deshalb den Schierlingsbecher trinken mußte, Cic. de or. 1, 42; de fin. 2, 1. Plaut. Pseud. 465: Akk. auch Socraten, Cic. de fato 10 u.a.: Vok. auch Socrate, Cic. Hortens. fr. 33 Kays. (bei Non. 337, 26). Cic. Protag. fr. 1 Kays. (bei Prisc. 6, 63). – appell. im Plur., Socratae (Leute wie Sokrates), Gell. 14, 1, 29. – Dav. Sōcraticus, a, um (Σωκρατικός), sokratisch, chartae, Philosophie, Hor.: philosophi, Cic.: Xenophon, der Schüler des Sokrates, der Sokratiker, Varro u. Nep.: interrogationes, Quint.: sinus, der Philosophie ergeben, Pers.: cinaedi (mit Bezug auf Alcibiades, den Liebling des Sokrates), Iuven.: alqm Socraticā fide diligere, sokratisch lieben, Petron. – Plur. subst. Sōcraticī, ōrum, m., die Schüler-, Anhänger des Sokrotes, die Sokratiker, Cic.

Socrates [CL < Σωκράτης], Socrates; b (phil., as representative example, often abbr. to Sortes, Sors, or Sor). diversarum sectarum intellige magistros, ~em, Platonem, Diogenem, et ceteros tales Ailr. Serm. 457A; nec ~em, Zenonemve, Platonem aut Aristotelem disputantes audivi J. Sal. Pol. 388A; in arce enim Plato et ~es ponunt philosophos, in secundo vico milites, in tercio cupidinarios Bern. Comm. Aen. 109.  b ~es ‥ et animal et homo est et grammaticus Anselm (Gram. 10) I 155; animal rationale quod cernis ‥ in eo ‥ quod singularitate descriptionis discoloratur, ~es appellatur Adel. ED 18; [sensibile] de nullo predicetur nisi ut secundum accidens, dicimus enim quandoque album illud ~em esse J. Sal. Met. 887B; sarcinam ‥ / plenam vestro dogmate, o Sortes et Plato Ps.-Map 251; cum dicitur ‘necessarium est Sortem moveri si currat’ ‥ non tamen sequitur ‘ergo Sor movetur’ Bacon VII 106; idem est Sors abstrahendo per essentiam et Sors dominus Platonis Ib. VIII 144; sequitur quod omnis Plato sit idem Sorti vel illud quod est Sor Wycl. Log. II 44.

Sōcrătēs, (10) is (Σωκράτης), m. , ¶ 1 Socrate [philosophe athénien] : Cic. Fin. 2, 1 ¶ 2 nom dʼun peintre, dʼun sculpteur : Plin. 35, 137 ; 36, 32 || pl. Socratæ, ārum, Gell. 14, 1, 29, des Socrates || Sōcrătĭcus, a, um, de Socrate, socratique : Hor. P. 310 ; Cic. de Or. 3, 67 ; Off. 1, 104 ; Sōcrătĭcī, les disciples de Socrate : Cic. Att. 14, 9, 1 ; Off. 1, 2.

➳ voc. Socrate Cic. d. Non. 337, 26 ; Prisc. Gramm. 6, 63.

socrates, is. m.
古出等儒名。

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Socrates

(Σωκράτης), historical.

Socrates

1. An Athenian, son of Antigenes, was one of the three commanders sent out with a fleet in B. C. 431, to ravage the coasts of the Peloponnese. They effected nothing beyond mere predatory landings on the coast, being foiled in an attack on Methone by the opportune arrival of Brasidas. (Thuc. 2.23, 25.)

Socrates

2. An Achaean, a leader of mercenary troops, who was one of those that took part in the expedition of the younger Cyrus, B. C. 401. He was already serving in Asia when that prince began to assemble his forces, and hastened to join him at Sardis with a body of five hundred heavy armed mercenaries. Of these it is clear that he retained the command throughout the expedition, though his name is not again particularly mentioned until after the battle of Cunaxa, when we find him as one of the generals taking part in the council of war held to deliberate on the overtures made by the Persian king through the medium of Phalinus. He was afterwards one of the four leaders who accompanied Clearchus to the tent of Tissaphernes, when all the five were treacherously seized by that satrap, and subsequently put to death by order of Artaxerxes himself. (Xen. Anab. 1.1.11, 2.3, 2.5.31, 6. §§ 1, 30; Diod. 14.19, 25.)

Socrates

3. Father of the Athenian orator Deinarchus. He is called by some writers Sostratus. (Phot. Bibl. p. 496b. ed. Bekker; Suidas s. v. Δείναρχος.)

Socrates

4. A Boeotian, who was one of the officers employed by Sosibius and Agathocles, the ministers of Ptolemy Philopator king of Egypt, to raise and discipline a mercenary force with which to oppose Antiochus the Great. He commanded a body of 2000 peltasts, with which he rendered good service during the campaign in Syria, and at the battle of Raphia, B. C. 217. (Plb. 5.63, 65, 82.)

Socrates

5. Surnamed the Good (ὁ χρηστός), was a brother of Nicomedes III. king of Bithynia. On the death of his father, Nicomedes II., he was persuaded, contrary it is said to his own wishes, by Mithridates the Great, to assert his claim to the throne in opposition to his elder brother, and with the assistance of an army furnished him by the king of Pontus, easily expelled Nicomedes, and made himself master of Bithynia. Nicomedes, however, now had recourse to the senate of Rome; which pronounced in his favour, declared war against Socrates, and reinstated the elder brother on the throne. Socrates fled for refuge to the court of Mithridates, but that monarch was not yet prepared to brave the Roman power, and consequently found it convenient to sacrifice his unfortunate ally, and not only refused to support Socrates, but even put him to death. (Appian. Mithr. 10, 13; Memnon, 100.30; Just. 38.5.) He is called by Memnon Nicomedes, which name he probably assumed at the same time with the crown of Bithynia. [E.H.B]

