Biography of Socrates Wife

He himself was in no hurry to acquire his family and married when he was far over forty. This happened, apparently, in the years, most likely, after the end of the Archidamia War. By the time of execution Socrates, the eldest of his three sons, Lamprokl, was a teenager, and two younger ones, Sofronisk and Menksen, were youngsters. The information about the wife of Socrates is less defined.

Plato and Xenophon only mention Xantippe as his wife, while, according to Aristotle, Socrates had two wives: the first - Xantippus, the mother of the eldest son of Lamprok, and the second wife - Mirto, the mother of Sofroniska and Mensen, the Aristotle's message clearly diverges with the Platonian story that Ksantippa had come to the prison of the child to the prison hands.

There is also a version according to which the first wife was Mirto, and not Xantippus. Diogenes Laertic also mentions sources according to which Socrates supposedly had two wives at the same time. This is explained, they say, by the fact that in view of the shortage of the lack of male population a decision was made at the People’s Assembly, which made it possible to have legal children not only from the official spouse, but also from the actual wife, a cohabitant.

There is no unity in reports about which of the two wives was official. In addition, the question remains open whether the mentioned decision was indeed made by the Athenian People’s Assembly or it is only a subsequent fiction that leads a kind of legal framework under the version of the two wives of Socrates. In all kinds of information about the family life of Socrates, most often it is Xantippa that appears as his wife, and - very grumpy and quadrel.

Regarding numerous jokes about its scandalous character, it remains, apparently, to agree that there is no smoke without fire. In all the stories related to family troubles and skirmishes, Socrates holds underlying tolerantly and peacefully. He meets Xantippes's nursing with irony and a joke. When one day, at the end of Ksantippus, he doused his husband with water, he, turning to the audience of this scene, only remarked: “Didn’t I say that it should rain after the thunder of Xantippus?!

Something, apparently dissatisfied, she clung to Socrat’s cloak. Familiar and onlookers, who escaped to the noise, made him to give proper rebuff to his unrestrained wife. Socrates replied to this: “Well, yes, I swear by Zeus! And you, divided into the party, will accompany our fist fight with screams: Bravo Socrates, bravo Xantippus! And just as having dealt with such a horse, it is easy to cope with the others, having learned to travel with xantippus, I get along well with other people.

” On the same occasion, such a conversation happened between Alcibiades and Socrates. Apparently, Xantippus was still not only grumpy. I must think, she had to tightly, if we recall the distress of the family’s distress and the extreme indifference of her spouse to this side of life. As a great misfortune, she perceived the unfair condemnation of Socrates and often visited him in prison with children.

Once she sorrowfully remarked to him: "You are dying unfairly." To this Socrates ironically remarked: “Do you want me to die fairly?! She was the daughter of the famous Athenian statesman Aristide, nicknamed fair. Her father was subjected to ostracism and died in extreme poverty. Socrates allegedly, out of respect for the memory of Aristide, married his daughter, who had no dowry and found himself in a difficult situation.

An anecdote coming from Aristoksen has been preserved that Mirto and Xantippus usually, after a long mutual crush, were pounced on Socrates, who had previously monitored the neutral viewer with the interest of the neutral viewer. The atmosphere in the family was complicated from frequent quarrels between Xantippus and Lamperkl, the eldest of the children, in response to the fatherly exhortations and calls to respect the mother, Lamprokl responded to her as follows: “No person is able to move her bad character, I swear by Zeus, she says that a person would not want to hear a whole life” by a xenophore.

And his father, apparently, had to patiently persuade his son on the true path. The only request with which Socrates turned to his judges concerned his children. If, the Athenians, ”he said,“ it will seem to you that my sons, having matured, will take care of money or something more than about virtue, give them to them, pissing them off the same thing that I praised you; And if they, but representing anything, will think a lot about yourself, reproach them just as I reproached you, because they do not care about the proper and imagine a lot about themselves, while they themselves cost nothing.

If you begin to do this, then give it to me and my sons ”Plato. The apology of Socrates, 41 e. Socrates family was, according to Athenian standards, extremely poor. Having inherited a small house from his father and, apparently, some other property, Socrates was far from the idea of ​​improving his financial situation. All property of Socrates, according to Xenophon, was estimated at 5 minutes.

