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Xenophon's Defence of Socrates: The Rhetorical Background to the Socratic Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

V. J. Gray
V. J. Gray
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Extract

The death of Socrates gave birth to an industry of biographical literature which often took the form of a defence (apologia) or prosecution (katēgoria), sometimes purporting to be the actual defence or prosecution conducted at his trial. Plato and Xenophon wrote works in his defence. Among his critics, one Polycrates had a certain notoriety. Lysias, Theodectes and Demetrius of Phalerum, orators and rhetoricians like Polycrates, were credited with further works of apology. There were doubtless many others. The aim of this paper is to show that Xenophon wrote his Defence in the light of the rhetorical theory that required that a speaker utter words and thoughts appropriate πρεποντα to his character.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1989 , pp. 136 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 See Chroust, A-H., Socrates Man and Myth (London 1957)Google Scholar for a study of this literature.

2 For the rhetorical virtue of propriety, see also my ‘Mimesis in Greek Historical Writing’, AJP 108 (1987), 467–86Google Scholar. The literature on Xenophon's Defence is rather thin, apart from Chroust above, but see Anderson, J. K., Xenophon (London, 1974), pp. 37 40Google Scholar for a typical treatment from the leading Xenophontic scholar, and Guthrie, W. K. C., History of Greek Philosophy, iii (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 338 40Google Scholar, for a typical treatment from a leading historian of Greek philosophy. I have not yet seen Morrison, D. R., Xenophon's Socratic Writings 1600–present (Pittsburgh, 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Xenophon's attribution of the explanation to Hermogenes need not be a fiction, even though his absence from Athens during the trial meant that he needed an eye witness of the final days to make his Defence credible. Guthrie (339) believes there were other sources as well, but Xenophon consistently cites H. as a source for the final days of Socrates at Mem. 4.8 and may have received a report from Hermogenes after he returned from Asia and settled at Scillus. Montuori, M., Socrates. Physiology of a Myth (Amsterdam, 1981), p. 75 n. 4Google Scholar dates the work 386 B.C. on this basis. Cf. Chroust, p. 17 and n. 72.

4 Although the meaning of ‘intent’ is also possible, Xen. Mem. 4.8.1 uses dianoia in the sense of ‘intellect’ or ‘intellectual powers’ in a closely parallel context.

5 The significance of the reference to appropriateness is not understood. According to Montuori (p. 77 n. 7) Xenophon is saying that no one had sufficiently understood that his highmindedness contributed to the outcome of the trial; this misses the point. Guthrie (p. 338) is closer in saying that Xenophon seeks to explain the reason for his high-mindedness, but he makes no reference to the theory of appropriateness. He finds Xenophon's picture of Socrates' degree of high-mindedness implausible (p. 339). This is a natural reaction, but Xenophon has already anticipated it by referring to the agreement of all sources on the point. He may exaggerate Socrates' high-mindedness, but his purpose in doing so is to explain it, not to make Socrates the mouthpiece for Xenophon's own admiration for him, as Guthrie alleges.

6 Cf. Xen. Ag. 8.2–3 for his view of megalēgoria in the context of its opposite, good grace (τòευχαρι) His view that it was a character fault may explain why he does not portray it in the Mem., even when he deals with the trial, 1.1–2, 4.4.4, 4.8 etc. By the time of the Defence, it was so commonly portrayed that it had to be explained.

7 See Arist. Rhet. 3.7.1–7 for the rule of propriety. For the nature of the ‘proofs’ of character and emotion, ibid. 1.2.3–7. Rhet. is late enough to mention events dated to 336 B.C.: 2.23.6, 23.18, 24.8. For the centrality of propriety to later Peripatetic theory, see esp. Bonner, S. F., The Literary Treatises of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Cambridge, 1939)Google Scholar.

8 See my paper cited in n. 1, which argues that Duris F. I criticised the lack of propriety in Ephorus and Theopompus, and that Callisthenes F.41 also called for the quality in speeches in history. Thucydides' reference to τà δéоντα in his own speeches may also be relevant.

9 Against the Sophists 13, 16 17. The work is among his earliest: cf. Antidosis 193. For other references to propriety in Isocrates, Paneg. 9, Helen 11.

10 D. H. de Thuc. 43–5, referring to Thuc. 2.60.

11 Cf. Mem. 3.10 for application of the theory to outward appearance of statues.

12 See Campbell, D. A., Greek Lyric Poetry (Bristol, 1967)Google Scholar, Mimnermus (1) and (2), Anacreon (395).

13 See Anderson, p. 39 for Xenophon's belief in the immortality of memory, based on Mem. 2.1.33. Cf. Pindar, Pyth. 1.90–100, Isocrates, Evag. 1–11.

14 For the views of the historical Socrates on immortality, see Crombie, I. M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, i (London and New York, 1962), pp. 301–65Google Scholar; Guthrie, pp. 473–84; Anderson, p. 37; Bostock, D., Plato's Phaedo (Oxford, 1986), pp. 7–11Google Scholar. There seems to be no real consensus.

15 Xen. Cyrop. 8.7.17–22. See Anderson, pp. 38–9.

16 The theory of immortality evidently failed to convince the ordinary man: at Phaedo 69e-70b Socrates more or less agrees with Cebes that the idea that the soul lives on after death as an intelligent and moral force would not appeal.

17 See , D. H.de Lysia 7–9Google Scholar, de Isaeo 16, for Lysias' connexion of propriety and mimēsis. See , D. H.de Thuc. 43–5Google Scholar, de Comp. Verb. 20 for his own connexion of the two concepts.

18 D. L. 2.40–1. Cf. Arist. Rhet. 3.7.11 for terminology.