So'crates

(Σωκράτης), the celebrated Athenian philosopher, was the son of a statuary of the name of Sophroniscus. He belonged to the deme Alopece, in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, and according to the statement of Demetrius Phalereus and Apollodorus, was born in the 4th year of the 77th Olympiad (B. C. 468). The assumption that he was born ten years later (D. L. 2.45) is confuted by his expression in the Apology of Plato, that, though he was more than seventy years old, that was his first appearance before a judicial tribunal, since the date of the conviction that ensued is well established (Ol. 95. 1). Whether in his youth he devoted himself to the art of his father, and himself executed the group of clothed Graces which was shown on the Acropolis as a work of Socrates (Paus. 9.35, comp. 1.22; D. L. 2.19; Porph. apud Cyrill. cont. Julian. p. 208, Spanh.), we must leave undecided ; the statements that in his youth he had in turn given himself up to an employment unworthy of a freeman, or even to a licentious life (Aristoxenus, ap. D. L. 2.20. comp. 19 ; Porphyr. ap. Theodoret. Gr. Affect. Cur. 12.174, ed. Sylb.; comp. Luzac, Lect. Att. p. 240, &c.), we cannot regard as authenticated. Nevertheless it appears that it was not without a struggle that he became master of his naturally impetuous appetites (Cic. de Fato, 5; Alex. Aphrod. de Fato, p. 30, ed. Loud.; comp. Aristox. apud Plut. de Herod. Malign. p. 856c.). That he was a disciple of the physiologists Anaxagoras and Archelaus, rests on the evidence of doubtful authorities (D. L. 2.18, &c., 23, 1.14; Porph. apud Theodoret. l.c. p. 174; Clem. Alex. Strom. 1.301; Cic. Tusc. Disp. 5.4; Sext. Emp. ad v. Math. 10.360, &c.; comp. C. F. Hermann, de Socratis Magistris et Disciplina juxenili, Marb. 1837). Plato and Xenophon know nothing of it; on the contrary, in the former (Phaed. p. 97) Socrates refers his knowledge of the doctrine of Anaxagoras to the book of that philosopher, and in the latter (Xen. Symp, 1.5) he designates himself as self-taught. But that, while living in Athens, at that time so rich in the means of mental culture, he remained without any instruction, as the disparaging Aristoxenus maintains (Plut. l c.; comp. Cyrill. c. Julian. p. 186; Porph. apud Theodoret. i. p. 8), is confuted by the testimony of Xenophon (Xen. Mem. 4.7.3) and Plato (Meno, p. 82, &c.) respecting his mathematical knowledge, and the thankfulness with which he mentions the care of his native city for public education (Plato, Crito, p. 50). Although he complains of not having met with the wished for instruction at the hands of those whom he had regarded as wise (Plat. Apol. p. 21; comp. Xen. Oecon. 2. 16), intercourse with the most distinguished men and women of his age could not remain entirely without fruit for one who was continually striving to arrive at an understanding with himself by means of an understanding with others (Plat. Charm. p. 166). In this sense he boasts of being a disciple of Prodicus and Connus, of Aspasia and Diotime (Plat. Meno, p. 96, Cratyl. p. 384, Menex. p. 235, Symp. p. 201), and says that the reason why he so seldom went outside the walls of the city was, that it was only within it that he found instruction by means of intercourse (Plat. Phaedr. p. 230, comp. Meno, p. 80, Crito, p. 52; D. L. 2.22). Devoted as he was to his native city in love and thankfulness (Plat. Crit. pp. 50, 51, &c., Apol. 29; Xen. Mem. 3.3.12, 3.2, &c., 18, &c.), and faithfully as he fulfilled the duties of a citizen in the field (at Potidaea, Delion, and Amphipolis, Ol. 87. 2 and 89. 1, B. C. 432 and 424) and in the city, he did not seek to exert his influence either as a general or as a statesman; not that he shunned a contest with unbridled democracy (Plat. Apol. p. 31, &c., Gorg. pp. 521, 473, de Rep. vi. p. 496),--for he thoroughly proved his courage, not only in the above-mentioned expeditions (see especially Plat. Symp. p. 219, &c., comp. Alcib. p. 194, Apol. p. 28, Charm. p. 153, Lach. p. 181; D. L. 2.22, &c., ib. Menage), but also by the resistance which he offered, first, as president of the Prytaneia, to the unjust sentence of death pronounced against the victors of Arginusae, and afterwards to the order of the Thirty Tyrants for the apprehension of Leon the Salaminian (Plat. Apol. p. 32; Xen. Mem. 1.1.18, 4.4.2; D. L. 2.24 ; comp. Luzac, l.c. p. 89, &c., 131) ;--but because he entertained the most lively conviction that he was called by the Deity to strive, by means of his teaching and life, after a revival of moral feeling, and the laying of a scientific foundation for it (Plat. Apol. pp. 30, 31, 33, Euthyph. p. 2, Gorg. p. 521; Xen. Mem. 1.6.15). For this reason an internal divine voice had Warned him against participating in political affairs Plat. Apol. pp. 31, 36, Gorg. pp. 473, &c., 521), and therefore the skill requisite for such pursuits had remained undeveloped in him (Plat. Gorg. p. 474). When it was that he first recognised this vocation, cannot be ascertained; and probably it was by degrees that, owing to the need which he felt in the intercourse of minds of coming to an understanding with himself, he betook himself to the active duties of a teacher. Since Aristophanes exhibited him as the representative of the witlings and sophists in the "Clouds," which was exhibited for the first time in B. C. 423, he must already have obtained a widespread reputation. But he never opened a school, nor did he, like the sophists of his time, deliver public lectures. Everywhere, in the market-place. in the gymnasia, and in the workshops, he sought and found opportunities for awakening and guiding, in boys, youths, and men, moral consciousness and the impulse after self-knowledge respecting the end and value of our actions. On those whom he had convinced that the care of continually becoming better and more intelligent must take precedence of all other cares, he was sure he had conferred the greatest benefit (Plat. Apol. p. 36, comp. pp. 28, 29, 38, 30, 31, 33, Symp. p. 216, Lach. p. 188; Xen. Mem. 1.2.64). But he only endeavoured to aid them in developing the germs of knowledge which were already present in them, not to communicate to them ready made knowledge; and he therefore professed to practise a kind of mental mid wifery, just as his mother Phaenarete exercised the corresponding corporeal art (Plat. Thcaet. p. 149, ib. Heindorf.). Unweariedly and inexorably did he fight against all false appearance and conceit of knowledge, in order to pave the way for correct self-cognition, and therewith, at the same time, true knowledge. Consequently to the mentally proud and the mentally idle he appeared an intolerable bore, and often enough experienced their bitter hatred and calumny (Plat. Apol. pp. 22, 23, Symp. p. 215, Gorg. pp. 482, 491, 522, Meno, p. 95; Xen. Mem. 4.4.19; D. L. 2.21, ib. Menag.), Such persons might easily be misled by the " Clouds " of Aristophanes into regarding Socrates as the head of the sophists, although he was their victorious opponent. Although the story that it was after entering into a bargain with the accusers of Socrates that the poet held him up to public scorn and ridicule (Aelian, Ael. VH 2.13 ; comp. Fréret, Observations sur les Causes et sur quelques Circonstances de la Condamnation de Socrate, Mémoires de l' Académie des Inscript. xlvii. p. 209, &c.), is a palpable invention, since the first exhibition of the " Clouds" (in Ol. 89. 1, B. C. 423) preceded the prosecution and condemnation of Socrates by twenty-four years, still that the comedy produced a lasting unfavourable impression respecting the philosopher, he himself declared in the speech which he made in his own defence on his trial (Plat. Apol. pp. 18, 19, 23, 25; comp. Xen. Symp. 6.6). Yet it does not appear that personal enmity against Socrates was the motive for the production of the comedy (Plato exhibits Socrates engaged in the most confidential conversation with the poet, Symp. p. 223). As little can we tax the poet with a calumny proceeding from maliciousness, or with meaningless buffoonery, since almost all his comedies exhibit great moral earnestness and warm love for his country (see especially Acharn. 676, &c., Vesp. 1071, &c., 1022. Pac. 732, &c., Nub. 537, &c.; comp. Schnitzer's German translation of the " Clouds," Stuttgart, 1842, p. 19, &c.). It appears rather to have been from a conviction that the ancient faith and the ancient manners could be regained only by thrusting aside all philosophy that dealt in subtleties, that he represented Socrates, the best known of the philosophers, as the head of that sophistical system which was burying all morals and piety (comp. Súvern, Ueber die Wolken des Aristophanes, p. 24, &c.; Rötscher, Aristophanes und sein Zeitalter, p. 268, &c.). In adopting this view we do not venture to decide how far Aristophanes regarded his exhibition as corresponding to the peculiarities of Socrates, or contented himself with portraying in his person the hated tendency.

Attached to none of the prevailing parties, Socrates found in each of them his friends and his enemies. Hated and persecuted by Critias, Charicles, and others among the Thirty Tyrants, who had a special reference to him in the decree which they issued, forbidding the teaching of the art of oratory (Xen. Mem. 1.2. §§ 31, 37), he was impeached after their banishment and by their opponents. An orator named Lycon, and a poet (a friend of Thrasybulus) named Melitus, had united in the impeachment with the powerful demagogue Anytus, an embittered antagonist of the sophists and their system (Plat. Meno, p. 91), and one of the leaders of the band which, setting out from Phyle, forced their way into the Peiraeeus, and drove out the Thirty Tyrants. The judges also are described as persons who had been banished, and who had returned with Thrasybulus (Plat. Apol. p. 21). The chief articles of impeachment were, that Socrates was guilty of corrupting the youth, and of despising the tutelary deities of the state, putting in their place another new divinity (Plat. Apol. pp. 23, 24; Xen. Mem. 1.1.1; D. L. 2.40, ib. Menag.). At the same time it had been made a matter of accusation against him, that Critias, the most ruthless of the Tyrants, had come forth from his school (Xen. Mem. 1.2.12 ; comp. Aeschin. ad v. Tim. § 173, Bekker). Some expressions of his, in which he had found fault with the democratical mode of electing by lot, had also been brought up against him (Xen. Mem. 1.2.9, comp. 58); and there can be little doubt that use was made of his friendly relations with Theramenes, one of the most influential of the Thirty, with Plato's uncle Charmides, who fell by the side of Critias in the struggle with the popular party, and with other aristocrats, in order to irritate against him the party which at that time was dominant; though some friends of Socrates, as Chaerephon for example (Plat. Apol. pp. 20, 21), were to be found in its ranks. But, greatly as his dislike to unbridled democracy may have nourished the hatred long cherished against him, that political opposition was not, strictly speaking, the ground of the hatred ; and the impeachment sought to represent him as a man who in every point of view was dangerous to the state.

