The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy

Gregory Vlastos

Political Theory, Volume 11, Issue 4 (Nov., 1983),495-516.

Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0090-5917%28198311%2911%3A4%3C495%3ATHSAAD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstoLorg/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless youhave obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, andyou may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen orprinted page of such transmission.

Political Theory is published by Sage Publications, Inc.. Please contact the publisher for further permissionsregarding the use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/sage.html.

Political Theory©1983 Sage Publications, Inc.

JSTOR and the JSTOR logo are trademarks of JSTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.For more information on JSTOR contactjstor-info@umich.edu.

©2002 JSTOR

http://www.jstoLorg/Wed Sep 400:17:012002

CLASSICAL GREEK POLITICAL THOUGHT

I. THE HISTORICAL SOCRATES

AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACYI

GREGORY VLASTOSUniversity of California, Berkeley

shall argue for two theses:

In hIS own llme and place Socrates was perceIved as a polillcal subversIveand thIs was a weIghty reason for hIS prosecutlOn and condemnatlOn,though by no means the only reason: the formal charges of disbelieving thegods of the state, introducIng new divInities, and corruptmg the youth werefully as weIghty.

IL ThIs publlc perceptlon of Socrates was a mlspercepllon: he had not been thecrypto-oligarch many had thought he was,

If I had ample time I would divIde It equally between the two theses,for they are equally matenal to the understanding of Socrates' hIStoncalrelatIon to hIs natlve cIty Since my time IS short I shall devote by far thegreater part of It to argument for the second thesIs, for here-In theargument for this thesIs, not In the thesIs Itself- I have somethIng new tooffer which calls for extenslveelUCldatlon, far more than will be possibleWithin the limits of my time-schedule. Since the truth of this secondthesIs presupposes that of the first, that IS where I must begLn.

ConSider the follOWing well-known text:

Tl Aeschmes, Conlra Timarchum, 17), "Men of Athens, you ex.ecutedSocrates the sophIst because he was shown to have educated Crttlas, oneof the ThIrty who subverted the democracy."

What thiS shows IS that half a century after Socrates' death a lot-selectedJury-a fair sample of Atheman opInIOn at the tlme: a pollster plckmg

EDITOR'S NOTE.- The leading artides by Vlastos and Raaflaub were OT/gmallypresenred at the Conference for Political Thought's mlernalional meeting on GreekPolillcal Thoughl, held at the Graduate Center of Oty Umverslly of New York, April1983. Two additional essays from the conference will appear m the February Issue.

POLITICAL THEORY, Vol. J 1 No.4, November 1983495-516© 198J Sage PublicalLQM, Inc

496 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

his sample could not have done much better-was expected to agreewithout argument that Socrates had been put to death because he hadbeen the teacher of the man who stood III the public mind for the mostsavagely antidemocratic regime Athens had ever known. And nowconsider how a sophist's relatIOn to a powerful politiCian who had beenhis pupil was popularly regarded at the time:

T2 Plutarch, Perldes 4, I ~Most people say thaI [Penclcsl teacher ofmustcwas Damon Now Damon seems to have been a con.summate soplmtHe had used mUStcas a screen to htde hts cleverness from the public. In hISrelatIOn to Pericles he was In politlcs what a coach and tramer IS to anathlete," (Cf, also Arutot!e, Ath. Pol. 27,4).'

What to us seems so preposterous-that a brilliant statesman's role IIIpublic affairs could be accounted for by the personal effect of a sophist'steachmg-was eVidently not thought at all Implausible at, or near,Socrates' own lifetime: the fourth-century hlstonans on whom PlutarchIS draWing In T2, Anstotle among them, find no difficulty III believmgthat the radical rdorms by which Pencles changed the course ofAthentan history had been put Into hiS head by a sophist who had taughthim muslc. 1A Aeschllles and hiS AthenIan audience would have found nogreater difficulty III believlllg that Cntlas' sensatlonal political careerhad been Instigated by a sophist who had taught him rhetonc. We thushave eVidence from an unImpeachable source-an orator untmcturedby philosophy, canng nothmg one way or the other about It, and haVingno partisan axe to gnnd by representlng Socrates as a pro-oligarchicIdeologue-that Socrates, because of hiS aSSOClatlon With Cntlas, wasbelieved half a century after hiS death to have been a breeder ofsubverSion.

It IS a reasonable Inference that the same would be true at the time ofSocrates' tnal, when Cntlas' cnmes were so much more fresh meveryone's mind: no less Sllllster aconstructlon would be likely to be puton that aSSOCiatIOn and, we may add, also on hiS aSSOCiatiOn WithAlciblades, a no to no us contemner of democracy (Thuc. 6, 89, 5).

T3 Xenophon, Mem. I, 2, 12: "But the accuser saId that Crlllas andAlciblades, navlng assocIated with Socrates, did great evil to the city."

For thiS mference we have excellent confirmatiOn:

T4 Xenophon, Mem. J, 2, 9, '"But, by Zeus, saId the accuser, he made nlsassoctates despise the established laws, saytng It was silly (0 appoint tne

Vla!;(OS I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 497

cIty's magIstrates by lot, when no one would want to use a lot-selectedpilot or builder or Oute-player or any other [craftsman] for work In whIchmlstahs are far less disa!;trous than those whIch concern the cIty."

In marked contrast to every other charge against Socrates rehearsed inthe Memorabilia, to all of which Xenophon responds with vglubleapologetlcs, thLs charge Xenophon must think so true and so fLrmlyentrenched In his readers' minds that he does not say a word to rebut it:he drops It like a hot potato.

So unless there were direct eVidence to the contrary, the first part ofmy first thesIs would stand: Socrates was perceived as a politicallysubversive teacher, and this perception of him would have certainlyweighed strongly In the motives of the prosecutIOn and In the minds ofmany of the Jurors who had voted for his COnVLCtlOn. And there IS noeVidence to the contrary As has long been recognized, the fact that theImputation of subversIOn does not surface III the formal indictment doesnot constitute such eVidence, for this fact IS perfectly explicable by theamnesty· to substantlate the Imputation In court Socrates' tutonal linkto Cntlas or other leaders of the oligarchic coup would have had to berehearsed, and this would have been a vlOlatLon of the amnesty ThusSocrates could only have been formally mdicted on charges whLch eitherwere not political at all-not believmg Ln the gods of the state andmtroducmg new divlllLties-or only llldirectly political: corruptmg theyouth. J That these charges were not Just wmdow-dressmg-the mere"pretexts" Burnet called them (Greek Philosophy, Thales to Plato[London, 1914], (89)-ls what I claim 10 the second part of my firstthesIs. That this claim IS true IS abundantly clear from the PlatomcApology (22E-23E = T6): Socrates had provoked powerful enmLtles byblastlllg the credibility of big mouths 10 Athens and they, retaliatmg,had done their best to get people to believe that the Anstophamccancature, a comic extravaganza, had been 10 fact the ugly truth. Wethus have eVidence that Socrates was prosecuted and convicted both asImpious speculator and shyster rhetonclan, on the one hand, and as afomenter of oligarchic sentLment, on the other. Scholars like R.Hackforth (The COmpOSitiOn of Plato's Apology [Cambndge, 1933],73ff.), who adduced eVidence of the former as though It constitutedeVidence agamst the latter were simply confused: there IS no mconslstencybetween the two, since III the pubfic Image of Socrates the pestilentialsophist was the subversive.

