Socrates

Biography

Socrates fought in three campaigns of the Peloponnesian War — Potidaea (432–429 BC), Delium (424 BC), and Amphipolis (422 BC) — and was distinguished in each as an exceptionally brave soldier who could endure hardship without complaint. He served as a heavy infantryman (hoplite) despite his physical peculiarity of never seeming to feel cold, hunger, or thirst more than others. His courage at Delium, where he covered the retreat of the routed Athenians fighting step by step and refusing to run, was specifically attested by his pupil Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium. Yet Socrates is remembered as the founder of Western philosophy, not as a soldier. His contribution to the Peloponnesian War era was not tactical but intellectual: in the agora, the gymnasia, and the drinking parties of Athens, he questioned every assumption — about justice, piety, knowledge, and the good life — in a method of relentless cross-examination (the elenchus) that destroyed confident answers and left only productive uncertainty. His pupils included Alcibiades (who used the method for manipulation), Plato (who used it for metaphysics), and Xenophon (who used it for practical wisdom). In 399 BC, five years after Athens's defeat and the horror of the Thirty Tyrants, a democratic Athens put Socrates on trial for impiety and corrupting the youth. He was convicted by 280 votes to 220 and died drinking hemlock, having refused the opportunity to escape, arguing that to flee would be to betray the laws that had given him his life.

Key Battles