Three Defences of Socrates: Relative Chronology, Politics and Religion*

chapter seven THREE DEFENCES OF SOCRATES: RELATIVE CHRONOLOGY, POLITICS AND RELIGION* †Michael Stokes This paper aimed originally to rm up from further reading and reection the tentative conclusions on the relative chronology of PA, XA, and XM1 reached in the Introduction to Stokes (1997).2 It has now become in the rst instance a defence of that chronology in the light of some subsequent schol- arly work. The argument inevitably falls short of absolute proof, but the con- clusion eventually reached is that the works by Plato and Xenophon were indeed produced in the order just stated (PA, XA, XM), and that a fourth work, Polycrates’ lost pamphlet Accusation of Socrates, appeared between XA and XM. Along the way the paper may help to convince people that Xenophon’s methods of work were in places a trie slipshod. By his ‘methods of work’ is meant the way in which he treats other writers’ texts in cases of intertextuality. This may lead to a deeper understanding of Xenophon as a creative writer. A nal corollary will contribute to the debate on the question why Socrates was tried and condemned. In this contribution religious issues are highlighted. The corollary (I confess) seems to me more important than the chronological detail. We must start the chronology from a passage of the orator Isocrates referring to Polycrates’ Accusation of Socrates. Isocrates Busiris 4–5 In the proem to his Busiris, Isocrates suggests that Polycrates is especially proud of his defence of Busiris and his Accusation of Socrates. He points out, however, that Polycrates was far wide of the mark in both these pamphlets. * Gabriel Danzig read critically successive drafts of this paper: my warmest thanks to him. He is not responsible for errors and omissions; I am. 1 I thus abbreviate Plato’s and Xenophon’s Apologies of Socrates and Xenophon’s Memo- rabilia Socratis. 2 Stokes 1997: 3–4. 244 michael stokes A defence or praise, Isocrates says, should reveal more good qualities than the subject actually possessed. An attack should show the victim as having fewer good qualities. Polycrates has not done this; far from it. In defence of Busiris he has not just freed him from many slurs; he has also added to his qualities the worst lawlessness one could think of. Others trying to attack Busiris have said he sacri ced strangers; Polycrates says he ate them. By contrast, in his attempt to attack Socrates Polycrates gave Socrates Alcibiades as a pupil, presumably hitherto not known as such. Isocrates characterizes Alcibiades as one whose superiority all Greeks would admit. Socrates, the orator says, would be grateful for this change, whereas Busiris would be angry at the slur on him. It would be all too easy to dismiss this as a mere rhetorical ourish, deserving no credence.3 However, it deserves discussion, and now more discussion than ever, as an anonymous reader drew my attention to Niall Livingstone’s valuable 1999 commentary on Busiris. That commentary deals at length with (among other things) the date of the work and in particular with the point of the passage under discussion. Many people (including me) have taken this passage for granted as evidence for the dating of the works here discussed. That is no longer possible. Livingstone has raised questions about the date of the Busiris and about the seriousness of the work of Polycrates to which it refers. These questions need answers, if possible, and in any case deserve discussion. Livingstone’s arguments are not uniformly strong. First, a speci c date: Polycrates’ Accusation of Socrates, referred to in Isocrates’ Busiris, must be dated after 393–392, mentioning as it did the rebuilding of the Long Walls of Athens. How long after is debatable. Busiris also refers, in its idealised account of ancient Egypt, to several ideas forming central political themes of Plato’s Republíc. Livingstone dates it accordingly after the Republic, and hence in the 370s.4 It would, however, 3 Water eld 2009 pays no attention to Isocrates at all; in the present volume he does use Isocrates as evidence for what Polycrates actually said. He does cite another orator, Aeschin. 1. 173, writing some 50 years later and probably acquainted directly or indirectly with Polycrates’ work. Macleod 2008: 13 devotes a few sentences to the reference in the Busiris. He suggests that Isocrates here ‘sounds like a rival sophist speaking’. This seems subjective, and raises the question how far one sophist could go in falsehood about another. He cites a suggestion from M.M. Willcock to the efect that the topic of Alcibiades ‘was avoided as a weak link in the defence’. On that view see below. Macleod also thinks the politics of reference to Alcibiades and Critias may have been left to Meletus’ supporter Anytus, himself a politician of some distinction. However, there were other political topics for Anytus to talk about. See further below. 4 Livingstone 1999: 48–56..

Load more