Rick Riordan and Socrates Part 4

The head of the Greek god Pan at the British Museum

After reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson novels about the Greek and Roman gods, as well as Plato's stories Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, I wondered if Socrates' teachings might actually have been radical for his time. At one point, he talks in Phaedo about the world being round, not flat. While Pythagorus, an earlier Greek philosopher, argued that the Earth was spherical, most philosophers before Socrates still held that the world was flat. So when Plato writes about Socrates believing in a spherical Earth, that could be every bit as radical as Galileo claiming the solar system didn't revolve around the Earth. And we all know what happened to Galileo, don't we?

Furthermore, while Socrates regularly mentions demigods and gods, he usually refers to God in the singular. One time, he even invoked Jupiter, the Roman version of Zeus. Did Socrates sees the Roman depiction of the gods as superior to that of his traditional Greeks? Or was he teaching that the ultimate form of religion should be monotheistic? 

Interestingly, the word monotheism is itself derived from Greek, and Socrates appears to have held beliefs similar to modern monotheists. Socrates seems to equate God with goodness, thus a believer should cultivate goodness in his or her character. Even if he didn't believe in one God like the Jews and later Christians, did he buy into the whole Greek pantheon, make sacrifices at their temples, and worship all the gods for their individual qualities.

As Pan was the god of theatrical criticism, did Socrates invoke Pan when he discussed a play he had attended? As Dionysus was the god of wine, did he honor Dionysus by pouring a little wine onto an altar, like Percy and the demigods give a portion of each meal to their divine parents? People are always watching you, and with someone like Socrates, who spent his days with his thoughts, perhaps he didn't pay respect to the gods in all the little ways everyone else did.

People are always concerned when philosophers and religious teachers preach a different message from everyone else. People want their children to hold the same values and ideals that they prize. Someone who teaches a radically different message, or even appears to, could be labeled a danger to society.

A drinking cup devoted to Dionysus, the god of wine, in the British Museum.

In any case, whether the leaders of Athens saw him as a bothersome old man, or a dangerous radical, why the need to kill him? Couldn't they just send him away? That was an option they extended to Socrates. But the philosopher rarely if ever left his beloved Athens. While he might praise aspects of other Greek city-states, moving to another town would be like moving to another country today. Suppose someone was kind enough to take him in, give him free room and board, attend his physical needs, and pay for his doctors' visits. The city's style of government would be different. Its cultural and religious festivals would clash with what he was used to. The cultural lens--formed by that city's unique history, government, and religious beliefs--would be completely different from the one through which he saw the world. 

Most old people want to die where they feel like they belong: in their homes. Socrates wouldn't want to be exiled to a foreign city-state. So whether his teachings were really subversive, or his physical needs and/or societal views just got on people's nerves, he opted to take the poison and die surrounded by his followers and friends. What old person, faced with the choice of dying in their own home, or being sent off to a sanatorium (or nursing home) wouldn't make the same choice?

In Rick Riordan's novels, the demigods live in cabins dedicated to their parents. As a child of Poseidon, Percy finds himself bunking alone at Camp Half-Blood. He can visit the cabin dedicated to another god, but he couldn't spend the night in one. Regardless of how lonely he felt, he just wouldn't belong in a cabin dedicated to another god. While modern readers might feel this is unfair, if Rick Riordan had written these stories in Socrates' time, I suspect people would have seen this treatment as right and proper.

Of course, they probably would have seen Rick Riordan's stories as disrespectful in any number of other ways. They might not have liked that Grover, a satyr who dreams of finding the lost god Pan, eats aluminum cans. Or they might objected to seeing the god Dionysus, who runs the camp, as disconsolate because Zeus always prevents him from drinking wine. People always find reasons to brand something they dislike as wrong, regardless of what age they inhabit, or whom they hurt as a result.

Dragon Dave