In the fullest consciousness of his innocence, Socrates repels the charge raised against him. His constant admonition in reference to the worship of the gods had been, not to deviate from the maxims of the state (Xen. Mem. 4.3.15, comp. 1.1.22); he had defended faith in oracles and portents (ib. 4.3.12, 1.1.6, &c., 4.7.16 ; Plat. Apol. pp. 23, &c., 28, 20, 26, 35, comp. Phaed. pp. 60, 118, Crito, p. 44); and with this faith that which he placed in his Daemonium stood in the closest connection. That he intended to introduce new divinities, or was attached to the atheistical meteorosophia of Anaxagoras (Plat. Apol. p. 26, comp. 18), his accusers could hardly be in earnest in believing ; any more than that he had taught that it was allowable to do anything, even what was disgraceful, for the sake of gain (Xen. Mem. 1.2.56), or that he had exhorted his disciples to despise their parents and relations (Mem. 1.2.19, &c.), and to disobey the laws (ib. 4.4.12, 6.6), or had sanctioned the maltreatment of the poor by the rich (Xen. Mem. 1.2.58, &c.). Did then all these accusations take their rise merely in personal hatred and envy? Socrates himself seems to have assumed that such was the case (Plat. Apol. pp. 23, 28, comp. Meno, p. 94; Plut. Alc. 100.4; Athen. 12.534). Yet the existence of deeper and more general grounds is shown by the widespread dislike towards Socrates, which, five years after his death, Xenophon thought it necessary to oppose by his apologetic writings (comp. Plat. Apol. pp. 18, 19, 23). This is also indicated by the antagonism in which we find Aristophanes against the philosopher, an antagonism which, as we have seen, cannot be deduced from personal dislike. Just as the poet was influenced by the conviction that every kind of philosophy, equally with that of the sophists, could tend only to a further relaxation of the ancient morals and the ancient faith, so probably were also a considerable part of the judges of Socrates. They might imagine that it was their duty to endeavour to check, by the condemnation of the philosopher, the too subtle style of examining into morals and laws, and to restore the old hereditary faith in their unrestricted validity; especially at a time, when, after the expulsion of the Thirty, the need may have been felt of returning to the old faith and the old manners. But the assertion with regard to a well-known depreciatory opinion of Cato, that that opinion is the most just that was ever uttered (Forchhammer, die Athener und Sokrates, die Gesetzlichen und der Revolutionär, 1838), cannot be maintained without rejecting the best authenticated accounts that we have of Socrates, and entirely misconceiving the circumstances of the time. The demand that the individual, abjuring all private judgment, should let himself be guided simply by the laws and maxims of the state, could no longer be made at the time of the prosecution, when poets, with Aristophanes at their head,--ardently desirous as he was for the old constitution and policy,--ridiculed, often with unbridled freedom, the gods of the state and old maxims; and when it never occurred to any orator to uphold the demand that each should unconditionally submit himself to the existing constitution. If it was brought to bear against Socrates, it could only be through a passionate misconception of his views and intentions. In the case of some few this misconception might rest upon the mistake, that, by doing away with free, thoughtful inquiry, the good old times might be brought back again. With most it probably proceeded from democratical hatred of the political maxims of Socrates, and from personal dislike of his troublesome exhortation to moral self-examination. (Comp, P. van Limburg Brower, Apologia contra Meliti redivivi Calumniam, Groningae, 1838 ; Preller, in the Haller Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung, 1838, No. 87, &c., ed. Zeller, die Philosophie der Griechen, 2.73-104. Respecting the form of the trial, see Meier and Schöman, Attisch. Process, p. 182.)

While Socrates, in his defence, describes the wisdom which he aimed after as that which, after conscientious self-examination, gets rid of all illusion and obscurity, and only obeys the better, God or man, and God more than man, and esteems virtue above everything else (Plat. Apol. p. 28, &c., comp. 35, 36, 38, 39), he repudiates any acquittal that should involve the condition that he was not to inquire and teach any more (ib. p. 29). Condemned by a majority of only six votes, and called upon to speak in mitigation of the sentence, while lie defends himself against the accusation of stiffnecked self-conceit, he expresses the conviction that he deserved to be maintained at the public cost in the Prytaneium, and refuses to acquiesce in the adjudication of imprisonment, or a large fine, or banishment. He will assent to nothing more than a fine of thirty minae, on the security of Plato, Crito, and other friends. Condemned to death by the judges, who were incensed by this speech, by a majority of eighty votes, he departs from them with the protestation, that he would. rather die after such a defence than live after one in which he should have betaken himself to an endeavour to move their pity; and to those who had voted for him he justifies the openness with which he had exhibited his contempt of death (p. 38, &c.). The sentence of death could not be carried into execution until after the return of the vessel which had been sent to Delos on the periodical Theoric mission, The thirty days which intervened between its return and the condemnation of Socrates were devoted by the latter, in undisturbed repose, to poetic attempts (the first he had made in his life), and to the usual conversation with his friends. One of these conversations, on the duty of obedience to the laws even in the case of an unjust application of them, Plato has reported in the Crito, so called after the faithful follower of the condemned man, who bore that name, and who, although he himself had become bail for Socrates, had endeavoured without success to persuade him to make his escape. In another, imitated or worked up by Plato in the Phaedo, Socrates immediately before he drank the poison developed the grounds of his immovable conviction of the immortality of the soul. The manner in which the assembled friends, in the alternation of joyful admiration and profound grief, lauded him as one who, by the divine appointment, was going to a place where it must fare well with him, if with any-one ;--how he departed from them with the one wish, that, in their care for themselves, that is, for their true welfare, they would cherish in their memories his latest and his earlier sayings ;--and how, with his last breath, he designates the transition to the life that lies beyond death as the true recovery from a state of impurity and disease, --all this is set before us with such liveliness, that we gladly accord with the closing words of the dialogue :--"Thus died the man, who of all with whom we were acquainted was in death the noblest, in life the wisest and most just." (Plat. Phaed. pp. 58, 59, 115, 118, ib. Interp.; comp. Xen. Mem. 4.8.4, &c.)

To the accusations which were brought against Socrates in his impeachment subsequent enviers and haters added others, of which that impeachment takes no cognizance, and which are destitute of all credibility on other grounds. The accusation that he was addicted to the vice of paederastia (Lucian de Domo, 100.4., and in contradiction Maxim. Tyr. Dissert. xxv. xxvi. xxvii.; J. M. Gesner, Socrates sanctus paederasta, Traj. ad Rhen. 1769), we do not hesitate, supported by his unambiguous expressions respecting the essence of true, spiritual love in Xenophon (Symp. 8.2, 19, 32, &c., Mem. 1.2.29, &c., 3.8, &c.) and Plato (Symp. p. 222, &c.), to reject as a calumny. Also the account that in consequence of a resolution of the people allowing bigamy, which was passed during the Peloponnesian war, he was married to two women at the same time (Plut. Aristid. p. 335 ; Athen. 12.555, &c.; Diog. Laert., &c.), is to be set aside as unfounded, since the existence of any such resolution of the people cannot be proved, while the Socratics know of only one wife, Xanthippe, and the account itself is not free from contradictions. J. Luzac, following Bentley and others, completely refutes it (Lect. Att. de Bigamia Socratis, Lugd. Bat. 1809).

Whether, and how soon after the death of Socrates, repentance seized the Athenians, and his accusers met with contempt and punishment; and further whether and when, to expiate the crime, a brazen statue, the work of Lysippus, was dedicated to his memory (Plut. de Invid. et Odio, p. 537, &c.; D. L. 2.43. ib. Menag.), it is not easy to determine with any certainty, in consequence of the indefiniteness of the statements. Five years after his execution, Xenophon found himself obliged to compose the Memorabilia, in vindication of Socrates. (Comp. A. Boeckh, de Simultate quam Plato cum Xenophonte exercuisse fertur, p. 19.) Followers