Now to my second theSIS. I maintain that the perceptIOn of Socratesas a pro-oligarchic Ideologist who aroused hostility towards theAthell1an constitutIOn m his associates was completely false: false It

498 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

must have been if Socrates preferred that constitutIOn to every other 10the contemporary world-which IS precisely what we are told In one ofthe most familiar, yet least heeded, passages In the PlatonIc corpus:Cmo 5IC4-53C8. Of all the commentators consulted, only one­George Grote, m his monumental work, Plato and the Other Com­panions of Socrates (repnnt of the 1888 editIOn, New York [1973],430-431)-has discerned what I take to be the true Import of thispassage: that "it IS a piece of rhetonc Imbued with the most genumeSPlflt of constltIonal democracy"; that here "Socrates IS made to expressthe feelings and repeat the language of a devoted democratical patnot."Grote must have thought that this would be so eVident to anyone whowould but read the passage that he offered no argument at all for thLsInterpretation of the text. Since the passage has been read verydifferently by other scholars I must supply the argument, even at the nskof (abonng the obvIous.

Socrates IS explaining why he must decline the opportuOlty Cnto hasoffered him to escape. His explanation IS put Into a discourse by thepersonified laws of Athens. Since the latter are Socrates' mouthplece­what they say IS what he makes them say-the sentiments they Impute tohim must be hiS own1A [shall, therefore, report them as such. Thesentiment on which they dwell at greatest length IS hiS affectIOn forAthens and ItS laws-a sentiment that has the mtenslty of a romanticattachment:

T5 Cr. 528 l-C I' "0 Socrates, we have strong proof that both we and the cityhave been pleaSing to you. For you would not have been, above otherAthenians, exceedingly constant In your residence In the City, if it were notexceedingly pleaSing to you. Not even for a fesuval did you ever go out ofAthens, except once 10 the isthmian gameS-nowhere else, e"eept onmilitary service; nor did you make any ouc-of·town VISItS, like other folk,nor did the deSire ever selle you to know some other ClCy, some other laws:you have been sa!lsfied WIth IlS and wllh our city"

Like an mfatuated lover, Socrates can hardly bnng hLmself to part aSingle day from hiS beloved Athens. What IS It that keeps him so glued toIt over the years? The only thmg he mentlons here IS Athens' laws. Thecity and ItS laws appear conjunctively at the start ("both we and the cityhave been pleastng to you") and then again at theconclusLOn("you havebeen satisfied With us and With our City"). TheconJunctlon IS maIntamedIn the sequel:

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 499

T6 52cl-J: "So Intensely did you prder liS (houro sphodra himas helfou) andagree to condllct your CIVIC life m accordance with us that, among other thmgs,you had ehildren m II (sci!. theclty), whIch shows that the cIty pleased you (hasareskouses sOltes poleos)."

I translate helrou (literally 'chose') m Houto sphodra hemas helfou by"preferred'" that this IS what IS meant IS clear both from the context (thechOice In favor of the laws of Athens (hemos hlirou) IS depIctedthroughout the passage4 as expressing a preference for its laws overthose of other cities) and from the qualifymg adverb (not chOice per se,but preference, could be properly spoken of as "intense"). So the samedecISIon-to raIse a family m Athens-IS vIewed first as eVldencmg apreference for the city's laws ("so Intensely did you prefer ur'1 and thenagaIn, wtthout any mterjected explanatton, as eVIdencing hts preferencefor the city ("which shows that the city pleased you. ''). The very structureof the sentence shows that the object of Socrates' preference tS the sameIn each case: What pleases Socrates In the Ctty IS ItS laws; the laws speakof the city as "our city" (T5 above) and proceed to ask: "whom would acity please wIthout the laws?'''i

Now what IS 1t tn the laws of Athens that Socrates prefers to the lawsof "every other CIty, Greek or barbanan," mcluding the laws of Spartaand Crete6 and of Thebes and Megara?1 What IS It that sets off Athensmost dramatically from all four of those "well-governed"8 cIties? Inrespect of ItS civil and cnmlnallaw Athens would differ little from ItSneIghbors-scarcely at all from Megara, a hIghly commerctal City,whose economy, and hence ItS civil law, would be m all essentialsIdenttcal wtth that of Athens. The salient difference-the one that wouldleap to the eye of any Greekjuxtaposlng Athens against that quartet ofcities-would be tn the area of constItutIOnal law 9 In the Athemanconstitution democracy reached ItS apogee In fifth-century Greece,while each of those four constItutIons stood as clearly for oligarchy­extreme In the case of the Spartan and Cretan constItutIons, moderate In

the case of the Theban and Meganan. So while no mentIOn IS made ofeither democracy or oligarchy anywhere In the passage, there can be nodoubt that Socrates' preference for Atheman law IS 0 preference forAthens'democratlc constitutIOn. Each of the four oligarchtes Socrateshails as "well-governed"-as well he might m the case of Sparta andCrete, exemplars of law-governed, law-respectmg, law-obserVing con­duct throughout the Greek world (cL Hdt. 7,104). If Socrates were

500 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

companng Athens on thIs score with Sparta and Crete or even wIthThebes and Megara, he would certamly prefer any of them to Athensfor, as shall see, he thmks the Atheman record of law-observancedeplorably low. Thus his preference for Atheman over Spartan, Cretan,Theban and Meganan law could only be a preference for the democratlcform of government over the leading specImens of oligarchy He ranksthe ultrademocratlc constitutIOn of the undisciplined Athemans abovethe oligarchIc constttutlOn of the disciplined ("well-governed '') Thebansand Meganans and the still more undemocratIc constItutIOn of the stillmore disciplined Spartans and Cretans.

Can we take him at hIs word? If so, the case for my second thesIs hasbeen made. Is there any reason why we can't1To deny or doubt Socrates'preference for the Atheman constltutlon which IS expressed so forcefully10 the Cwo we would have to be convmced of one or the other or both ofthe followmg:

l. That this preference IS contradicted by other sentlments expressed by Socrateselsewhere In Plato's Socratic dialogues"

2. That It IS contradicted by OPIniOns vOlccd by SOcrates m Xenophon, our othermajor sOluce, and that we have eVidence mdependent of both Xenophon and Platofor ratm!! Xenophon's credibllity on thLs pomt more highly than Plato's.

I shall argue that Plato's testimony In the Cwo passage, as IOterpretedabove, IS unassailable on either of these grounds and should, therefore,be accepted as true.

On the first of those two POlOtS I can be fairly bnef. No harsherIOdictment of Atheman public conduct has survived than the one Platoputs Into Socrates' mouth In the Apology

T1 Ap. 31 D: "fellow Athemans, you should know that, if I had tned to do politICS(prallem ta polilika) long before this, I would have pemhed long before thIS,without dOIng any good elther to you or to myself. Don't be mcensed at me fortelling you the truth. There Isn't a man who would survIVe if he realty sethImself to oppose you or any other multitude, trYmg to block: the perpetratlOnof many InJUStlces and illegalitIes m the City."

He IS telling hiS fellow-cItizens that their polihcallife IS such aJungle oflawlessness and Injustice that aJust man who gets IOtO It determined tofight for Justice IS virtually slgmng hIS own death warrant. In the Gorgwsthere IS a no less savage attack on democratic leadershIp. Its theme ISthat m Atheman politiCS the ticket to power IS flattery of the demos. ThiSIS the first thing Socrates tells Callicles at the start of their debate, barelymanagIng to aVOId the extreme rudeness, the gross msult, of the

Vla.HOS I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 501

imputatiOn by resorting to banter, nnglng the changes on an atroClQUSpun: Callicles 1S as Ingratlatmg to the Atheman demos as to hiS younginamorato whose name is "Demos".

