Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 2

25 May 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 2

Continuing with my notes on Plato’s dialogue, Phaedo, using the Harold North Fowler translation:

Echecrates:  Then what did he say before his death? And how did he die?  I should like to hear, for nowadays none of the Phliasians go to Athens at all, and no stranger has come from there for a long time, who could tell us anything definite about this matter, except that he drank poison and died, so we could learn no further details.

Phaedo:  Did you not even hear about the trial and how it was conducted?

Echecrates:  Yes, some one told us about that, and we wondered that although it took place a long time ago, he was put to death much later.  Now why was that, Phaedo?

Phaedo:  It was a matter of chance, Echecrates.  It happened that the stern of the ship which the Athenians sent to Delos was crowned on the day before the trial.

Echecrates:  What ship is this?

Phaedo:  This is the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus once went to Crete with the fourteen youths and maidens, and saved them and himself.  Now the Athenians made a vow to Apollo, as the story goes, that if they were saved they would send a mission every year to Delos.  And from that time even to the present day they sent it annually in honour of the god.  Now it is their law that after the mission begins the city must be pure and no one may be publicly executed until the ship has gone to Delos and back; and sometimes, when contrary winds detail it, this takes a long time.  The beginning of the mission is when the priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship; and this took place, as I say, on the day before the trial.  For that reason Socrates passed a long time in prison between his trial and his death.

(Ibid, pages 201 & 203)

1.  Socrates was a well-known personage in Greece.  For example, his personality appears in plays like The Clouds by Aristophanes.  And Socrates interacted with famous people like Alcibiades and more than a few Sophists who had large followings.  I think we can look at the trial of Socrates as similar in impact to a famous trial today, a trial of someone whose life is followed in the news and on social media.  When something happens to a famous person, people want details as to what happened.  But sources are often unreliable, biased, or have only partial knowledge.  That is why Echecrates is so eager to get the details of what happened to Socrates, and of Socrates's words and demeanor, from a first-hand source.

(As an aside, the fame of Socrates gave rise to a lot of writing after his death.  Plato was not the only one who wrote of the events leading to the death of Socrates.  Scholars note that there were quite a few.  The only other ones that have survived to today, other than Plato, are the writings by Xenophon on Socrates; Apology and Memorabilia.)

2.  The legend of Theseus that is alluded to is the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur.  Theseus was the son of Aegeus, King of Athens.  To understand the role of Theseus we have to know the background:  The King and Queen of Crete sent their eldest child, Androgeus, to the Panatheniac Games that were held in Athens.  Androgeus was a star athlete and won a number of contests.  Out of jealousy, Pallantides, assassinated Androgeus.  This incurred the wrath of Minoan Crete and the King and Queen demanded that Aegeus, the King of Athens, turn over the assassins.  King Aegeus did not know who the assassin(s) were.  The result was that Athens agreed to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete at regular time intervals (the exact timing varies according to sources).  The 7 youths and 7 maidens were then sent to the labyrinth in Crete that housed the Minotaur, a creature half bull and half man (the drawings I have seen are a man with the head and chest of a bull).  The minotaur would hunt down the youths and maidens and kill them.

On the third cycle, Theseus volunteered to be one of the youths.  When in Crete, Theseus met Ariadne, who was the daughter of the King and Queen of Crete.  They fell in love.  Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread, or twine, so that Theseus could find his way out of the labyrinth if Theseus was able to kill the Minotaur as was his plan.  Theseus’s plan was successful and he was able to free all the youths and maidens from the labyrinth and return to Athens.  However, Theseus had told his father that he would replace the black sails of their ship with white ones if Theseus had been successful.  But Theseus forgot and when King Aegeus saw the black sails, he assumed his son was dead.  In grief, Aegeus took his own life by throwing himself into the sea (hence the name the ‘Aegean Sea’). 

The Athenians, grateful for having been freed from the Minotaur, celebrated each year by sending a ship to the island of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, which had a temple dedicated to Apollo.  Apollo was strongly connected to Athens as well as to Plato; in the biographies of Plato, Apollo plays a significant role.  During this celebration Athenians dedicated themselves to Apollo by keeping the city pure; one of those acts of purity was that there could be no executions during this period of celebration.  The period of celebration began when the ship departed from Athens, and ended when the ship returned to Athens from Delos.  The trial of Socrates began on the day that the ship departed from Athens to Delos.  The trial lasted only a day or two.  This meant that though Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death, the actual carrying out of the death sentence was delayed until the ship returned from Delos (I don’t know exactly how long that was in this case; if winds were contrary it could be a longer period of time).  It was during this period that Socrates spoke to his students, and others, on a daily basis, up until his last day, depicted in the dialogue.

