PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM FOR SOCRATES

By grace Socrates speaks to us through Plato's words in the Phaedo, and from all that has been said of him by the philosophers, he emerges as a truly brave and compassionate character.

Some years before the Peloponnesian war one of his friends named Chaerephon sought the wisdom of the oracle at Delphi and he was given to unerstand that no one was wiser than Socrates.

The Athenian philosopher was the son of a sculptor who married late in life Xanthippe but despite his popularity and influence, he denied himself the benefits of an affluent society. He was passionately concerned with guiding his fellow citizens into the paths of honest thinking and he sought always for closer proximity with his concept of the Diety. As a President of the Assembly he was involved in the trial of the generals after Arginusae and refused to budge from principle in the face of an incensed public. When Athens fell he defied the thirty Tyrants and refused to carry out their orders when they had already implicated him in their treachery.

In 399 B.C. he was tried on a number of false charges and after a not very conciliatory speech in his own defence he was condemned to death. A number of friends offered him a way of escape but he refused to accept a priviledge by compromise, re-stating in his defence that his friendship and influence with a number of important young men did not constitute corruption or sedition.

Socrates perceived the greater realities and for him truth was the honest intent of his religious soul; thirty days after his condemnation he gladly took the cup of hemlock, his mission on this planet being thereby suspended temporarily.
- DANIEL

Socrates was a man of strong physique, great power of endurance, and completely indifferent to comfort and luxury. He was remarkable for his unflinching courage, both moral and physical, and his strong sense of duty. He was a man also of the greatest intellectual ability. Like Daniel, the immortal Socrates had many disciples, the most important being Plato who so eloquently echoed Socratic principles in his famous dialogues. Of his thirteen letters, the Phaedo's description of the human soul best describes the true essence of Socrates...and so this book becomes my symposium on our modern day Socrates better known to me as DANIEL.
- LJO