T1l Gorg. 481 DI·El; "It strikes me thaI you and [have had the same expenence­each of us has two loves: In my case, A1ciblades, son of Clintas, andphilosophy; In yours, the Athentan demos and Pyrilampes'son, Demos. Iperceive that, lhough you are very smart, whatever your boy-Jove asserts,however he says things are, you can't bear to conlradict hlm-you change upand down, So 100 In the Assembly, if you say somethmg and the Athemandemos says It Isn't so, you turn around and say whatever lhey want

And Socrates then pIcks the four greatest Atheman statesmen of thefifth century-Themlstocles, Miltlades, Gmon, Pencles'l-and has thebrass to say that they were no better than the current crop ofdemagogues, mdeed worse: those giants were more servile (diakon­ikoterOl, 5178) than are the shnmps who lead us now. That thiSJudgment IS harshly biased, mtemperate In the extreme, should not passunnottced: see Thucydides on Pencles as a corrective (2,65,8). Norshould we fail to notIce that Socrates IS represented as amng hiSferocIOUS cntlques of Athens In very public contexts. In the Gorgzas hehas a considerable audience: Gorg1as' Atheman clique has turned out Inforce along wIth many others. In the Apology there are 501 Jurors andwho knows how many hundred others 10 the audience. Socratesadvertises senhments which In the mlOd of malicIous (or even merelythoughtless) hearers would more than suffice to convict him, ofoligarchic partisanship. Much less would have sufficed to tar him withthIS brush. Isocrates, who had done no more to baIt the superdemocratsthan advocate a return to the conservative democracy which hIS fancylocates 10 Athens' earlier hIStory, says he had been warned that

T9 Isocr. Areop_ 37' "I ran the mk, even while glvmg you the best adVice, ofbemgthought an enemy of the people (mrsodemos) and of seekmg to lurn the citymto an oligarchy."

But let us not lose track of the maIO pOint In the present argument.The questIOn IS whether or not, 10 putting Into Socrates' mouth thoseblUer attacks on Athens' political life In the Apology and the Gorgzas,Plato IS undermlOlOg the credibility of hiS assurance In the Cruo thatSocrates finds the conshtutlon of Athens "exceedingly pleasmg" to himand prefers It to that of "any other City, Greek or barbanan." Theanswer, surely IS that he does not. Certamly there IS no contradictIOn. If Ibelieve that the laws of city A are better than those of city B, I IOcur no

502 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

Inconsistency In sayIng that cIty B observes ItS laws more faithfully thandoes city A. There IS nothing wrong wIth A's laws, I might explaIn; thefault lies with the people who abuse them. Th,s IS the vIew Socrates takesof the wrong done to hIm by the Jury that condemned him. At theconclusIOn of the discourse of the laws In the Cruo, they say to hIm:

no Cr 54B-C. ··Yo... will depart, wronged not by us, the laws, but by men"

For the wrong of hIs condemnation Socrates blames men, not Athemanlaw ThIs IS not because he thInks that law perfect (cL Ap. 37A7-BI), butbecause he thinks It a reasonable law under whIch faIr-mInded Judgescould and should have acqUItted him. By the same token he could haveheld that the mnocent people who were terror\1.ed by political black­mailers ("sycophants") In Athens are wronged by men, not by laws, andthat when Atheman politlcans betray the hIgh trust of theIr office byresort to flattery, It IS their personal depravity, not that of the law, whichIS to blame; if they had true Integnty they would rather die than flatter.

Thus neither 10 the Apology nor 10 the Gorgws-nor, I may add,anywhere In Plato's Socratic dialogues-does Socrates rescmd thatpersonal vote of confldence he gives the Atheman constitutIOn 10 theCruo. If we were to agree With Burnet that Socrates IS "an Irreconcilableopponent of the Penclean democracy" (188), WIth Hewnch Maler thatfor Socrates "democracy IS the most perverse of all forms of gov­ernment" (Sokrales [Tublngen, 1913],4(7), WIth W.K.C. Guthne thatSocrates held views which "contravened the whole basIs of Greekdemocracy" (History o/Greek Philosophy, VoL III [Cambndge, 1969],4(0), we would have to do so In defiance of Plato's testimony Tosupport such Views we would have to look exclUSively to XenophonY

Our star passage would be the follOWing:

TIl Xenaphan, Mem. 3,9,10, ··He said lhat kmgs and rulers are nallhase whahald lhe sceptre, nOr thase elected by chance peNons nor those who awe theirpower Ie force or deceptIOn: b... l thase who know how to rule. For once It wasgranted that It lS for the mler to order whal should be dane and for the ruledta obey, he proceeded to pOInt out that on a shIp he who has knowledge lS theruler. while the ShIp-owner and all olhers on hoard obey the One who hasknowledge [and so too In the case of farwlng, treatment of the SIck, phYSIcaltralllll\g, wool-spInning: those wha have knowledge rule.]"

Xenophon IS advertmg here to Socrates' cardinal doctnne that knowl­edge "is"ll vlftue, taking It to have a direct political Import, which heunderstands as follows: there IS a form afknowledge whose possessIOn IS

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHEN[AN DEMOCRACY 503

as necessary aqualificatlonfor serving as ruler In a polls as IS knowledgeof navIgatIOn for bewg the captain of a ship or knowledge ofagnculturefor serving as the manager of a productive farm. This knowledge, whichSocrates calls "the royal art ", 14 IS the Sille qua non of politlcal authority;a ruler who lacks It IS a fake; his authonty has no legitimacy What IS thepolitIca[!~ content of thiS art-what IS It knowledge of! That It ISknowledge of ruling IS umnformatlvely tautologous. What we need tolearn IS what the ruler must know w order to know how to rule. Thoughthere IS no direct answer to thiS In Xenophon, we candenve It from whatwe learn there of Socrates' view of the qUlntessentlal attribute of thegood ruler. On thiS Xenophon IS very dear;

TJ 2 Mem. 3, 2, 4: "When [Socrates] inq\.llred what IS the Virtue of a goad ruler, hestrlpped away everything but th1'5: making his follawers happy."

And how Xenophon understands Socrates'concepuon ofthe happlOess(eudatmoma) which the good ruler procures for his subjects we can seeno less clearly In the analySIS of the functIOn of a citizen whichXenophon puts lOto Socrates' mouth, I.e., of what each cItizen wouldcontribute to the city if hiS CIVIC actiVIties were well directed:

TI3 Mem. 4, 6,14: "Let \.IS mqUlre what \S the functlOn of a good CItizen. [n theadmlnlslratton of moneys IS not Ihe superior Cllizen he who makes Ihe citynCher1 In war, IS It not he who makes her prevail over her eneml,",s? [nembaSSies, he who makes fTlends for her In lieu of enemies? In publicoratory, he who allays CIVIC strife and produces harmony?"

