Rick Riordan and Socrates Part 2

A man is handed a Persian-style drinking horn in the Cella frieze at the British Museum.

After reading Rick Riordan's novels about Percy Jackson and his fellow demigods, I took the time to read some of Plato's works: Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Instead of looking forward, and propounding his own views on life, the Greek philosopher devoted these stories to the death of his mentor Socrates. In sum, they demonstrate what Socrates believed, and when public sentiment in Athens turned against him, why he felt the need to die by drinking poison, rather than opt for exile, or escape the city with the help of his friends.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Socrates was seventy years old when he died. I couldn't help wonder why the Athenians, usually described as the most open-minded and rational of the ancient Greeks, would decide to put this old man to death after accepting his teachings and community involvement for so long. While Plato portrays his mentor as a  man with all his wits, he wasn't present when Socrates drank the hemlock. And it's a fact of life that often, despite our best efforts, we lose mental, as well as physical function, as we age.

The ancient Greeks viewed stages of life such as birth and death, as well as certain illnesses and types of sexual activity, as influences that could corrupt or pollute their society. Plato clearly wanted to memorialize Socrates, and preserve his philosophy, by portraying him at his most rational. But what if Socrates had trouble remembering things? What if he started to rant, began to repeat a handful of arguments, or stopped physically taking care of himself.

Lapses in memory and mental function could have worried ancient Athenian doctors, as well as the priests in the temples of their gods. Had the gods cursed Socrates? Had they afflicted him with madness? In an era when people believed the gods protected them from all sorts of potential dangers, allowing madness to pollute the purity of the citizenry would put everyone in the city at risk. 

The Nereid Monument in the British Museum

Offhand, I don't remember if Percy Jackson and his friends ever meet Astraea, the Greek goddess of Purity, in Rick Riordan's novels. They meet a large number of gods, demigods, and supernatural beings over the two five-book series. As they pursue their quests, Percy and his friends discover that some of the minor gods have grown bitter with the pantheon on Olympus. With nothing to lose, these divine beings who formerly embraced good and preserved the status quo ally themselves in revolts led by the titan Hades and the Earth Mother Gaea. The young demigods attempt to address this imbalance, and win the favor of these forgotten gods, by pledging to honor them, and building temples to them at Camp Half-Blood.

Plato makes no mention of medical or priestly condemnation of Socrates. Still, the suggestion of divine disapproval, whispered in the right ears, could have prompted legal proceedings against any citizen, even someone as esteemed as Socrates. After all, if the philosopher's thought processes were corrupted, isn't it only logical that he would corrupt the young?

Dragon Dave