Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 288–89.
he ceased “to engage in public affairs”: Plato, Apology, 23b; useless is the word Pericles used in his famous funeral oration, according to Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, II, 40.
“He sometimes stops and stands”: Plato, Symposium, 175b.
“One time at dawn he began to think”: Ibid., 203d.
his avowed humility seemed obnoxious: Following the account in George Grote, History of Greece (London, 1869–70), 8:211–12, who stressed the publicity of Socrates’ way of life and the public criticism it provoked.
This was perhaps the most disturbing aspect: Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 4.7, 1127b25, mentions Socrates in the context of discussing boastfulness and false modesty.
“Often when he looked at the multitude of wares”: Diogenes Laertius, Lives, II, 25.
“They relate that Euripides gave him”: Ibid., 22.
“Frequently owing to his vehemence”: Ibid., 21.
In busts erected shortly after his death: See Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 43.
his friends compared him with Silenus: Plato, Symposium, 216d–e.
“A foreigner who knew about faces”: Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols, “The Problem of Socrates,” 3. Zopyrus was the subject of a Socratic conversation by Phaedo, once famous, now lost. See Charles Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 11.
“I am a poor man”: Diogenes Laertius, Lives, II, 34.
Socrates was walking on a narrow street in central Athens: Ibid., 48.
“Aristippus, when he met Ischomachus at Olympia”: Plutarch, De curiositate, 2, 516c.
“the high priest of subtlest poppycock”: Aristophanes, Clouds, 359.
“You strut around like a grand gander”: Ibid., 363.
When his school goes up in smoke: Ibid., 1508; and see the classic essay by K. J. Dover in his Greek edition of the play (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
“Soon a large number of high-born men”: Plutarch, “Alcibiades,” 4.
There is no Greek or Latin word: See K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).
“The fact that Socrates was in love with him”: Plutarch, “Alcibiades,” 4.
“When I arose after having slept with Socrates”: Plato, Symposium, 219c–d.
How Socrates set about trying to effect this transformation: See, e.g., R. S. Bluck, “The Origin of the Greater Alcibiades,” Classical Quarterly 3, no. 1/2 (1953): 46–52.
“You want your reputation and your influence”: Plato, Alcibiades, 105c.
“I must be in some absolutely bizarre condition!”: Ibid., 116e.
“Don’t you realize that the errors”: Ibid., 117d.
“trust in me”: Ibid., 124a–b.
“The command that we should know ourselves”: Ibid., 130e.
What Alcibiades needs to prosper: Cf. Plutarch, “Alcibiades,” 2. As Plutarch puts it, he needs to forge a character (ethos) strong enough to master the strength of his passion (pathos).
“I will never forsake you now”: Plato, Alcibiades, 132a.
“I should like to believe that you will persevere”: Ibid., 135e.
“ ‘He crouched down in fear’ ”: Plutarch, “Alcibiades,” 4.
In Plutarch’s account: Ibid., 6.
“it was by pandering to his ambitious longing”: Ibid., 6.
“He could change more abruptly than a chameleon”: Ibid., 23.
“the notable men of Athens”: Ibid., 16.
After he set sail with the Athenian fleet: For the whole story, see Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, VI–VIII.
According to Xenophon: Xenophon, Memoirs, I, 2.36.
According to Plato, Socrates refused: Plato, Letter VII, 324e–325a.
“Socrates does injustice”: Diogenes Laertius, Lives, II, 40. Cf. Plato, Apology, 24b–c.
“What does the god mean?”: Plato, Apology, 28e.
“This began when I was a child”: Ibid., 31c–d. Cf. Xenophon, Apology, 12–13.
“Do you know anyone who is less a slave to bodily desires?”: Xenophon, Apology, 18.
It is they who should stand trial: Cf. Miles Burnyeat, “The Impiety of Socrates,” Ancient Philosophy 17 (1997): 1–12.
He insisted instead on fulfilling the letter: Plato, Crito, 51b.
“aped the manners of Sparta”: Aristophanes, Birds, 1280–83. The verb socratize was a coinage of the comedian.
“a Socrates idealized and made new”: [Plato?], Letter II, 314c.
The Socratic conversations mark one of the first important experiments: See Momigliano, Development of Greek Biography, pp. 46–48, and Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, pp. 1–35.
the genre itself, as Aristotle observed: Aristotle, Poetics, 1447b11.
The “Socrates” of Antisthenes: Most of this paragraph is paraphrasing Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, p. 4.
“a paradise of inconclusive guesswork”: Burnyeat, “The Impiety of Socrates,” p. 1.
And skeptical though he may be: Cf. the discussion in Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, pp. 88–95.
His enemies suspected Socrates: See the discussion in Nehamas, The Art of Living, pp. 46–98.
“Throughout my life, in any public activity”: Plato, Apology, 33a.
“From me you will hear the whole truth”: Ibid., 17b–c.
“neglected what occupies most people”: Ibid., 36b.
He consistently says only what he thinks to be true: Ibid., 32d.
In his landmark study The Great Philosophers: Karl Jaspers, The Great Philosophers: The Foundations, ed.