Thus what Socrates takes to be the elements of CIVIC happiness,according to Xenophon, are matenal affluence, military supremacy,good relatIOns With other CItieS, good relatIOns among the CItizensthemselves. These are the thwgs the ruler must know himself if he IS todirect hIS subjects' efforts towards theIr attainment. He must haveknowledge of the vanous branches of statecraft-of public finance, ofmilitary SCIence, of the arts of diplomacy, of the rhetonc of CIVIC amity 16

Would AtheOian democracy pass muster when Inspected from thiSpOlOt of vIew? Its most distinctive political inStitutIOn, electIOn by lot,would suffice to damn It. Judged as a deVIce to snag for the offices of thepolis those and only those who possess the "royal art," electIOn by lotwould strike anyone as the "silly" thing Polycrates had charged andXenophon had conceded Socrates thought It to be, as we saw In T4above. One mIght try to extenuate the offense of democracy to the"royal art" by arguing that those elected by thiS deVIce were themagIstrates-subordinate officers of the adminIstratIon. But thiS would

504 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

overlook the fact that not only they were elected by lot. So was theCouncil-the probouleuttc and executive committee of the soverelgnAssembly And so were all the dicastenes, whose supreme Judicialauthonty was on a par with that of the sovereign Assembly. Anstotleunderlines the sLgnificance of thelr power:

Tl4 A/h, Pol. 9, 1 "When the people have sovereIgnty m the votmg [in thecOl.lrts],they become sovereIgn In the conslltutlOn,"

To be sure, for the appolOtment of the generals-the most lmportantexecutive officers of the state-Athens resorted to an alternativeprocedure whlch It shared with the oligarchies: electiOn by show ofhands Ln the Assembly. In theeyes ofXenophon's Socrates thiS would bea redeemmg feature-but not redeeming enough, given hls low oplO1onof the Intellectual level of the democratic electorate. ThiS LS how he talksabout It when trylng to persuade hts fnend Charmldes to speak beforethe Assembly:

Tl5 Mem. 3, 7, 5-6: "Vou speak unabashed and unmllmldated In the company ofthe most Intelligent and capable people, and yet yall are scared ta speak In thecompany af the feeblest and mast smpld. Of whom are yal.l fnghtened? Thefullers, cobblers, bl.lilders, coppersmllhs, farmers, merchants and thase whotraffic In the market, canng [or nolhlng bl.lt to buy cheap and sell dear-for ItIS from all these that the Assembly IS made up"

ThiS IS not formal doctrine. But It reveals clearly enough whatXenophon takes to be Socrates' attitude to the working classes ofAthens: to the people who make up the great bulk of the Assembly herefers as "the feeblest and most stupld" members of the CLVLC body Inanother well-known passage we see how, according to Xenophon,Socrates feels about that largest single segment of the workingpopulatiOn whLch he calls "banausoi"-a hLghly emotive term whLch noone would apply to them to theLr face, unless one wanted to Lnsult them:

TJ6 Ouonomrcu5 4, 2: "The so-called 'banal.lS1C' occupations are badly spokef\ ofand, qUIte naturally, are held Ln utter contempt III our CIlles. For they rum thebodies of those who work III them and o[ theIr foremen, forclllg them Intosedentary Indoor work. And as thel( bodics become womanlsh theIr souls toobecome much more debilitated, Moreover these so-called banauSlc craftsallow no leIsure for attentlOn to one's fnends and ta the CIty, so that suchpeople are thought bad both III dealing WIth fnends and III defending theIrfatherland. And In Some CIties, parllcularly those whIch are good tn war,cltl~ens are not even allowed to work m baf\auslc crafts"(cr. alsa Oec 6,4-9).

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY ~o~

Bypassing the folklonc psychophysIOlogy of the supposed effects ofdoor sedentary work on the body and therewith on the soul, let usconcentrate on the remark that banaUSlc occupatIOns allow no leIsure.Xenophon's Socrates thinks of them as closing off to the banausos thatarea m which the upperclass Greek locates the mtnnslcaUy worthwhileactLvltles of his life-musIc and poetry, sport, fnendshlp, politics. Wecan see In Anstotle where thIS line of thought takes us when pushedfurther by a powerful thmker. It diVIdes the populatIon of the polis Intothe "necessary" people, as Anstotte calls them, and the "beautiful"people, the "worthwhile" people (kalOl kagathol, chrestoi), as they liketo call themselves. It follows that when the purpose of the polis ISconceIved m the Greek way-to realize the good life for ItS cltlzens­CIVIC status should be limIted, so far as possible, to the beautiful people,and should mclude as few as possible of the necessary ones:

Tl7 Anstotle, Pol, 1278A7-J3: ~The best polis will not make the banausos aCltizen, But if he too 1$ to i)e a cltlzen, then what we preVIOusly saId was thecltlzen's vIrtue will not be for everyone-for every fr"''''man-but only (orthose who are exempt from the necessary servIces whIch slaves perform forIndiViduals, banausOl and lhetes for the public,"

ThIS IS the most fundamental pomt on whIch democrats and oligarchsdiVide. Democracy stands for mcluslve cltizenshlp-mcluslve ofbanausOl: all Athenians born of native Athenians are cltlzens of Athens.Oligarchy stands for exclusLve cLtlzenshlp---exclusLve ofbanausOl, so faras possible!?' of all Thebans born of native Thebans half or less would beCItIzens of Thebes. LB If Socrates had advocated disfranchisement of thebanausOl-whlch would have cut Athens' CIVIC rolls by nearly half-hewould have declared openly for oligarchy Given Xenophon's apologetLcmterests, hiS Socrates cannot be allowed to go so far. But no doubt IS left10 the reader's mmd where Socrates' preference would lie: If the banau­soi have CIVIC status they will swarm Into the Council and the dicastenesthrough the lot; they will have the sWIng-vote there as 10 the sovereIgnAssembly; the fate of"the most mtelligent and capable" members of theCLVIC body-the only ones who, by thedoctnne of the "royal art, "shouldhave any access at all to political office-will be at the mercy of theJudgment of the "feeblest and most stupid," entrusted to them by theoperatIOn of the lot. In the Socrates of Xenophon's Socratic wntmgs,upon the one hand, and of Plato's Socratic dialogues, on the other, wemeet two philosophers whose political sentiments are diametncallyopposite. The convIctIons of Xenophon's Socrates commit him to an

506 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

overwhelmmg preference for oligarchy over democracy Plato'sSocrates, though harshly cntlcal of lawless and unjust conduct m thecity of his birth, nonetheless prefers the constitution of that City-themost extreme democracy of his world-to that of every other stateknown to him, Including that of each of the "well-governed" oligarchieshe names.

Here I must face a powerful argument-so powerful that if I couldnot produce a completely adequate reply the whole of the foregolOgargument would be gutted: "But does not Plato's Socrates a/so hold thedoctnne of the 'royal art'? Would not thiS have the same antl-democratlcImport?" The answer, 10 a nutshell, IS that Plato's Socrates most cer­talllly has a doctrine of the "royal art"; but It IS not the same doctnne andhas no antl-democratlc Import. To see why thiS IS so we must go down tothe rock-bottom of Socrates' moral philosophy, the theSIS that virtue ISknowledge, and face up to the fact that the knowledge Socrates has IIIview 10 Plato's Socratic dialogues IS exclusrvely moral knowledge: It hasnothing to do With knowledge of the LOstrumentalihes of the good life; ItIS knowledge of ends or, more preCisely, knowledge of the end of thegood life, that umque end which IS for Plato's Socrates, unlike Xeno­phon's, the only thlllgwhich matters: the perfection of the soul, ItS moralperfection, on WhiCh, for Plato's Socrates, the whole of human happi­ness depends:

TI8 Gorg. 470E8_J I Polus. "What? Ii Ihe whok of happmess m th;!.t (sciL paldela

and JUSHce)?"Socrates. "Yes, Polus, that IS what I say. For Isay that the noble and good

man and woman tS happy, the unjust and wtd:ed wretched."