II. Among those who attached themselves with more than ordinary intimacy to Socrates, some were attracted mainly by the spiritual power which he exercised over men. To learn this power from him, that they might apply it in the conduct of the affairs of the state, was probably the immediate object of men like Critias (for Alcibiades, who is here named in connection with him -- Xen. Mem. 1.2.14, &c.--was doubtless actuated by a nobler admiration for the whole personal character of the philosopher; see especially Plat. Symp. p. 213, &c.), and such remained attached to him only till ambition hurried them in other directions. Others sought to dive into the teaching and life of Socrates, in order to obtain for themselves and others an enduring rule of morality (comp. Xen. Mem. 1.2.48). How his image had exhibited itself to them and impressed itself upon them, several among them endeavoured to render manifest by noting down the conversations at which they had been present. Among such Xenophon and Aeschines hold the chief rank, though they could hardly have been the only ones who composed such memorials. Others felt themselves urged to develope still further the outlines of the Socratic doctrine, and, according to their original bent and their different modes of apprehending and developing it, arrived at very different theories. But, persuaded that they were only advancing on the path marked out by Socrates, they referred to him their own peculiar amplifications of his doctrines. Just as in the dialogues of Plato. even in the Timaeus and the Laws, we find Socrates brought forward as leading, or at least introducing the conversations and investigations, so also Eu, cleides, Antisthenes, and others seem to have endeavoured in their dialogues to glorify him, and to exhibit him as the originator of their doctrines. (Athen. 5.216, c.; A. Gellius, N. A. 2.17; comp. Ch. A. Brandis, Ueber die Grundlinien der Lehre des Socrates, in the Rhein. Museum, 1827, i. p. 120, &c.) In this way arose two essentially different representations of Socrates, and in antiquity it was already disputed whether Plato or Xenophon (Sext. Emp. ad v. Math. 7.8), or even whether Plato or Aeschines (Aristid. Orat. Plat. ii. p. 367, comp. 474) had sketched the more accurate picture of the man. He himself left either absolutely nothing in a written form (Cic. de Orat. 3.16; Plut. de Alex. fort. p. 328; D. L. 1.16), or only a rhythmical version of some of Aesop's fables and the introduction to a hymn to Apollo, which he had composed during his imprisonment, when for the first time in his life he made any attempts in verse (Plat. Phaed. p. 61). The quotations that antiquity possessed of it were of doubtful authenticity (D. L. 2.42; Themist. Orat. xiv. p. 321). What we possess from Aeschines, that is well authenticated, is limited to fragments. We have therefore only to decide for Xenophon, who exhibited considerable mental affinity with Socrates, or for Plato. Now Plato manifestly makes Socrates occupy his own place, and transfers to him the doctrines that were peculiar to himself. Xenophon on the contrary exhibits no other intention than that of communicating information with fidelity, and refrains from mixing up with his representation anything that was peculiar to himself. This was so much the easier for him, as it was not his purpose to develope the Socratic doctrine, and as he was not capable of penetrating into the peculiarity of a philosophic mode of thinking. But for that very reason his representation, with all its fidelity, is not adapted to give us a sufficient picture of the man whom all antiquity regarded as the originator of a new era in philosophy, and whose life each of his disciples, especially Plato the most distinguished of them, regarded as a model. Moreover it was the object of Xenophon, by way of defence against the accusers of Socrates, merely to paint him as the morally spotless, pious, upright, temperate, clear-sighted, unjustly condemned man, not as the founder of new philosophical inquiry. It may easily be understood therefore that there were various opinions in antiquity as to whether the more satisfactory picture of Socrates was to be found in Plato, in Xenophon, or in Aeschines. Since the time of Brucker however it had become usual to go back to Xenophon, to the exclusion of the other authorities, as the source of the only authentic delineation of the personal characteristics and philosophy of Socrates, or to fill up the gaps left by him by means of the accounts of Plato (Meiners, Geschichte der Wissenschaften, ii. p. 420, &c.), till Schleiermacher started the inquiry, " What can Socrates have been, besides what Xenophon tells us of him, without contradicting that authority, and what must he have been, to have justified Plato in bringing him forward as he does in his dialogues?" (Ueber den Werth des Sokrates als Philosophen, in the Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, iii. p. 50, &c., 1818, reprinted in Schleiermacher's Werke, vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 293, &c.; translated in the Philological Museum, vol. ii. p. 538, &c.) Dissen, too, had already pointed out some not inconsiderable contradictions in the doctrines of the Xenophontic Socrates (de Philosophia morali in Xenophontis de Socrate Commentariis tradita, Gotting. 1812; reprinted in Dissen's Kleine Schriften, p. 87, &c.). Now we know indeed that Socrates, the teacher of human wisdom, who, without concerning himself with the investigation of the secrets of nature, wished to bring philosophy back from heaven to earth (Cic. Ac. 1.4, Tusc. 5.4; comp. Aristot. Met. 1.6, de Part Anim. i. p. 642. 28), was far from intending to introduce a regularly organised system of philosophy; but that he made no endeavours to go back to the ultimate foundations of his doctrine, or that that doctrine was vacillating and not without contradictions, as Wiggers (in his Life of Socrates, p. 184, &c.) and others assume, we cannot possibly regard as a well founded view, unless his almost unexampled influence upon the most distinguished men of his time is to become an inexplicable riddle, and the conviction of a Plato, a Eucleides, and others, that they were indebted to him for the fruits of their own investigations, is to be regarded as a mere illusion. Now we fully admit that in the representation of the personal character of Socrates Plato and Xenophon coincide (see Ed. Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen, vol. ii. p. 16, &c.); and further, that Socrates adjusted his treatment of the subject of his conversation according as those with whom he had to do entertained such or such views, were more or less endowed, and had made more or less progress; and therefore did not always say the same on the same subject (Xenophon, by F. Delbrück, Bonn, 1829. pp. 64, &100.132, &c.). But, on the other hand, in Xenophon we miss every thing like a penetrating comprehension of the fundamental ideas of the Socratic doctrine to which he himself makes reference. The representations of Plato and Xenophon however may be very well harmonised with each other, partly by the assumption that Socrates, as the originator of a new era of philosophical development, must have made the first steps in that which was its distinctive direction, and the immediate manifestation of which consisted in bringing into more distinct and prominent relief the idea and form of scientific knowledge (see Schleiermacher in the above quoted treatise); partly by the careful employment of the remarks made by Aristotle respecting the Socratic doctrine and the points of distinction between it and that of Plato (Ch. A. Brandis, in the above-mentioned treatise; comp. Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Philosophie, 2.1. p. 20, &c.). These remarks, thöugh not numerous, are decisive on account of their acuteness and precision, as well as by their referring to the most important points in the philosophy of Socrates. Intellectual Impact of Socrates

III. The philosophy of the Greeks before Socrates had sought first (among the Ionians) after the inherent foundation of generated existence and changing phenomena, and then (among the Eleatics) after the idea of absolute existence. Afterwards, when the ideas of being and coming into being had come into hostile opposition to each other, it had made trial of various inefficient modes of reconciling them; and lastly, raising the inquiry after the absolutely true and certain in our knowledge, had arrived at the assumption that numbers and their relations are not only the absolutely true and certain, but the foundation of things. Its efforts, which had been pervaded by a pure appreciation of truth, were then exposed to the attacks of a sophistical system, which concerned itself only about securing an appearance of knowledge, and which in the first instance indeed applied itself to the diametrically opposite theories of eternal, perpetual coming into existence, and of unchangeable, absolutely simple and single existence, but soon directed its most dangerous weapons against the ethico-religious consciousness, which in the last ten years before the Peloponnesian war had already been so much shaken. Whoever intended to oppose that sophistical system with any success would have, at the same time, at least to lay the foundation for a removal of the contradictions, which, having been left by the earlier philosophy without any tenable mode of reconciling them, had been employed by the sophists with so much skill for their own purposes. In order to establish, in confutation of the sophists, that the human mind sees itself compelled to press on to truth and certainty, not only in the general but also in reference to the rules and laws of our actions, and is capable of doing so, it was necessary first of all that to the inquiries previously dealt with there should be added a new one, that after knowledge, as such. It was a new inquiry, inasmuch as previously the mind, being entirely directed towards the objective universe, had regarded knowledge respecting it as a necessary reflection of it, without paying any closer regard to that element of knowledge which is essentially subjective. Even the Pythagoreans, who came the nearest to that inquiry, had perceived indeed that the existence of something absolutely true and certain must be presupposed, but without investigating further what knowledge is and how it may be developed. It was the awakening of the idea of knowledge, and the first utterances of it, which made the philosophy of Socrates the turning-point of a new period, and gave to it its fructifying power. Before we inquire after the existence of things we must establish in our own minds the idea of them (Xen. Mem. 4.6.1, 13, 4.5.12; Plat. Apol. p. 21, &c. ; Arist. Metaph. 1.6, de Part. Anim. 1.1, p. 642. 23); and for that reason we must come to an understanding with ourselves respecting what belongs to man, before we inquire after the nature of things in general (Xen. Mem. 1.1.11, comp. 4.7 ; Arist. Metaph. 1.6, de Part. Anim. 1.1). Socrates accordingly takes up the inquiry respecting knowledge in the first instance, and almost exclusively, in reference to moral action; but he is so penetrated with a sense of the power of knowledge, that he maintains that where it is attained to, there moral action will of necessity be found; or, as he expresses it, all virtue is knowledge (Xen. Mem. 3.9.4, 4.6; Plat. Protag. p. 329, &100.349, &c.; Arist. Eth. Nic. 6.13, 3.11, Eth. Eudem. 1.5, 3.1, Magn. Mor. 1.1, 35); for knowledge is always the strongest, and cannot be overpowered by appetite (Arist. Eth. Nicom. 7.3, Eudem. 7.13; Plat. Protag. p. 352, &c.). Therefore no man willingly acts wickedly (Arist. Magn. Mor. 1.9, comp. Xen. Mem. 3.9.4, 4.6.6, 11; Plat. Apol. p. 25e. &c.); for will appeared to him to be inseparably connected with knowledge. But just as knowledge, as such, that is without regard to the diversity of the objects to which it is directed, is something single, so also he could admit only a single virtue (Xel. Mem. 3.9.2 ; Arist. Eth. Nic. 3.1, Eudem. 3.1); and as little could he recognise an essential diversity in the directions which virtue took, as in the practice of it by persons of different station and sex (Arist. Polit. 1.13). It may easily be conceived, therefore, that he did not venture to separate happiness from virtue, and that he expressly defined the former more accurately as good conduct (εὐπραξία) in distinction from good fortune (εὐτυχία, Xen. Mem. 3.9.14); a distinction in which is expressed the most important diversity in all later treatment of ethics, which sets down either a certain mode of being or acting, as such, or else the mere enjoyment that results therefrom, as that which is in itself valuable.

