Socrates: A Man for Our Times Read Online Free

and that such was to be his occupation but not his profession: He would take no pay. Hence one of his objects was to reduce his needs to an absolute minimum. He took delight in this process, deliberately nourishing negative appetites. He observed the shop displays in the Athens agora (marketplace) and said, “How many things I can do without!” He also liked to observe the prices, and exclaim: “How expensive Athens is!” then, the next moment, “How cheap Athens is!” Various sayings survive in different forms: “Some men live to eat. I eat to live.” “Hunger is the best aperitif .” “I only drink when I am thirsty.” When someone offered him land to build a house, “Would you give me leather to make shoes?” “Greedy people don’t appreciate delicacies.” He kept fit in the stadium and gymnasia: “A healthy body is the greatest of blessings.” He “frequently danced,” saying, “It is good for me.” He did not disdain drinking, in company, but was never seen drunk. But there is an image of him, at a feast, drinking from a large, wide vessel known as the Silver Sea. He said, “Those who drink a lot don’t relish rare wines.” Asked “What makes a young man virtuous?” he replied, “Avoiding excess in anything.” He said, “Poverty is a shortcut to self-control.” And “Leisure is the most valuable of possessions.” And “Nothing is to be said in favor of riches and high birth, which are easy roads to evil.”
    Socrates was, by the standards of Greece in the fifth century B.C., an ugly man. For the Greeks set a high value on regularity of features and a head and face we would call Byronic. Alcibiades, a spectacularly handsome man, compared Socrates to Silenus. Socrates said the same. He did not mind the comparison at all. Silenus represented, among men, the spirit of the wilderness, being half animal. The satyrs were similar. These creatures were the organic origin of Athenian comedy, and the first comics wore Silenus masks on the stage. These and the stone portraits of Silenus that have survived (usually in Roman copies) are remarkably similar to stone, marble, or bronze representations of Socrates that have come down to us, in copies of copies. It is likely that, soon after Socrates’ death, a bronze statue was made of him for Athens to set up in a public place in expiation of the crime the city had committed against him. Many Roman copies, usually in marble, survive. Often the body is missing and only the head survives. There is one in Berlin, another in Copenhagen. In the Borghese Gallery, Rome, there is a composite statue, of which the arms and hands and other bits are modern, the head Roman. All these are Silenus-type in face but with human ears. Two are inscribed SOCRATES. There is also, in the British Museum, an alabaster statuette of Socrates, probably from Alexandria, a Roman copy of a Greek fourth-century-B.C. bronze.
    These all confirm the information from literary sources that Socrates was bearded, hairy, with a flat, spreading nose, prominent, popping eyes, and thick lips. In Xenophon’s Symposium, he is recorded as challenging Critobulus to a contest in beauty. As usual, he was joking, speaking with his customary tone of irony and self-deprecation. The dialogue begins, “Why, Critobulus, do you flaunt your looks, as if you were more handsome than me?” “Oh, I know I am inferior to you in beauty, Socrates, and therefore I must be even uglier than Silenus.” Socrates continues, using his usual method of cross-questioning: “Are only men handsome?” “No. A horse or a bull can be handsome. Even a shield.” “How is it that such different things can all be handsome?’ “Because they are well made, by art or nature, for their purpose.” “What are eyes for?” “To see.” “For that reason my eyes are more handsome than yours.” “How so?” “Yours can see only in a direct line. Mine can do that but sideways too, because they stick out so.” “And is your