Every non-moral good-wealth, health, honor, pleasure, life Itself-ISImmatenal for human hapPlOess. Each of these goods IS worthless IIIand of itself(Eulhyd. 281 D-E); each of them may be evil mstead ofgoodunless we know how to use It 10 the service of moral Improvement:

TI9 Ewhyd. 288E7·289B2: "Even if we knew how to turn stones mto gold, suchknowledge would be worthless. For jf we did not know how to use gold, Itwould profit us nothtng. Even if thue were some knowledge Ihat wouldmake uS tmmortal, I'fwe did not know how to use our Immortality, even thatwould profit us nothing

ThiS hemg as true for our corporate as for our pnvate life, theknowledge which should direct the city IS the same as that which shoulddirect each indiVidual man and woman: knOWledge of the end, the sameend, perfectIOn of soul. Hence the cntenon of good statesmanship IS

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 507

ability to assLst the people of the city-aU of them, not Just those whohave leisure for the amenities-all the cLtlzens, Including, of course, thebanausOl. and all the non..<:ttlzens as well: everyone In the CLty, Includingthe slaves. ThiS, Callicles IS told In the Gorglas, IS how his excellence as astatesman should be JUdged:

T20 Carg. 515A4-7: -Say, I".., CaUid~s mad~ any Clll~ena bett~r mB.n~ h t"'~r~

anyon~, Clllz~n or ali~n, freeman or slav~, formerly wlCked-lInJlIst, di"so..Illt~, mt~mperat~-who has becom~ a good lind noble man because ofCallides1 M

Can we Imagine what a transvaluation of values this Socrates-Plato's,not Xenophon's-presses on his world In teHing an upper class Athenianthat the cntenon of his statesmanship is whether or not It Improves thesouls of the people of Athens-even the souls of sfaves?19Jn this concep­tIOn of human virtue the distinction between the "necessary" and the"beautiful" people IS Wiped out. There are no second-class souls.

This LS the knowledge-soul-perfecting knowledge-which Plato'sSocrates calls "the political art" and "the royal art'" the phrases are thesame as 10 Xenophon but theu content IS radically different, for In Platothey exclude those verycompetences which, as we saw above,lll are at theheart of the "royal art" for Socrates III Xenophon:

T21 EUlhyd.292B4-e1 "As for those other thmgs whIch mIght be saId to b~jong

to the polillcal art [= the royal art: 291 B4ff.]-and they are many, e.g. to makethe c1tl~ens nch, free[scil. from external dommatlon], undisturbed by factIon:Ihese Ihmgs have 114mI'd ow 10 be nel/her good flor ,,-vii. while what th~

CItizens ne~d, if they ar~ to be b~nefitt~d and mad~ happy, IS to b~ madewIse-to hav~ [moral] knowledge Imparted to th~m."

For Xenophon's Socrates the royal art LS statecraft-mastery of thegreat Illstrumentaliues of ClVIC happiness: wealth, military supremacy,good external relatIOns, harmonIOus mternal relatIOns. For Plato'sSocrates the royal art IS nothwg of that sort. It has no more to do Withthe art of fiscal prudence, of military SCience, of shrewd diplomacy, ofpersuaSive oratory, than With the art of makmg us Immortal or ofturning stones Into gold. 21 Needless to say, we cannot run a city Withouteconomists, generals, ambassadors, orators, and other masters of theinstrumentalities: public doctors, architects, engIneers, and so forth. Butall these speCialists should do their Job under the direction of the royalart, whose sole competence IS moral knowledge: expertise In determlOlOghow the IOstrumentalitles of statecraft can be used best In the Interest ofmoral perfectlOn. 12

508 POLITICAL THEORY! NOVEMBER 1983

This wi'sdom cannot be monopolized by members of the city's uppercrust, as It has to be for Xenophon's Socrates, for if it were, moral vLrtuecould only belong to few, while for Plato's Socrates Lt must belong toeveryone: everyone IS caned upon to make perfectiOn of soul thesupreme concern of hLs or her personal eXistence-everyone, alien andcLtIzen, slave and freeman, female and male. This IS the convictiOn whIchturns Plato's Socrates-not Xenophon's-lOto a street philosopher,whLch no philosopher had been before hLm and none would be after him,except perhaps the Cymcs, and they only as hIs spIrItual grandchildren:Socrates begat Antlsthenes and Antlsthenes begat DiOgenes the Dog.The can "perfect your soul" goes out to everyone, delivered personallyby Plato's Socrates to "anyone he runs IOtO" 10 the market or on thestreet:

T12 Apol. 290-308 "\ shall (lot ceas~ philosophIZIng and exhortmg you andexpostulatmg with each on.e of you I happen to run mto, saymg to him m mycustomary way:'O b~st of m~n, Athenian, Cltlz~n of the greatest elly, most hIghlyr~put~d for Its WIsdom and power, are you not ashamed to be conc~rtIed to mak~ asmuch money as pmsible and for reputation and pr~sllg~, while for WIsdom andtruth and for the greatest possible Improvement of your soul you have no car~ orworry1' These tl!mgs I will say to anyone I run mto, young or old, allen or Citizen

TheconceptlOn of the royal art whtch Xenophon ascribes to SocratesIS oligarchIc 10 the literal sense of that word: to pnncLple, Lt belongs onlytofew-those few who have had the leisure and other opportumtles toacquIre knowledge of statecraft-assunng them that, In virtue of theIrposseSSion of that knowledge, they and they alone are the legltlmaterulers of the city Should I say that the conceptIOn of that art whichPlato ascribes to Socrates LS democratIc 10 the same literal sense--Itbelongs to the demos'! No, for that would understate ItS scope: It IS forevery person, Including all those who did not belong to the AtheOiandemos-aliens no less than cttlzens, slaves no less than freemen, womenno less than men. n All are tnvlted to seek tt. But who, if any, will come topossess It rematns In doubt. So my argument should hew stnctly to theterms of my second theSIS, whose limIted scope should not be missed.

Let me remmd you of the terms Ln whLch I formulated that theSIS atthe start: the perceptlon of Socrates as a crypto-oligarch IS a mlS­perceptton. And let me recall the way I Sized up the Import of thePOSitive eVidence for that theSIS r have offered to thIS article-the onlypOSItive eVidence for It there IS: the three texts to the Crao. ThereSocrates declares hIS personal preference for the constttutton of hiS

VlastQ5! SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 509

natIve city-the most democratic constltutlon the mInd of man had yetconceIved. But he produces no theory to Justify that preference-noteven the adumbratIOn of a theory The word "democracy" IS nevermentIOned. The preference IS expressed wIthout nammg, or describmg,the form of government 11 represents, so afortlOfl wIthout producing, oreven suggestIng, a ratIonale for that preference. When I came to theconceptIOn of good statesmanship whIch IS expressed by hiS use of thephrase "the royal art," I contrasted It sharply wIth the use of the samephrase by Xenophon's Socrates, pOInting out that while the latter IS apolitical doctnne Ln the stnct sense of the term (it stipulates theconditions of legitimacy of the tenure of political power), the former LSproperly speaking a moral doctnne: It defines only the moraldimensLonof the statesman's vocatLon. That thiS moral doctnne has far-reachlOgpolitLcallmplicatlOns LS clear enough, since Lt obliterates the distInctionbetween the beautiful people and the necessary people which was themoral baSIS for the disfranchisement of large segments of the worklngpopulation In the oligarchLes. ThiS feature of Socrates' thought could beexpressed m Greek by the term demotikos, used by orators andhlstonans to deSignate the attitude of one who LS well-disposed towardsthe people, who IS philodemos Instead of mlSodemos. There IS no propercounterpart to demotikos Ln English; the nearest we can come to It LS byan extended use of"democratic." In that extended use of the term we cansay that Socrates' conceptIOn of the "royal an" IS democratic, though"demophilic"would be less misleading. The sentiment whLch It expresseslOcontrast to that conveyed by the use of the same phrase III Xenophon'saccount of Socrates may best be captured by projecting the twoconceptIOns on an Ideal plane: ImaglOe that all our hopes for what ISgood, beautiful and sensible for men and women were fulfilled. Then, ifwe follow Xenophon's Socrates, the spmt and structure of that fair CLty'Sgovernment would be profoundly oligarchLc: the knowledge and VIS Lonof a pnvileged leLsure class would rule the VISIOnless multitude. Not so ifwei followed the Socrates of Plato's Socratic dialogues: there everyoneof us would have the royal art, each of us would pursue the "exammedlife," we would all the ruled 10 our lOdivldual lives by our personalknowledge and VLSLon of the good. The bUSlOess ofgovernment would betransacted for us, for our benefit, by hLred techmclans-economlsts,generals, diplomats, legal experts, and so on, appomted by us andresponsible to us. These hirelings would be masters of state craft. 24 ThLswould be theLr umque qualificatIOn for office-not mastery of the royalart: thiS would belong no more to them than to the rest of us as theLnalienable pnvilege of our pursUlt of the life of vLrtue.

