Complete Works (141 page)

At unpredictable times Socrates would experience an inner premonition
which he interpreted as a voice from the gods. In Plato this premonition always
held him back from something he was about to do. In Xenophon we read of similar
incidents (
Symposium
viii.5,
Apology
4 =
Memoirs of Socrates
IV.viii.5), as well as cases where the voice warned him against what his companions
were about to do (
Memoirs of Socrates
I.i.4). In
Theages
we are told
of four cases in which the premonition was ignored, with disastrous consequences
to others. In Plato’s
Theaetetus
Socrates says that the voice prevents
him from accepting back some of his students who had strayed (151b), but in
Theages
the spiritual power that speaks to him not only prohibits Socrates
sometimes from taking new students, it also exerts itself for some of his students
rather than others. Theages is under the impression that this divine
power can be propitiated by prayer and sacrifice, an almost superstitious idea
that has no parallel in any other surviving Socratic dialogue.

In Plato’s
Symposium,
Socrates said that he was an expert in nothing except
love (177e), and in
Theages
Socrates says something similar. In his (now
mostly lost) dialogue
Alcibiades,
Aeschines has Socrates say, “Although I
know no subject with which I might help a man by teaching it to him, still I
thought that if I was with Alcibiades my loving him would make him better”
(frg. 11c). Although he has nothing to teach his students, his affection and conversation
make them improve. Unlike in other Socratic dialogues, the only improvement
mentioned in
Theages
is intellectual and dialectical skill, not progress
in moral virtue.

But not all his students made permanent progress. Alcibiades reverted to his
former dissolute ways when he stayed away from Socrates (Plato,
Symposium
216b), and others, including young Aristides, reverted to being the incompetent
fools they had been before Socrates began to improve their minds (
Theaetetus
150d–151a).
Theages
tells a remarkable version of the lapse of Aristides:
now that Aristides has gone away from Socrates, the impressive skill in argument
he formerly had has deserted him; better was to be in his presence; but
best of all was to be right beside him, touching him, feeling his mysterious
power flowing out of him. Plato argued against such a conception of Socrates’
pedagogical gifts (
Symposium
175c–e), whereas for the author of
Theages
the
magical effect of Socrates on his students was another aspect of the divine
power that dwelled in him.

The arguments against Plato being the author are circumstantial but convincing
enough that there is virtual unanimity among modern scholars on the
issue. In the decades after 350
B.C.
,
several philosophers in Plato’s Academy
pursued an interest in the miraculous and the supernormal; the author of
Theages
may have been among them.

D.S.H.

[121]
D
EMODOCUS
: Oh, Socrates, I’ve been needing to have a talk with you in private, if you’ve got the time—even if you
are
busy—still, please make some time, for my sake.

S
OCRATES
: Well, it so happens that I do have some time, lots of time, in fact, if it’s for
your
sake. If there’s something you want to talk about, go ahead.

D
EMODOCUS
: Do you mind if we move back out of the way into the portico of Zeus the Liberator?

S
OCRATES
: If you like.

[b] D
EMODOCUS
: Then let’s go.

Socrates, all living things tend to follow the same course—particularly man, but also the other animals and the plants that grow in the earth. It’s an easy thing, for us farmers, to prepare the ground for planting, and the planting is easy, too. But after the plants come up, there’s a great deal of hard and difficult work in tending to them. It seems the same goes for [c] people, if others have the same problems I’ve had. I found the planting, or procreation—whatever you’re supposed to call it—of this son of mine the easiest thing in the world. But his upbringing has been difficult, and I’ve always been anxious about him.

There are many things I could mention, but his current passion really scares me—not that it’s beneath him, but it
is
dangerous. Here we have [d] him, Socrates, saying that he wants to become wise. What I think is that some other boys from his district who go into town have got him all worked up by telling him about certain discussions they’ve heard. He envies them and he’s been pestering me for a long time—he’s demanding that I take his ambition seriously, and pay money to some expert who’ll make him wise. The money is actually the least of my concerns, but I think
[122]
what he’s up to is very risky.

For a while I held him back with reassurances. But since I can’t hold him back any longer, I think I’d better give in to him, so that he won’t get corrupted, as he might by associating with someone behind my back. This is why I’ve come to town, to place this boy with one of those so-called experts. And then you appeared before us at just the right moment, and I’d be very glad to have your advice about what to do next. If you’ve got any advice to give based on what I’ve said, you’re welcome to give [b] it, please.

S
OCRATES
: Well, you know, Demodocus, they say that advice is a sacred thing, and if it’s ever sacred, then it surely is in this case. There’s nothing more divine for a man to take advice about than the education of himself and his family.

First, then, let’s settle exactly what it is that you and I intend to discuss. [c] I might perhaps be taking it to be one thing, and you another, and then, after we’d discussed it a while, we’d both feel silly because I, the one giving advice, and you, the one taking advice, would be thinking about entirely different matters.

D
EMODOCUS
: I think you’re right, Socrates—that’s the way it should be done.

S
OCRATES
: I
am
right, but not completely—I have one little change to make. It occurs to me that this youngster may not really want what we think he wants, but something else. In that case our thinking would be even more absurd and irrelevant. So it seems best for us to start with the [d] boy himself, and ask what exactly it is that he wants.

