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Updated: June 4, 2025
VII. His conversation seems also to have had this character, for he was cheerful and harsh all at once, pleasant and yet severe as a companion, fond of jokes, but morose at the same time, just as Plato tells us that Sokrates, if judged merely from his outside, appeared to be only a silly man with a face like a satyr, who was rude to all he met, though his inner nature was earnest and full of thoughts that moved his hearers to tears and touched their hearts.
Now some writers say that Perikles valued Aspasia only for her wisdom and political ability. Indeed Sokrates and his friends used to frequent her society; and those who listened to her discourse used to bring their wives with them, that they too might profit by it, although her profession was far from being honourable or decent, for she kept courtesans in her house.
Apuleius, who lived in the second century of our æra and was consequently nearly a contemporary of Plutarch, has explained this doctrine of dæmons in his treatise On the God of Sokrates. "Moreover there are certain divine middle powers, situated in this interval between the highest ether and earth, which is in the lowest place, through whom our desires and deserts pass to the gods.
Aristotle, when he observes that the temperaments of great men are prone to melancholy, instances Sokrates, Plato, and Herakles, and observes also that Lysander, when advanced in life, became inclined to melancholy.
He must have arrived there, after an absence of about two years and a half, within a few weeks, at farthest, after the death of his friend and preceptor Sokratês, whose trial and condemnation have been recorded in my last volume. That melancholy event certainly occurred during his absence from Athens; but whether it had come to his knowledge before he reached the city, we do not know.
Sokrates as usual confesses that he does not know what virtue is. He will not accept a catalogue of the admitted virtues as a definition of virtue, and presses for some common, or defining attribute. He advances on his own side his usual doctrine that virtue is Knowledge, or a mode of Knowledge, and that it is good and profitable; which is merely an iteration of the Science of good and evil.
It is said that Sokrates the philosopher, and Meton the astronomer, did not expect that the state would gain any advantage from this expedition; the former probably receiving a presentiment of disaster, as was his wont, from his familiar spirit. Meton either made calculations which led him to fear what was about to happen, or else gathered it from the art of prophecy.
Behmer analyzes from this standpoint the following works: “Beiträge zur geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Verstandes und Herzens;” “Sokrates Mainomenos oder die Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope;” “Der neue Amadis;” “Der goldene Spiegel;” “Geschichte des Philosophen Danischmende;” “Gedanken über eine alte Aufschrift;” “Geschichte der Abderiten.”
He therefore concludes that Apuleius was justified in calling the dæmon of Sokrates a god; and that this was the opinion of Sokrates appears, as he says, from the First Alkibiades, where Sokrates says, "I have long been of opinion that the god did not as yet direct me to hold any conversation with you."
Accordingly Timasion of Dardanus was chosen instead of Klearchus; Xanthiklês in place of Sokratês; Kleanor in place of Agias; Philesius in place of Menon; and Xenophon instead of Proxenus. The captains, who had served under each of the departed generals, separately chose a successor to the captain thus promoted.
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