510 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

But what of the real Athens-the actual CIty, which no one, by anystretch of the ImagInatIOn, could think might come to be ruled, under Itspresent constitutIOn, by wisdom directmg every CIVIC activity towards asmgle Impenous end-perfectIOn of soul? Old Socrates hold vIewssubversive of "the established constitutIOn, "25 as those who prosecutedhIm and many of those who had voted agarnst him had believed? In thIsartIcle I have offered eVIdence that contrary answers must be given tothIs question, depending on whether or not we are to believe Xenophonor Plato. Ifwe believe Xenophon, our answer must be, 'Yes, they were­profoundly so.' The attack on election by lot would not of Itself compelthIs answer. The lot was vulnerable to cntlclsm on philodemlc grounds.As we know from Isocrates, one could take pot-shots at It withoutsurrendenng one's claIm to be a loyal democrat. H What would be fatalto that claIm IS the conVIction that, In the phraseology of TI ( above,only he who "knows how to rule" IS a true "ruler," l. e., that entItlementto office IS contmgent on satisfyIng a condition whIch only a smallmmonty of AtheOlans could hope to satIsfy· expertIse In statecraftcomparable to that of accomplished craftsmen 10 the performrng orproductive arts. It would follow from thIs vIew that to randomizedistrrbutlon of offices over a CIVIC body In whIch "the most feeble andmost stupld"(TI5) greatly outnumber the capable and Intelligent wouldbe to Insure, by the laws of statIstical probability, that the great maJorrtyof those offices would go to people whose tenure of office lackslegltlmacy The order of the magIstrate would then have no authontyunless ad hoc eVIdence were available that It proceeded on the requIsIteknowledge of statecraft. And the verdicts of the courts would have noauthonty, for who would want to argue that a ma.lonty of20 I or 50 lor1001 lot-selected Jurors were knowledgeable Junsts? To save thelegItImacy of Atheman government m the face of such a root-and­branch rejection of ItS procedures one mIght dredge up that currous bitof legal POSitiVIsm 10 Book IV of the Memorabilia27 whIch, sosurprrslngly, Identifies the Just WIth the legal. But this would beunavailing. For Atheman pOSI1lVe law, made In the last analySIS bylot-selected legIslative commiSSIons or by the sovereIgn Assembly,would Itself lack authorrty, since In those bodies those who do haveknowledge of statecraft would be greatly outnumbered by those whodon't.

Not so, If we are to go by what we learn In Plato's earlier dialogues.While Socrates there repeatedly makes unforgivably Intemperate allega­tIOns of wrongdOIng In AthenIan public life and attacks pay for publicofflce, whose effect on the character he conSIders corrupting (Gorg.

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHENfAN DEMOCRACY 5(1

5 L5E),21A he never attacks any other Athenran InstltutiOn, never says aword agaInst electiOn by lot, never says, or directLy ImpLies, thatknowLedge of statecraft IS a conditiOn of legItimate CIVIC authOrity Hetells his fnend III the pnvacy of his prison cell, where he could have nomotive for dissembling, that he prefers the laws of Athens to those ofanyother state known to him. He does not questIon the moral authonty ofthe court which condemned him even though he thmks Its verdict mostunjust. He gIVes morally weighty reasons, consIstent With all hIs otherViews, why every Athenran IS morally obLigated to obey every legal orderby ItS officers unLess he consIders It unjust, In which case he may protestItS mJustlce but must consent to punrshment if his protest provesunavailing. 18 Both m hIs doctnnes and In his personal conduct PLato'sSocrates IS profoundly and consistently LoyaL to the Athenran con­stitution.

Who then IS the true, hlstoncal, Socrates? Xenophon's or Plato's?WhIch of the two I believe It IS, you have already guessed. A declaratiOnof faIth on my part III thiS last gasp of the Lecture would be redundant.What you would like IS not faith, but knowledge-even a few crumbs ofIt wouLd be better than nothmg, if richer fare were unavailable. If yourdemand were as modest as that, I could meet It. I can offer you twogood-Sized crumbs. We do know of two thIngs which gIve us somereason for belieVing that the Socrates who preferred democracy tooligarchy IS the true one:

The first IS his aSSOCiatIon WIth Chaerephon, of whose strongLydemocratic partisanshIp there IS no doubt. In404 B. c., when the junta,supported by the Spartan occupatiOnal force, ruled Athens, Chaerephonfled to JOin the resistance under Thrasybulus and fought With that bandWhiCh, under desperate odds, Liberated Athens. Chaerephon had been"from youth" (Apol. 21AI) Socrates' fnend, his ardent, devoteddiSCIple: Anstophanes makes hIm Socrates'deputy, aLmost his equaL, Inthe Thlllkery 29 What sense couLd be made of that, if Socrates had been acrypto-oligarch?

The second thmg IS that Socrates had kept the admnatton of Lyslas,whose IdentificatiOn With the democratic cause IS also beyond doubt: ItIS manifest In the Lavish aId Lyslas had given from hIS own purse to theresIstance movement and In the sentlments VOiced In the speech he wrotefor the Atheman who opposed the motIon of Phormlslus whIch, ifpassed, would have disfranchised 5000 landLess Athemans. lo Lyslas,who had known Socrates well, sprung to the defense of his memory IIIthe debate that followed wlthm a few years of his death, prodUCIng anApology (schoL. by Arethas on Plato, Apol. 18B), probabLy In rebuttaL

5J2 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

of Polycrates' AccusallOn, whose attack on Socrates had been stronglypolitIcaL If Lyslas had thought Socrates an enemy of the restoreddemocracy, he could not have entered the lists on hiS behalf In thatdebate.

These WISpS of inference give us some reason to believe that fnends ofSocrates, who staked then lives and fortunes on Atheman democracy ata time when ItS survival hung on a thread, had felt that Socrates was onthen slde.)1

NOTES

1 Tnls paper represents work In progress, An earlier verSIOn of it was delivered onFebrl.lary 14, 1983, at the UnIversity of London as an S V Keeling Lecture and eliclledhelpful cntlclsms from colleagues who heard It Ihere, The5e critic15m5 have been onlypanly mel In the pre5ent Ver510n, whIch IS the teXl of an addres~ pre~entedSIX weeks later ata conference on AnCIent Greek Political Theory at the Graduate Center of the CityUnlver~lty of New York, organLzed by PrOfe5S0r MelVin Rlchler. I am well aware thaImuch still remains to bedone to Oesh Out It5 argument. (consent to Its publicallon onlybecau~e more preS5lng obligatlon5 will keep me at olher work for many months to come. (fIn [(5 still unfinIshed form II were to stLmulate others to gLveCrl!Lcal attentIOn to lhe tmthfor whIch It contend5, It may perhaps serve a u~eful purpose.