It was a very modest amount, inferior, say, the price of a good slave existed.The same Xenophon says that one of the slaves costs about a mine, the other is not worth it, the third 5 minutes, and the other and a decent horse, for example, cost 12 minutes. Sophist Antiphon, trying to wound Socrates in the presence of his listeners, said to him: “You live so that not a single slave to your master would live in this way; You eat the poor and drinking food and drink, and you wear clothes not only poor, but the same in summer and winter; You are always without shoes and without a chiton.

”Xenophon. Socrates retorted the memories of Socrates, 1, VI, 2. Socrates retorted that happiness is not in the bliss and luxury, that the passion for profit and enrichment seduces people from the path of virtues and leads to moral damage. A person, Socrates believed, must accustom himself to be content with small, need as a smaller way, imitating a high example of the gods who do not need anything at all.

Socrates rejected excesses and luxury in clothes, food, situation, etc. often he loved to repeat the words in this regard: "Silver vessels and purple clothes for the theater are good and unreliable in life." It is reported that Apollodorus invited Socrates before his death to put on expensive clothes more suitable for occasion. The style of his life was part of his philosophy. It was not just a way of life of a philosopher, but, as far as similar is almost possible, mainly a philosophical way of life.

The absorption of Socrates with his highest vocation of the seeker of truth did not leave time and energy for other concerns.

I did not have, ”he admits in court,“ leisure to do some kind of worthy of mentioning business, public or household; So I reached extreme poverty because of the service of God ”Plato. Apology of Socrates, 23 p. Always barefoot, in the old cloak - in such a constant outfit, he stepped from the streets and Square of Athens into a long history. This outfit was so common for Socrates that his enthusiastic listener Aristodem, seeing him once in sandals, was very surprised.

It turned out that Socrates “dressed up” for a feast to the poet Agafon on the occasion of his victory in the Athenian Theater. Socrates, however, did not make virtue out of need. He was not an ascetic. The abstinence, which he considered as the most important virtue, is akin to moderation, traditionally praised by Greek sages long before him. It seemed to him ridiculous childish that his young admirer Aristodem, imitating him, also began to walk barefoot.

When Socrates saw that his listener Antisfen, the head of the future kinic cynical school, flaunts his torn cloak, he caustically remarked: "Antisthenes, your vanity is peering through the hole of your cloak." Socrates' remark was prophetic. Subsequently, kinniks in their neglect of the generally accepted generally fell into a revolution. But their imitation of Socrates was largely external.

We can say that the entire movement of the codes came out of the old cloak of Socrates and idealized his bare feet. Wealthy friends and fans of Socrates have repeatedly offered him their funds and services, which he firmly refused. Diogenes Laerte, citing memoirs, Pamphilia reports that Alcibiades expressed his readiness to give Socrates a large land plot for the construction of a house.

Socrates refused the gift. According to the ancient authors, Socrates did not accept either the offers of a number of rulers or invitations to visit their country. Such proposals, as reported, came from the Macedonian king Archela, as well as from the rulers of Thessaly and Larissa. The invitation by Archelay seems very likely. Archelai, who ruled Macedonia in - gg.

But for Socrates, such a step was completely excluded. At the end of his life, in connection with his prosecution and condemnation to death, Socrates in an aggravated form faced a conflict between the debt to family and children and ethical responsibility for his philosophical lifestyle. As before, the ethical duty in it prevailed over family feelings. He appeared at the court, contrary to the usual then, without a wife and children, not wanting to present them in the form of an argument to soften the sentence.

And in prison, he did not succumb to the persuasion of his friend Creton, who advised to flee so as not to leave his three sons helpless orphans. Either you do not need to have children, or you need to transfer all the hardships with them, feed and educate them, and you, in my opinion, choose the easiest ”Plato. Criton, Socrates, of course, was unpleasant to listen to such reproaches from a close and loyal person.

But he could not agree with his considerations. The family is a family, and the truth is truth. Neither children, nor life, nor anything else, noticed Socrates to Creton, not higher than justice. After the execution of Socrates, his friends and students, judging by the preserved information, provided his family with help and support. In one of the so -called shortcuts of contractors, namely, in a letter, Aeskhin informs Xantippe that Socrates' friends would send her from Megar through Efron 6 measures of barley flour, 8 drams of money and new clothes so that she does not feel any need in the winter.Aeschin, in addition, invited Xantippus with children to Megara, where his students settled temporarily, after the execution of Socrates.

Comforting Xantippus, the author of the letter advises her to reject someone else's help, since Socrates' family support is an exceptional privilege of friends of the executed philosopher. Nothing is known about the further fate of Semeta's sons. They quietly went down in history, this business, as they say, did not justify this business. However, they had enough paternal glory.