But how does knowledge develop itself in us? In this way : the idea, obtained by means of induction, as that which is general, out of the individual facts of consciousness, is settled and fixed by means of definition. Those are the two scientific processes, which, according to the most express testimonies of Aristotle and others, Socrates first discovered, or rather first pointed out (Arist. Met. 13.4; comp. Xen. Mem. 4.6.1; Plat. Apol. p. 22, &c.); and although he did not attempt to develope a logical theory of them, but rather contented himself with the masterly practice of them, he may with good reason be regarded as the founder of the theory of scientific knowledge. Socrates, however, always setting out from what was immediately admitted (Xen. Mem. 4.6.15), exercised this twofold process on the most different subjects, and in doing so was led to obtain an insight into this or that one of them, not so much by the end in view as by the necessity for calling forth self-knowledge and self-understanding. For this end he endeavoured in the first place, and chiefly, to awaken the consciousness of ignorance; and inasmuch as the impulse towards the development of knowledge is already contained in this, he maintains that he had been declared by the Delphic god to be the wisest of men, because he did not delude himself with the idea that he knew what he did not know, and did not arrogate to himself any wisdom (Plat. Apol. pp. 21, 25, Thcaet. p. 150). To call forth distrust in pretended knowledge he used to exercise his peculiar irony, which, directed against himself as against others, lost all offensive poignancy (Plat. de Rep. i. p. 337, Symp. p. 216, Thcaet. p. 150, Meno, p. 80; Xen. Mem. 4.2). Convinced that he could obtain his object only by leading to the spontaneous search after truth, he throughout made use of the dialogical form (which passed from him to the most different ramifications of his school), and designates the inclination to supply one's deficiencies in one's own investigation by association with others striving towards the same end, as true love (Brandis, Gesch. der griechisch-römischen Philos. ii. p. 64). But however deeply Socrates felt the need of advancing in self-development with others, and by means of them, the inclination and the capability for wrapping himself up in the abstraction of solitary meditation and diving into the depths of his own mind, was equally to be found in him (Plat. Symp. pp. 174, 220). And again, side by side with his incessant endeavour thoroughly to understand himself there stood the sense of the need of illumination by a higher inspiration. This he was convinced was imparted to him from time to time by the monitions or warnings of an internal voice, which he designated his δαιμόνιον. By this we are not to understand a personal genius, as Plutarch (de Genio Socratis, 100.20), Apulcius (de Deo Socrat. p. 111, &c. ed. Basil.), and others, and probably also the accusers of Socrates, assumed; as little was it the offspring of an enthusiastic phantasy, as moderns have thought, or the production of the Socratic irony, or of cunning political calculation. It was rather the yet indefinitely developed idea of a divine revelation. (See especially Schleiermacher, in his translation of the works of Plato, 1.2, p. 432, &c.) On that account it is always described only as a divine something, or a divine sign, a divine voice (σημεῖον, φωνή, Plat. Phaedr. p. 242, de Rep. vi. p. 406, Apol. p. 31, &c.). This voice had reference to actions the issue of which could not be anticipated by calculation, whether it manifested itself, at least immediately, only in the way of warning against certain actions (Plat. Apol. p. 31), or even now and then as urging him to their performance (Xen. Mem. 1.4, 4.3.12, &c.). On the other hand this daemonium was to be perceived as little in reference to the moral value of actions as in reference to subjects of knowledge. Socrates on the contrary expressly forbids the having recourse to oracles on a level with which he places his daemonium, in reference to that which the gods have enabled men to find by means of reflection. (Xen. Mem. 1.1.6, &c.)

Thus far the statements of Xenophon and Plato admit of being very well reconciled both with one another and with those of Aristotle. But this is not the case with reference to the more exact definition and carrying out of the idea of that knowledge which should have moral action as its immediate and necessary consequence. What is comprised in, and what is the source of, this knowledge? Is it to be derived merely from custom and the special ends and interests of the subject which acts? Every thing, according to the Xenophontic Socrates, is good and beautiful merely for that to which it stands in a proper relation (Mem. 3.8.3, 7). The good is nothing else than the useful, the beautiful nothing else than the serviceable (Mem. 4.6.8, &c., Symp. 5.3, &c.), and almost throughout, moral precepts are referred to the motives of utility and enjoyment (Mem. 1.5.6, 2.1.1, 4.3.9, &c.; comp. 2.1.27. &c., 1.6.9, 4.8.6); while on the contrary the Platonic Socrates never makes use of an argument founded on the identity of the good and the agreeable. In the passages which have been brought forward to show that he does (Protag. pp. 353, &100.333), he is manifestly arguing ad hominem from the point of view of his sophistical antagonist. Now, that the doctrine of Socrates must have been a self-contradictory one, if on the one hand it laid down the above assertions respecting knowledge, and undertook to prove that only good conduct, and not good fortune (εὐπραξία not εὐτυχία), was valuable in itself (Xen. Mem. 3.9.11), and yet on the other hand referred the good to the useful and the agreeable, even the defenders of the representation given by Xenophon admit, but suppose that this contradiction was an unavoidable consequence of the abstract and merely formal conception of virtue as knowledge (see especially Zeller, l.c. ii. p. 63, &c.). But however little Socrates may have had occasion for, or been capable of, analysing what was comprised in this knowledge, i. e. of establishing a scientifically organised system of ethics (and in fact, according to Aristotle, Eth. Eudem. 1.5, he investigated what virtue was, not how and whence it originated), he could not possibly have subordinated knowledge, to which he attributed such unlimited power, and of which he affirmed that opposing desires were powerless against it, to enjoyment and utility. A man who himself so manifestly annulled his own fundamental maxim could not possibly have permanently enchained and inspired minds like those of Alcibiades, Eucleides, Plato, and others. In fact Socrates declared in the most decisive manner that the validity of moral requirements was independent of all reference to welfare, nay even to life and death, and unlimited (Plat. Apol. pp. 28, 38, Crito, p. 48 ; comp. Xen. Mem. 1.2.64, 6.9), and in those dialogues of Plato in which the historical Socrates is more particularly exhibited, as in the Protagoras, Charmides, Laches, and Euthyphro, we find him offering the most vigorous resistance to the assumption that the agreeable or useful has any value for us. That Socrates must rather have had in view a higher species of knowledge, inherent in the self-consciousness, as such, or developing itself from it, is shown by the expressions selected by Aristotle (ἐπιστῆμαι, λόγοι, φρονήσεις), which even still make their appearance through the shallow notices of Xenophon (Brandis, l.c. ii. p. 43.). But in connection with this, Socrates might, nay must have endeavoured to show how the good is coincident with real utility and real enjoyment; and it is quite conceivable that Xenophon's unphilosophical mind may on the one hand have confounded sensual enjoyment and utility with that of a more exalted and real kind, and on the other comprehended and preserved the externals and introductions of the conversations of Socrates rather than their internal connection and objects. Besides, his purpose was to refute the prejudice that Socrates aspired after a hidden wisdom, and for that very reason he might have found himself still more induced to bring prominently forward every thing by which Socrates appeared altogether to fall in with the ordinary conceptions of the Athenians.

Whether and how Socrates endeavoured to connect the moral with the religious consciousness, and how and how far he had developed his convictions respecting a divine spirit arranging and guiding the universe, respecting the immortality of the soul, the essential nature of love, of the state, &c., we cannot here inquire. [Ch. A. B.]