2, For lhe u5eofthese two lextsto illumlnateTI I am Indebted to K. R. Dover, "TheFreedom of lhe Inlellectual In Greek SocIety," Talama 7 (1975), 24ff.

2A. Pencles' most radical InnovatiOn-pay for dicastlc 5ervLCe-IS speclfLcaUyascribed by Amtolle (en 53B7-C3) 10 Damon's "adVIce."

3. For political LmplicatLons In tnls charge see en 57B-3, notIng the connectIon of"corrupter of the laws" at 67 wUh "corruptor of young and I.lnmtelligenl men" at C2,

3A, AttemplS to dnve a wedge between lne discour5e oflhe Laws and Socrates' ownopinIOns are repeatedly made. I have yet to 5ee eVIdence for them whlCh 5tands I.lp toexamination. Tnu~, most recerttly, Paul Woodruff (reView of R, E. Allert, Socwres andLegal ObligatIOn, m the Journal ofthe Hi£tory ofPhilosophy 21 (1983J, 93ff. at 94) claImsthat tne discourse "appeal5 to tne fal5e VIew lhat how people react to Socrales IS morallyrelevant" (but the allu510n al 54B7 is not to "people" but "10 Yol.lr own people"-people forwhose OpinIOn you do care) artd "appear~ to presuppo~e the odious possibilily that incaSeSnot Involvmg parents and guardian5 It could be permIssible to return narm for harm"(butwhat IS permissible al 54E6 IS llnllpOlem, nOlllnllldikem and anlikakourgem, whIch areclearly ruled out al 54C2-3),

4. ExpliCItly so at 52E-53A5: "But you did not prefer ellher Spana or Crete, whIchyou are always saymg are well-governed, nor any other CIty, Greek or barbanan Soclear It IS that to you, above otner AthenIans, the cIty and we the Jaws are exceedinglypleaslrtg: for whom would a Clly please wlthoul lhe laws?"

5, Note 4 above sub fin.6, Note 4 above.7 en 53B.

Vlastos I SOCRATES AND ATHENiAN DEMOCRACY 513

8. That eunomeHlhaJ as applied to Sparta and Crete at 52E and to Thebes andMegara at 53B refers primarily to good observance of the laws (rather than to thepossesslOn of good laws as such) IS clear In the latter passage: lhat Thebes and MegaraeunomountQI IS gIven as the e);:pbmatron of the hostile reception Socrates would get In

those Cities if he arnved there as Jail-breaker and "corruptor of the laws."9. In the converse case, when Socrates IS accused of fomentIng disrespect for the

"Iaws" of Athens, ItS constl/utLon IS dearly what IS mcant. The passage In Xenophonquoted In T4 above contInues: "Such arguments, said he [the accuser), led the young todespIse the establishcd cOn£rilulion [a vanant e"preSSlon for 'the established laws' at thestart of the quotatlon] and made them VlOlent."

10. Throughout thIS paper [proceed on the hypothesIs (for which I shall be arguingclscwhere) that In thIS early part of hiS corpus (and only here) Plato recreates views andargumcnts of the hlstoncal Socrates, depJCtlng thcm In conversatIons whIch are, for themost part, dramatiC fIctIon rather than bIOgraphy. For the dialogues whIch, In my VIeW,fall Into thIS part of the PlatonIC corpus sec my "Socrallc Elenchus," Oxford Studies In

AnCient Philosophy I (1983), 17ff, 'In, 2 and 65.II Gorg 515C-516E. That the selecllon of these names cuts across party lines has

often been notrced, Cimon, the staunch conservatlve, friend of Sparta, f1anks Pencles, hISarchnval, the architect of akw demokratia, Anstotle's bere nOIre.

12, A qUlck look at the telttual evtdence these scholars cite for those opInIons willshowthat, WIth but one exception, all of It comes from Xenophon. The exceptlOn 'S Pn319C-D: HavlOg Just pOinted out that when some technlcal tOpIC IS up for conSIderatIonbefore the Assembly, only eltpert testlmony 's welcome, Socrates proceeds:

But when there's need to deliberate about public policy, a builder will get up toadv'se or acoppersm,th or acobbler, a merchant, an ,mporter, (lch or poor, of h,ghor low birth, and no one rebukes h,m, as lO the former case, for offenng adVIceWIthout havmg acqUired a(ly knowledge or ever haVIng had a teacher, Clearly, theythmk that [thiS sort of knowledge] cannot be taught."

To find In thIS remark "cruel scorn for the whole of Athenlan democracy" (HemflchMajer, 418, 'I, 1) one would have to read Into It the anti-democratic anlmus whIchXenophon Imputes to Socrates, OtherWise there would be nothmg In the text to Indicatethat the procedure here described IS absurd or even the least bIt unreasonable. ConSIderthe debate on Mytilene (Thuc. 3, 36f£.) and the ones that followed on Torone, SClOne, andMelos, as the wardragged on. One can hardly lmagme aquestlOn of greater moral urgencythan genoCJde as an ,nstrument of lmpenal policy. If the Athen,ans believed that moralexperllSe were available for consultation, Plato's Socrates (Cr. 47A-4SA) would inSiSt thatthiS, and thIS alone, should dec,de the ,ssue. BelieVing as they do that It IS unavallable, whyshould he think It unreasonable of them to open It up for diSCUSSIOn by everyone who IS toshare In moral responsibility for the deCISion?

lJ. The precise ,mpon of the copula In thiS claSSical formula IS a tOPiC for a separate'nvestlgat!on, For my purposes In the present essay It suffices te gIve It ItS mln,mal sense,that of necessary Interentailment: all those who have vIrtue necessarily have knowledgeand vIce versa.

J4. He tells young Euthydemus, aspirant to polillcalleadershlP In Athens: "You deSirethat ex-cellence through wh,ch men become po!irikm and oikonomikOl and capable ofruling and being useful both to others and to themselves, You deme the noblest

514 POUTICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

excellence and the greatest art, for It belongs to kIngs and IS called 'royal''' (Mem, 4, 2, 1[),[5. For IlS moral content see espectally the dialogue With AnstlppUS, Mem. 2, 1 [n Ihe

"royal art" (2, I, 17) the laUer .sees a rule of life which lOureS men to Ihat diSCiplinedendllrance of hardshIp and sacrifice of gratificallon throllgh which one earns one's place InIhe master-class. Thlls the moral component of the "royal art" IS thaI characten.stlcXenophonllc Virtue, enkratela, WhIch, acconng to Xenophon, Socrates conSIders the"foundallon(kreplda)of all vtrtue"(Mem. 1,5,4: d. 2, I, I and 4, 5, l, 10 Plato's SocratIcdlalogues enkralew IS never SIngled Ollt as a specIal Virtue on a par WIth the canomealfive-the word enkra/ela never occurs In the Socratlc dialoglles, only the adjecttveenkrales [once, 10 1tS commonplace use, Gorg, 491 OJ).

