Fall 2015

4 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 42 / Issue 1
Socrates piously followed this sign. Hermogenes was puzzled because the
daimonion opposed Socrates’s attempt to think about the defense speech (5).
Being already familiar with the Socratic daimonion and having accepted its
authority, he believed that being acquitted would be good for Socrates. Hence,
he expected that the daimonion would protect Socrates. His surprise reveals
that he assumed the goodness of both life and acquittal. By showing how he
was different from Hermogenes and others who share this view, 23 Socrates
was already preparing to make a persuasive case for himself.
Socrates’s persuasion of Hermogenes also suggests important differences
between them. Socrates’s statement that death seems good to the god “too”
implies that god was not Socrates’s superior authority (5). For Socrates, the
god merely happened to agree with him. Socrates seemed to believe that
death in this particular circumstance was acceptable without having to be
suggested by god. Furthermore, Socrates explicitly showed their difference by
letting Hermogenes know of his decision; Socrates decided to abstain from
planning his defense speech even though this almost certainly condemned
him to death. Let us now consider how he defended this tactic to Hermogenes.
Socrates began building his case for death by giving an account of his
life. He contended that it was pleasant for him to know that he has lived his
whole life piously and justly. He asserted that, in this respect, no one has
lived a better life. Socrates already had a good reputation among the people
who were close to him but he knew that, as his age advanced, his sight, hearing,
learning abilities, and memory would decline. He preferred death, then,
because the life that had once been pleasant was becoming unworthy to live. 24
According to Socrates, the gods were right to prevent him from seeking
the means for acquittal since old age is a cause of disease and grief, from which
all kinds of hardships flow without cheerfulness. Socrates defended his failure
to prepare for his speech to Hermogenes by arguing that the misery of old age
should be avoided at any cost. This was an effective means of persuasion for
23
Xenophon assumes that readers of the previous writings on the Socratic trial share this assumption,
which is the basis for their inference that Socrates, having failed to save himself, was irrational
(1). Hermogenes’s assumption was arguably universal and, in this sense, he was representative of the
common man. He even shared this assumption with an enemy of Socrates in the Memorabilia (4.8.1).
Thus, persuading Hermogenes amounted to persuading people in general.
24
Socrates’s demonstration of the goodness of death was essentially a demonstration of the goodness
of his life. The preference for death was conditional. When he was young, life was pleasant and good.
Even now, life seemed pleasant to him. Socrates talked about the problem of old age as if it belonged
to the future. It is also worth noting that for Xenophon, old age is not always disadvantageous (Gera,
“Xenophon’s Socrates,” 38–39; Agesilaus 11.14–15; Education of Cyrus 8.7.1–28).