So'crates

designated in the title of his Ecclesiastical History So'crates SCHOLASTICUS, from his following the profession of a scholasticus or pleader, was, according to his own testimony (Hist. Eccles. 5.24), born and educated in the city of Constantinople, in which also he chiefly or wholly resided in after life. When quite a boy (κομιδῆ νέος ὢν) he studied (Hist. Eccles. 5.16) under the grammarians Ammonius and Helladius, who had been priests at Alexandria, the first of the Egyptian Ape, the second of Jupiter, and had fled from that city on account of the tumults occasioned by the destruction of the heathen temples, which took place, according to the Chronicon of Marcellinus, in the consulship of Timasius and Promotus, A. D. 389 [Ammonius Grammaticus]. From these data Valesius calculates that Socrates was born about the beginning of the reign of Theodosius the Great (A. D. 379) : his calculation is based on the assumption that Socrates was placed under their charge at the usual age of ten years, and that he attended them immediately after their removal from Alexandria to Constantinople; and it is confirmed by the circumstance that Socrates writing of some dissensions among the Macedonians and Eunomians of Constantinople about A. D. 394 H. E. 5.24), mentions as one reason for his particularity in speaking of these, and generally of events which had occurred at Constantinople, that some of them had occurred under his own eyes; a reason which he would hardly have urged in this place had it not applied to the particular events in question; and had he been younger than Valesius' calculation would make him, he would hardly have been old enough to feel interested in such matters; indeed he must, on any calculation, have given attention to them at a comparatively early age. And had he been much older than Valesius makes him, he must have commenced his attendance on his masters after the usual age, and then he would hardly have said that he went to them κομιδῆ νέος ὢν, " when quite young." Valesius suspects from the very high terms in which Socrates speaks of the rhetorician Troilus, and the acquaintance he shows with his affairs, that he studied under him also, which may be true. Beyond this, little sees to be known of the personal history of Socrates, except that he followed the profession of a pleader at Constantinople, and that he survived the seventeenth consulship of the emperor Theodosius the Younger, A. D. 439, to which period his Ecclesiastical History extends (H. E. 7.48). In fact, he probably survived that date several years, as he published a second edition of his history (H. E. 2.1), and had opportunity between the first and second editions to procure access to several additional documents, to weigh their testimony, and to re-write the first and second books. Photius, in his brief notice of Socrates and his history (Biblioth. Cod. 28), and Nicephorus Callisti (H. E. 1.1) in a still briefer notice, do not speak of his profession of a scholasticus or pleader; from which some have inferred (e. g. Hamberger, apud Fabric. Biblioth. Graec. vol. vii. p. 423, note g.; comp. Ceillier, Auteurs Sacrés, vol. xiii. p. 669), that the title of his work is inaccurate in giving him that designation : but we think that no such inference can be justly drawn from the omission of so unimportant a circumstance in notices so brief as those of Photius and Nicephorus. The general impartiality of Socrates may be taken as an indication that he was not an ecclesiastic ; while his literary habits and his balancing of evidence (e. g. H. E. 2.1) are in harmony with the forensic pursuits in which the title scholasticus shows him to have been engaged.

Another much disputed point is, what were his religious opinions, or, to state the question more accurately, did he belong to the church claiming to be " Catholic," and which comprehended the bulk of the Homoöusian or orthodox community, or to the smaller and " schismatical" body of the καθαροί, " Puritans" or Novatians. From the general accordance of the Novatians with " the Church " in religious belief and ecclesiastical constitution, the only difference between the two bodies being the sterner temper and stricter discipline of the dissenting community [Novatianus], it is difficult to trace any decisive indications in the writings of Socrates to which body he gave his adherence. The testimony of Nicephorus Callisti (H. E. 1.1) would be decisive, had it been the testimony of a contemporary, and more impartial in tone. He speaks of him as " Socrates the pure (καθαρός, i. e. Puritan) in designation, but not also in principle." To the testimony of Nicephorus we may oppose the silence of earlier writers, as Cassiodorus (De divinis Lection. 100.17, and Praefat. Historiae Tripartiae), Liberatus (Brexiar. 100.2), Theodore Anagnostes or Lector (Epistola Histor. Eccles. praefixa), Evagrius (H. E. 1.1), some one or other of whom would have probably mentioned his being a Novatian, had he really belonged to that sect. (See the Veterum Testimonia collected by Valesius, and prefixed to his edition of Socrates.) It is argued that he has carefully recorded the succession of the Novatian bishops of Constantinople ; has spoken of these prelates in the highest terms, and has even recorded (H. E. 7.17) a miracle which occurred to Paul, one of them; and that he appears to have taken a peculiar interest in the sect, and to have recorded various incidents respecting them with a particularity which would hardly be expected except from a member of their body. But these things, as Valesius justly contends, may be accounted for by his avowed purpose of recording events occurring in Constantinople more minutely, because he was a native and resident of that city (H. E. 5.24), and by sympathy with the stricter morality of the Novatians, or by some family connection or intimate friendship with some of their members (comp. Socrat. H. E. 1.13). When, however, Valesius adduces as positive evidence of his adherence to the " Catholic " church, that he repeatedly mentions it without qualification as " the church," and classes the Novatians with other sectaries, he employs arguments as little valid as those which, just before, he had refuted. Socrates, though a Novatian, might speak thus in a conventional sense, just as Protestants of the present day often speak of " Catholics," or " Catholic church," Dissenters of " the church " or " the church of England," and persons of reputedly heterodox views of " Orthodoxy " or " the Orthodox : " such terms, when once custom has determined their application, being used as conventional and convenient without regard to the essential justness and propriety of their application. The question of the Novatianism of Socrates must be regarded as undetermined; but the preponderance of the various arguments is in favour of his connection with the " Catholic church." Works Ἐκκλησιαστή ἱστορία (Historia Ecclesiastica)

The Ἐκκλησιαστή ἱστορία, Historia Ecclesiastica, of Socrates extends from the reign of Constantine the Great to that of the younger Theodosius, A. D. 439, and comprehends the events of a hundred and forty years, according to the writer's own statement (H. E. 7.48), or more accurately of a hundred and thirty-three years, in one of the most eventful periods of the history of the Church, when the doctrines of orthodoxy were developed and defined in a succession of creeds, each step in the process being occasioned or accompanied and followed by commotions which shook the whole Christian community and rent it into sects, some of which have long since passed away, while others have continued to exist. Three general councils, the first Nicene, the first Constantinopolitan, and the first Ephesian are recorded in the history, and two others, the second Ephesian, ἡ λῃστπική, and the Chalcedonian, were held at no great interval from the period at which it ends. The interest and importance of the period may be further inferred from the fact that we have three histories of it by contemporary writers (Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret) which have come down to us in a complete form, and which furnished materials for the Historia Tripartita of Cassiodorus [Cassiodorus; Epiphanius, No.11], and that we have fragments of another (that of Philostorgius) written about the same period. Of these histories that of Socrates is perhaps the most impartial. In fact he appears to have been a man of less bigotry than most of his contemporaries, and the very difficulty of determining from internal evidence some points of his religious belief, may be considered as arguing his comparative liberality. His history is divided into seven books. Commencing with a brief account of the accession and conversion of Constantine the Great, and the civil war of Constantine and Licinius, the author passes to the history of the Arian controversy, which he traces from its rise to the banishment of Athanasius, the recal and death of Arius, and the death, soon after, of Constantine himself, A. D. 306-337 (Lib. i.). He then carries on the history of the contentions of the Arian or Eusebian and Homöousian parties during the reign of Constantius II. A. D. 337-360 (Lib. ii.). The struggle of heathenism with Christianity under Julian, and the triumph of Christianity under Jovian (A. D. 360-364), then follow (Lib. iii.). The renewed struggle of the Arians and Homöousians under Valens, A. D. 364-378 (Lib. iv.) : the triumph of the Homöousian party over the Arian and Macedonian parties, in the reign of Theodosius the Great A. D. 379-395 (Lib. v.) : the contention of John Chrysostom with his opponents, and the other ecclesiastical incidents of the reign of Arcadius A. D. 395-408 (Lib. vi.) : and the contentions of Christianity with the expiring remains of heathenism, the Nestorian controversy, and the council of Ephesus, with other events of the reign of the younger Theodosius, A. D. 408 to 439, in which latter year the history closes, occupy the remainder of the work. This division of the work into seven books, according to the reigns of the successive emperors, was made by Socrates himself (Comp. 2.1). In the first two books he followed, in his first edition, the ecclesiastical history of Rufinus; but this part, as already mentioned, he had to write for his second edition. The materials of the remaining books were derived partly from Rufinus, partly from other writers, and partly from the oral account of persons who had been personally cognizant of matters, and who survived to the time of the writer. Socrates has inserted a number of letters from the emperors and from prelates and councils, creeds, and other documents which are of value, both in themselves, and as authenticating his statements. He aimed not at a pompous phraseology, οὐ φράσεως ὄγκου φποντιζοντες (Lib. 1.1), but at perspicuity (Lib. 3.1), and his style, as Photius remarks (Biblioth. Cod. 28), presents nothing worthy of notice. The inaccuracy with respect to points of doctrine with which the same critic charges him (ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τοῖς δόγμασιν οὐ λίαν ἐστὶν ἀκριβής may be taken as a corroboration of what has been said concerning the comparative liberality of his temper. His diligence and general impartiality are admitted by the best critics, Valesius, Cave, Fabricius, &c. " His impartiality," says Mr. Waddington (Hist. of the Church, part 2.100.7, ad fin.), " is so strikingly displayed as to render his orthodoxy questionable to Baronius, the celebrated Roman Catholic historian; but Valesius, in his life, has clearly shown that there is no reason for such a suspicion. We may mention another principle which he has followed, which, in the mind of Baronius, may have tended to confirm the notion of his heterodoxy--that he is invariably adverse to every form of persecution on account of religious opinions--διωγμὸν δὲ λέγω τὸ ὁποσοῦν ταράττειν τοὺς ἡσυχάζοντας--` and I call it persecution to offer any description of molestation to those who are quiet.' Some credulity respecting miraculous stories is his principal failing." Editions