D
EMODOCUS
: Well, it does seem that it would be best to do as you say.

S
OCRATES
: Then tell me, what’s the fine name of the young man? How should we address him?

D
EMODOCUS
: Theages is his name, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: It
is
a fine name you’ve given your son, Demodocus, and godly.
¹
Tell us, then, Theages, do you say you want to become wise; are [e] you demanding that your father here arrange to have you associate with some man who’ll make you wise?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Whom do you call wise—those who know (whatever they know about), or those who don’t?

T
HEAGES
: Those who know.

S
OCRATES
: Well, didn’t your father have you taught and trained in what others of your age—the sons of gentlemen—are taught, such as reading and writing, and playing the lyre, and wrestling, and other sports?

T
HEAGES
: Yes, he did.

S
OCRATES
: Yet you think that you’re lacking some knowledge, which it’s
[123]
appropriate for your father to provide you?

T
HEAGES
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: What is it? Tell us, so we can oblige you.

T
HEAGES
:
He
knows it, Socrates, because I’ve often told him. But in front of you he talks as if he didn’t know what I want. In fact, he argues with me about these things, and other things, too,
²
and refuses to place me with anyone.

S
OCRATES
: But what you said before was said without witnesses, as it [b] were. Now make me your witness, and state in my presence what this wisdom is that you want. Come on; if you desired that wisdom by which people steer ships, and I asked you: “Theages, what wisdom do you lack? Why do you criticize your father for refusing to place you with someone who could make you wise?” What would you answer me? What is it? Isn’t it the helmsman’s skill?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

[c] S
OCRATES
: And if you criticized your father because you desired the wisdom by which people steer chariots, and again I asked what this wisdom is, what would you say it is? Isn’t it the charioteer’s skill?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the object of your current desire; is it some nameless thing, or does it have a name?

T
HEAGES
: I think it has.

S
OCRATES
: Then do you know it, but not the name, or do you know the name, as well?

T
HEAGES
: I know the name, too.

S
OCRATES
: So what is it? Tell me!

[d] T
HEAGES
: What other name, Socrates, would anyone give it but wisdom?

S
OCRATES
: But isn’t the charioteer’s skill also a kind of wisdom? Or do you think it’s ignorance?

T
HEAGES
: I don’t.

S
OCRATES
: So it’s wisdom.

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: What do we use it for? Isn’t it what we use in knowing how to direct a team of horses?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t the helmsman’s skill also a kind of wisdom?

T
HEAGES
: I think it is.

S
OCRATES
: And isn’t that the skill we use in knowing how to direct ships?

T
HEAGES
: Yes, that’s right.

S
OCRATES
: And the one that you desire, what sort of wisdom is that? [e] What would it give us the knowledge to direct?

T
HEAGES
: People, I think.

S
OCRATES
: Sick people?

T
HEAGES
: Of course not!

S
OCRATES
: That would be medicine, wouldn’t it?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well is it what we use in knowing how to direct the singers in choruses?

T
HEAGES
: No.

S
OCRATES
: That would be music?

T
HEAGES
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: Well is it what we use in knowing how to direct athletes?

T
HEAGES
: No.

S
OCRATES
: Because that’s physical education?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, to direct those who are doing what? Try your best to tell me, following the examples I’ve just given.

T
HEAGES
: Those in the city, that’s what
I
think.
[124]

S
OCRATES
: But aren’t the sick people in the city, too?

T
HEAGES
: Yes, but I don’t mean just those people, but also everyone else in the city, too.

S
OCRATES
: Let’s see if I understand the skill you’re talking about. I don’t think you’re talking about the skill by which we know how to direct harvesters and pickers and planters and seeders and threshers, for it’s the farmer’s skill by which we direct these isn’t it?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Nor, I suppose, do you mean the skill by which we know [b] how to direct sawyers and drillers and planers and turners, and so on, because that would be carpentry.

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Perhaps it’s the skill by which we know how to direct or rule over all of these—the farmers and the carpenters, and all the workers and ordinary people, both women and men. Is this, perhaps, the sort of wisdom you mean?

T
HEAGES
: That’s what I’ve been trying to say all along, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: So, can you say whether Aegisthus, who killed Agamemnon [c] in Argos, ruled over those you mean—the workers and the ordinary people, both men and women, all together, or over other people?

T
HEAGES
: No; just those.

S
OCRATES
: Really? Didn’t Peleus (son of Aeacus) rule over the same sorts of people in Phthia?

T
HEAGES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And have you heard about how Periander (son of Cypselus) ruled in Corinth?

T
HEAGES
: I have.

S
OCRATES
: Weren’t these the people he ruled over in his city?

T
HEAGES
: Yes. [d]

S
OCRATES
: Well, then. Don’t you think that Archelaus (son of Perdiccas), who recently ruled in Macedonia, ruled over the same sorts of people?

T
HEAGES
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: And whom do you suppose did Hippias (son of Pisistratus) rule over when he ruled this city? Weren’t they the same sort of people?

T
HEAGES
: Of course.