16. Altachlng supreme Hnponance 10 the firstlwo (to both of Ihem In conJunction, forhe takes them to be closely Interconnected: see the dialoglle wtth Nicomachtdes, Mem. 3,4), Socrate, enjOIns e"pertlse In Ihem to Ihose who hold hIgh office In Athen.s Or whoasptre, Or should aspire, to H; to Pencles' son, now general (Mem, 3, 5), to Glaucon (3, 6),(Q Charmtdes (3, 7), In marked contrast 10 the Socrates deplCled In Plalo's SocratIcdialogues, Xenophon's Socrales appear.s to be hIghly expert In pllblic finance and militarysCIence; he IS 10 a pOSttlOn to offer detailed adVIce 10 these areaS to Pencles and to Glaucon(Mem. 3, 5-6)

17 Phormlstus' proposal to restrict cltl:l:enshlp 10 those who owned land, whIch wOlildhave disfranchIsed no more than 5,OOO~approxlmatelya quarrer of the CtVIC body (sadlydepleted by Ihe precedlng CIvil war) strikes the hIghborn Atheman who opposes It asexpresslOg the sentIments of those "who to thetr heart were wHh the men of the city [theoligarchs who supported the Thtrty] and only by aCCident found Ihemselve.s on the sLde ofthe men of Petraeu.s [the democrats IInder Thrasybullls]" (Lyslas, Or. 34,2 [c. Hude, ed.(Oxford,19[2)).)

18. (n an earlier stlldy ("lsonomla Politike." (irst published 10 1964, reprtnted 'n myPlalOmc Studies[Prtnceton, 1973; second edillon, 1981], 164ft at 179, nn 63-64) [allowthat the figure mtghl be slighlly hLgher than 50%, notIng, however, that ps.- Herodes, PerlPoli/elas (30, 3[) "gIves the [;3 ratIo of aellve C1tlzens to the rest [of the nallve population]as the smallest to the oligarchLes established by Sparta (at the end of Ihe PeloponneslanWar)," MartLn Ostwald, Nomos and Ihe Begmmngs of Atheman Democracy (OxJord,1966) 118, nn. 3 and 5, favors the I 3 ratIo and I, Cited as the authonty for that figure to

Nancy Demand, Thebes In the Fiflh Century (London, 1982), p. 16 J. M. Moore,Am/otle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy (London, 1975), 129, OptS for ahIgher figure: "a little under one half the pop illatIon had full rights,"

19. See also the Slmilardescnpllon of the teacher whose mISSion IS to care for souls 10the UJches( (868): 10 qualify one should be able to show "which Athenians Or aliens, slavesor freemen, have become admmedly good men becallse of htm."

20. Note the place of the oikonomikos 10 the deSCrtptlOn of the "royal art" in Mem. 4, 2,11, CLled In n. 14 above. 80th economic and military sCLence are pnmc qlIalificauons forthose who are, or should be, holding hLgh polittcal office: n, 16 above

21. As IS clear at T21, even the appeasement of CIVIC strife-to which Socrates mIght beexpected 10 altach direct moral Lmportance-ls eXcilided from thc scopc of Ihe royal art

22. "To thiS art both the general's and thc other arts [of the economL~t, doctor, el al..289A5-6) turn over their several products to be governed by It, ~IOCC only It knows how touse them" (Ewhyd. 291 C7 -9). The notion Ihat IhlS art should do the work of the general,economist, and the like, LS debunked In the deceltfll[ fantasy ("dream of hern") LO theCharm, (I73A-DJ whe<:e moral wLsdom (sophrosyne) IS given the Job of insunng that the

Vla~tos I SOCRATES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 515

va[lou~ craft~men edoctor, general, or anyone el~e"[173Bl-3]) should do theIr work withtechnical competence (uchniko£): if, per Impombile, theJob were done, we would ~till notknow if, as a resuit, "we would do well and would be happy" (173D4)

13. Note the conJunc!ton, "men and women," in T 18 above, For Socrates moral vIrtueI~ the same In women a~ In men (Meno 720-73B).

14. Thts l-S what Socrates thlOks the holders of governmental office should be:craftsmen htred to ply thetr craft for the exclUSive benefit of the governed (Rep (,346E-3470),

15 Cf. T4 above 10 conjunction with n, 9.16 Ar('op, 13: Our ancestors thought elec!ton ek prokrJ/on "more favorable to the

people (demoliko/eran) than was ~orutlon: lInder the latter chance would dectde the tSSlieand a partisan of oligarchy wOlild often get the office. ,. Elsewhere (Plalomc Swdies.pp, 186-188, and nn 87 and 88) I have arglied against clas~ifYlng /socrates as a pro­oligarchIC Athentan. A man whose propo~ed reforms, however reactlOnary, entail nodisfranchtsement oflandle~sand banaU~ICCItizens and leave the demos WIth the sovereignpower "to appoint the maglstrate~, punIsh mIsdemeanors and adjudicate disputes [i,e"wtth plenary electLve and jlldiclal powers]" (Areop. 16, and d, Panalh 147), tS nOl anadvocate of oligarchy.

17 Mem 4,4,11: Socrates "( say that what IS legal (nomJmon) tS JUs!''' Hipptas:"Socrates, do you mean that the legal and the Just are the same?" Socrates: "! do."

17A. Though the attack tS Indirect (Pencles IS reproached for havlOg made theAthenIans "idle and cowardly and talkative and greedy, haVing be("n thc fir~t to establishpay for public office"), It tS clear enough and (do not Wish to underestimate Its tmportance.(t warrants the Inference that hl~ politLcal sentlme"ts were conservatlve--whtch would beentLrely conslstenl WIth the preference for democracy OVer oligarchy, as we know from thecase of (wcrates,

18, Cr<. 51B8-CI "(n war, In law-court, ewrywhere, one must do what one's Ctty andfatherland commands or persuade her as to the nature ofjlIstlce," For the Interpretatton ofthIS much debated text ( am Indebted to R Krallt, "Plato's Apology and Cnto: TwoRecent Studies" (EthICS 91 [1981], 651 ff. at 6(4): "The wizen may disobey but only Oncondit Lon that he J"stify hIS act In an appropriate forum The persliade-or-obeydocmne LS the Sacratlc analoglie «l the contemparary dactrlne of consclenttous refusal."The case for Kraut's textual exegesIs will be ~trengthened if we note that In the Cited textthe verb pel/ho, whLCh comes throllgh the tran~lattons as "per~uade," is, unlike the latter,nOl a "sllccess-verb" thliS Socrates Ln the Apology spend.s all day long "persuading"(30E7,31 B5) people wham he daes nat conVlOce. If Socrates had believed that he was j lIstified Lndi.sobeYlng a legal command only if he had reasonable praspects of convincing a court oflaw that the command was unjust, the effectIve scope of permIssible disobedience wOlild be.sadly reduced

29. For the references see my revIew of Ellen and Neal Wood, Clas,. Ideology andAnoent Polilleal Theory, In Phoemx 34 (1980), 347ff. at 351

30, For the references see my reVIeW of The Accust'T£ of SocrateS (in Greek) by E. N.Platls, 10 Amencan Journal of Philology 104 (1983), 10 Iff. at 106

31 (want to record my gratitude to the Hastings Center for appolntlOg me SemorVisttlng Scholar dllrlng 1981-1983. ThIS arttcle IS a partial olitcome of studies In thephilosophy of Socrates which my reSidence at the Center enabled me to purslle lIndertdeally congemal and lOvlgoratlOg conditions.

516 POLITICAL THEORY I NOVEMBER 1983

Gregory Vlaslos Is 5IUart Professor of Philosophy. Emeritus, at Pr",celon. Inrecent years he has been Mills Visiting Professor", the Department of Philosophyat the Umversity of Califorma. Berkeley. During the presentacad£mu:: year he ISDiSlinguHhed Professorlal Visiting Fellow al Chmt 's College, Cambrldge Unrver­sity. He was John wcke UClUre' '" Oxford'" 1960. Gifford UClUrer at theUmversity of 5t Andrews", 1981. He IS a member of the American Academy ofArts and SClencesand Corresponding Fellow ofthe British Academy. His publica­lions haw been mainly In the a'ea of Greek philosophy.