The first printed edition of the Greek text of the Historia Ecclesiastica of Socrates was that of Rob. Stephanus (Estienne), fol. Paris 1544. The volume contained also the ecclesiastical histories of the other early Greek writers, Eusebius (with his Life of Constantine), Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius, and the fragments of Theodore Anagnostes or Lector. It was again printed with the Latin version of Christopherson, and with the other Greek ecclesiastical historians just mentioned, also accompanied by the version of Christopherson, except in the case of Theodore Lector, of whom Musculus's version was given, fol. Geneva 1612; but the standard edition is that of Hen. Valesius, who published, as part of his series of the ancient Greek ecclesiastical historians, the histories of Socrates and Sozomen, with a new Latin version and valuable notes, fol. Paris 1668. His edition was reprinted at Mentz, fol. 1677, and the Latin version by itself at Paris the same year. The remainder of the Mentz edition was issued with a new title page, Amsterdam, 1695. The text, version, and notes of Valesius were reprinted with some additional Variorum notes, under the care of William Reading, in the second volume of the Greek ecclesiastical historians, fol. Cambridge 1720. This edition of Reading was reprinted at Turin, 3 vols. fol. 1748. There is a reprint of the text of Valesius, but without the version and notes, 8vo. Oxford, 1844. Translations

There have been several Latin versions, as those of Musculus, fol. Basil. 1549, 1557, 1594, John Christopherson (Christophorsonus), bishop of Chichester, fol. Paris, 1571, Cologn, 1570, 1581; and (revised by Grynaeus, and with notes by him), fol. Basil. 1570 and 1611; and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. v. part 2, fol. Cologn 1618, and vol. vii. fol. Lyon 1677.

There are a French translation by Cousin, made from the Latin version of Valesius, 4to. Paris, 1675, and English translations by Meredith Hanmer, with the other Greek ecclesiastical historians, folio, Lond. 1577, 1585, 1650, and by Samuel Parker (with translations of Sozomen and Theodoret), 2 vols. 8vo. 1707. The latter, which is an abridged translation, has been repeatedly reprinted. Further Information

Valesius, De Vita et Scriptis Socratis et Sozomeni, prefixed to his edition of their histories; Vossius, De Historicis Graecis, lib. 2. c.20; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 423, &c.; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 439, vol. i. p. 427, ed. Oxford, 1740-1743; Dupin, Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Eccles. vol. iv. or vol. iii. part ii. p. 78, ed. Mons. 1691; Ceillier, Auteurs Sacrés, vol. xiii. p. 669; Lardner, Credibility, &c. part ii. vol. xi. p. 450; Ittigius, De Biblioth. Patrum ; Watt. Bibliotheca Britannica ; Waddington, Hist. of the Church, l.c. [J.C.M]

So'crates

minor literary persons.

So'crates

1. A tragic actor at Athens in the time of Demosthenes. (Dem de Cor. p. 314; comp. Simylus.)

So'crates

2. Of Argos, an historical writer, whose time is unknown. Works περιήγησις Ἄργους

Socrates wrote a περιήγησις Ἄργους. Further Information

D. L. 2.47, and Menag. ad loc. ; Schol. ad Pind. var. loc. ; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 45; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 689; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 499, ed. Westermann.)

So'crates

3. Of Bithynia, a Peripatetic philosopher. (Diog. l.c.)

So'crates

4. An epigrammatic poet, of whom nothing is known beyond the mention of his name by Diogenes Laertius (l.c.). There is a single epigram in the Greek Anthology, among the Arithmetical Problems, under the name of Socrates. (Anth. Pal. 14.1; Brunck. Anal. vol. ii. p. 477; Jacobs, Anth. Graec., vol. iii. p. 181, Comm. vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 335.)

So'crates

5. Of Cos, the author of a work entitled ἐπικλήσεις θεῶν. (Diog. Laert. l.c. ; Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. 1.966; Ath. iii. p. 111b.; Schol. ad Aristoph. Eq. 959.) He is probably the writer whose treatise περὶ ὁσίων is quoted by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir. 35, p. 364f.). The exact meaning of the phrase, ἑπικλήσεις θεῶν, is doubtful. Vossius explains it as prayers to the gods, but Menagius contends that it rather means the epithets or surnames which were assigned to the several gods for various reasons. (Fabric. l.c. ; Vossius, l.c. ; Menag. ad Diog. l.c.)

So'crates

6. Of Rhodes, an historian, who seems to have lived in the time of Augustus, and who wrote a work on the civil war, from which Athenaeus quotes some particulars respecting Antony and Cleopatra. (Ath. iv. p. 147e.; Menag. l.c. ; Vossius, l.c. and p. 227.)

So'crates

7. The author of a work on Thrace, the second book of which is quoted by Plutarch (Parall. 18, p. 310a).

So'crates

8. A grammarian cited in the Etymologicum Magnum (s. v. Εὐβοΐς; Vossius, p. 499).

There seem to have been also other persons of the name, but not of sufficient importance to be noticed here. The name is confounded by the ancient writers with Crates, Isocrates, Sosicrates, and Sostratus. (Fabric., Vossius, Menag. ll. cc. ; Ionsius, Script. Hist. Philos. vol. 1.100.2.) [P.S]

So'crates

artists.

1. Of Thebes, a sculptor, who, in conjunction with his fellow-citizen Aristomedes, made a statue of the " Dindymenian Mother" (Cybele), which was dedicated by Pindar in her temple near Thebes. The artists therefore flourished probably about Ol. 75, B. C. 480. The statue, as well as the throne on which it sat, was of Pentelic marble; and it was preserved with extraordinary reverence. (Paus. 9.25.3.)

So'crates

2. The celebrated philosopher, was the son of a sculptor, Sophroniscus, and claimed to be of the mythical lineage of the Daedalids, and himself practised the art during part of his life (see the article above). Pausanias ascribes to him the statue of Hermes Propylaeus, and the group of the three Graces, which stood in the very entrance of the Acropolis at Athens; and he informs us that the Graces were draped (Paus. 1.22.8, 9.35.2. s. 7). Pliny also mentions the Graces of Socrates, as not inferior to the finest works of marble in existence; but he says that some supposed them to be the production of the painter of the same name (Plin. Nat. 36.5. s. 4.10). There can, however, be little doubt that the account which Pausanias heard at Athens itself was the correct one.

So'crates

3. A painter who seems, from the manner in which he is mentioned by Pliny, to have been a disciple of Pausias; and if so, he must have flourished about the latter half of the fourth century B. C., or between B. C. 340-300. His pictures were extremely popular. As examples of them, Pliny mentions Aesculapius and his daughters, Hygia, Aegle, Panacea, and Iaso; and also a slothful fellow, or perhaps a personification of Sloth (piger qui appellatur Oenos), making a rope of broom (spartum), which an ass gnaws away at the other end as fast as he twists it. (Plin. Nat. 35.11. s. 40.31.) [P.S]

Socrătes

(Σωκράτης). (1) An Athenian philosopher, whose teaching revolutionized the whole drift of subsequent philosophical speculation. He was born in the deme Alopecé, near Athens, B.C. 469. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor, and his mother, Phaenareté, was a midwife. In his youth Socrates for a time followed his father's occupation, and a group of sculptured Graces, preserved in the Acropolis, was exhibited as his work down to the time of Pausanias; but there is reason to believe that this arose from a confusion of names. It is thought by some that the relief of draped Graces in the Museo Chiaramonte in Rome represents the Athenian group, in which case it must have belonged to an earlier period of art than the century in which Socrates lived.