3.  For Athenians reading Phaedo all this myth/story/legend would  have been part of their cultural background.  It would be like an American saying ‘the fireworks on the 4^th of July’, a reference which would have been easily filled out by anyone who grows up in the U.S., along with the various stories that are a part of it.  More than 2,000 years later, when we read this reference it is unfamiliar to us and for that reason the dimension of meaning contained in this allusion will be lost to our understanding.

4.  In interpreting the connection between Socrates and Theseus, based on this allusion, we can start by a kind of loose association.  For example, the labyrinth represents the twists and turns of our lives and that we are often ‘lost in the labyrinth’ and don’t know what our direction is.  Both Socrates and Theseus represent figures who have cut through this kind of confusion.

At another level, both Theseus and Socrates were redeemers, or ‘saviors’, of Athens.  In Apology Socrates states that his life has been of great benefit to Athens and that he was lead by a divine personal spirit guide to bring the wisdom of philosophy to the Athenians.  Theseus saves the youth of Athens physically.  Socrates saves the youth of Athens, and Athens in general, spiritually.

The connection to Apollo, as I mentioned above, likely has multiple dimensions, many of which I am not aware of.  But myths/stories/legends like Theseus and the Minotaur often reveal deep layers of meaning over time.  And the connections between Socrates and Theseus will, I suspect, also become clearer over time.

5.  The symbol of the Minotaur, half man/ half bull, who devours innocent youths and maidens, is a symbol of a man completely taken over by destructive passions.  Theseus symbolically slays these passions and saves himself and all of Athenian society.  Socrates is someone who has slain the same destructive passions; but unlike Theseus, Socrates is not able to save himself after having done so and Athens does not comprehend the loss.

5.1  In the 'Introduction' to the Focus Philosophical Library's edition of Phaedo they have this to say about the relationship between Phaedo and Theseus:

"The Phaedo's recollection of Socrates is a perplexing blend of logos and mythos, argument and story.  As we hear early on, Socrates' death had been delayed -- by 'a bit of chance,' as Phaedo says.  Every year, the Athenians, in accordance with their vow to Apollo, send an embassy to Delos.  Before this embassy returns to Athens, the city must keep itself pure and not put anyone to death.  The embassy commemorates Theseus' rescue of the fourteen young Athenians (the Twice Seven, as Phaedo calls them, in keeping with the fact that the group was composed of both youths and maidens) from the Minotaur or Bull-man of Crete.  The Phaedo is a playful recasting of this well-known myth.  Socrates is the new, philosophic Theseus.  He is the heroic savior of the friends gathered around Socrates as he is about to make his final journey -- fourteen of whom are named [They will be named by Phaedo shortly].  And their discussion of the soul and her fate, particularly in the final and most problematic stage of the argument, indeed resembles a logical labyrinth.  Phaedo himself plays an important role as the fifteenth named member of the group around Socrates: He is the Ariadne whose narrative thread leads us into and through Plato's labyrinth of arguments.

"But who or what plays the role of the Minotaur?  From what, in other words, must Socrates' companions be saved?  Is it their fear of death?  Or is it the great evil known as misology or 'hatred of arguments,' the evil which, near the center of the dialogue, threatens to drown the conversation in disillusionment and despair?  Or perhaps these are meant to be taken together -- as the two 'horns' of a dual-natured monster.  This much is clear: The dialogue becomes ever richer as we try to think through the many points of contact between it and the myth it mimics.  By the time we reach the very end of Phaedo's thread, we wonder: Is the Minotaur -- whether as the fear of death or the hatred of argument -- ever slain once and for all?  Or, as its bullheadedness suggests, is it slain only to keep coming back to life again and again after each defeat?"

(Plato, Phaedo, translated by Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, and Eric Salem, Focus Philosophical Library, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1998, pages 2-3, ISBN: 9780941051699)

6.  I suspect that the purity of Athens during the imprisonment of Socrates is symbolic of the purity of Socrates himself.  Purification is a central idea, and practice, in the Platonic tradition and this idea will come up a little later in the dialogue when Socrates talks about the life of a philosopher and the ascetic practices that such a life entails.  In a symbolic sense, Socrates has to die when Athens is no longer pure because the ship has returned from Delos because Athens itself is no longer engaging in its own cultural practices of purification.  There is a kind of resonance happening between Socrates and Athens as a whole.