The personal qualities of Socrates were marked, and such as would readily attract attention. He enjoyed vigorous health, and was so robust as to be capable of enduring fatigue and hardship to a degree that astonished all who knew him. He went barefooted at all seasons of the year; and this not merely at Athens, but when serving as a soldier in the much colder climate of Thrace; and he wore the same clothing in winter as in summer. His features were of remarkable ugliness; and his flat nose, thick lips, and bulging eyes led to his being compared to a satyr.

As to the particulars of his life, there is no connected account. It is known that he served as a heavy-armed soldier at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis; but he seems not to have filled any public office until B.C. 406, when he was a member of the Senate of Five Hundred, and as such refused, in spite of all personal risk, to put an unconstitutional question to vote. He displayed the same moral courage in refusing to obey the order of the Thirty Tyrants for the arrest of Leon of Salamis.

From the period of his middle life, at any rate, he devoted his time wholly to the self-imposed task of teaching, giving up all other business, both public and private, and neglecting all means of acquiring a fortune. It was probably his remissness in this respect which was responsible for the ill-temper and fretfulness of his wife Xanthippé, whose name has passed into all modern tongues as the type of a shrew. Socrates never opened a school and never lectured publicly, nor did he receive any money for his teaching, but went about in the most public parts of the city, such as the market-place, the gymnasia, and the work-shops, seeking opportunities for awakening in the young and old alike moral consciousness and an impulse towards self-knowledge with respect to the end and value of human action. His object, however, was only to aid those with whom he talked in developing such germs of knowledge as were already present in them, and not to communicate to them dogmatically any knowledge of his own. He was especially severe upon false pretences and intellectual conceit; and, consequently, to many persons he became exceedingly obnoxious, and was the object of much dislike and misrepresentation. This is probably the reason why Aristophanes, in The Clouds, selected Socrates as the type of men engaged in philosophical and rhetorical teaching; the more so, as his grotesque physiognomy admitted so well of being imitated in the mask which the actor wore. The audience at the theatre would more readily recognize the peculiar figure which they were accustomed to see every day in the market-place than if Prodicus or Protagoras, whom most of them did not know by sight, had been brought on the stage; nor was it of much importance either to them or to Aristophanes whether Socrates was represented as teaching what he did really teach, or something utterly different.

Attached to none of the prevailing parties, Socrates found in each of them his friends and his enemies. Hated and persecuted by Critias , Charicles, and others among the Thirty Tyrants, who had a special reference to him in the decree which they issued, forbidding the teaching of the art of oratory, he was impeached after their banishment and by their opponents. An orator named Lycon, and a poet (a friend of Thrasybulus) named Meletus, had united in the impeachment with the powerful demagogue Anytus, an embittered antagonist of the Sophists and their system, and one of the leaders of the band which, setting out from Phylé, forced their way into the Piraeus, and drove out the Thirty Tyrants. The judges also are described as persons who had been banished, and who had returned with Thrasybulus. The chief articles of impeachment were that Socrates was guilty of corrupting the youth and of despising the tutelary deities of the State, putting in their place other new divinities. At the same time it had been made a matter of accusation against him that Critias , the most ruthless of the Tyrants, had come forth from his school. Some expressions of his, in which he had found fault with the democratic mode of electing by lot, had also been brought up against him; and there can be little doubt that use was made of his friendly relations with Theramenes, one of the most influential of the Thirty, with Plato's uncle Charmides, who fell by the side of Critias in the struggle with the popular party, and with other aristocrats, in order to irritate against him the party which at that time was dominant. The substance of the speech which Socrates delivered in his defence is probably preserved by Plato in the discourse which goes under the name of the “Apology of Socrates.” Being condemned by a majority of only six votes, he expresses the conviction that he deserved to be maintained at the public cost in the Prytaneum, and refuses to acquiesce in the adjudication of imprisonment or a large fine or banishment. He will assent to nothing more than a fine of sixty minae, on the security of Plato, Crito , and other friends. Condemned to death by the judges, who were incensed by this speech, by a majority of eighty votes, he departs from them with the protestation that he would rather die after such a defence than live after one in which he should have endeavoured to excite their pity. The sentence of death could not be carried into execution until after the return of the vessel which had been sent to Delos on the periodical Theoric mission. The thirty days which intervened between its return and the condemnation of Socrates were devoted by him in prison to poetic attempts (the first he had made in his life) and to his usual conversation with his friends. One of these conversations, on the duty of obedience to the laws, Plato has reported in the Crito, so called after the faithful follower of Socrates, who had endeavoured without success to persuade him to make his escape. In another, imitated or worked up by Plato in the Phaedo, Socrates immediately before he drank the cup of hemlock developed the grounds of his immovable conviction of the immortality of the soul. He died with composure and cheerfulness in his seventieth year, B.C. 399.

Three peculiarities distinguished Socrates: (a) His long life passed in contented poverty and in public dialectics, of which we have already spoken. (b) His persuasion of a special religious mission. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even from his childhood, a divine voice— interfering, at moments when he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him very frequently, not merely on great but even on small occasions, intercepting what he was about to do or to say. Though later writers speak of this as the Daemon or Genius of Socrates, he himself did not personify it, but treated it merely as a “divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural voice.” He was accustomed not only to obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to his enemies. See a paper by H. Jackson in the English Journal of Philology, vol. v., and Freymüller, De Socratis Daemonio (1864). (c) His great intellectual originality, both of subject and of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry and ratiocination in others. He was the first who turned his thoughts and discussions distinctly to the subject of ethics, and was the first to proclaim that “the proper study of mankind is man.” With the philosophers who preceded him, the subject of examination had been Nature, or the Cosmos as one undistinguishable whole, blending together cosmogony, astronomy, geometry, physics, metaphysics, etc. In discussing ethical subjects Socrates employed the dialectic method, and thus laid the foundation of formal logic, which was afterwards expanded by Plato and systematized by Aristotle.

The originality of Socrates is shown by the results he achieved. Out of his intellectual school sprang not merely Plato, himself a host, but all the other leaders of Grecian speculation for the next half century, and all those who continued the great line of speculative philosophy down to later times. Euclid and the Megaric School of philosophers—Aristippus and the Cyrenaic Antisthenes and Diogenes, the first of those called the Cynics—all emanated more or less directly from the stimulus imparted by Socrates, and so, for that matter, did the Stoics and Epicureans, though each followed a different vein of thought. Ethics continued to be what Socrates had first made them —a distinct branch of philosophy—alongside of which politics, rhetoric, logic, and other speculations relating to man and society gradually arranged themselves; all of them more popular, as well as more keenly controverted, than physics, which at that time presented comparatively little charm, and still less of attainable certainty. There can be no doubt that the individual influence of Socrates permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method, and multiplied the ascendant minds, of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers had a more elaborate doctrine and a larger number of disciples who imbibed their ideas; but none of them applied the same stimulating method with the same efficacy, and none of them so struck out of other minds that fire which sets light to original thought.

See Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, Engl. trans. (1877); Alberti, Sokrates (1869); Bertram, Der Sokrates d. Xenoph. und Aristoph. (1865); Carran, La Sophistique de Socrate (1886); Guttmann, Ueber den wissenschaftlichen Standpunkt des Sokrates (1881). The best ancient sources are Xenophon's Memorabilia and Symposium, with Plato's Crito, Symposium, Apologia, and Phaedo. See philosophia.

(2) An ecclesiastical historian, born at Constantinople about A.D. 379. He was a pupil of Ammonius and Helladius, and followed the profession of an advocate in his native city, whence he is surnamed Scholasticus. The Ecclesiastical History (Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἱστορία) of Socrates extends from the reign of Constantine the Great, 306, to that of the younger Theodosius, 439. He appears to have been a man of less bigotry than most of his contemporaries, and the very difficulty of determining from internal evidence some points of his religious belief may be considered as arguing his comparative liberality. His history is divided into seven books. His work is edited by Hussey (1853) and Bright, with an introduction (1878); and is translated into English in Schaff's Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d series, vol. ii. (New York, 1891).

Socrates Socrates, of Pellene

• Olympic victor: Paus. 6.8.1

Socrates(2), son of Sophroniscus

• makes figures of Graces at Athens: Paus. 1.22.8, Paus. 9.35.7
• pronounced the wisest of men: Paus. 1.22.8
• his dream about Plato: Paus. 1.30.3

Socrates(3), Theban sculptor

• Paus. 9.25.3