Socrates vs. Anytus

 Anytus is considered the main prosecutor of Socrates. Apparently, he had a personal grudge against the philosopher because the latter had advised his son not to follow his father into the leather business from which the family had grown rich and been promoted into the equestrian order. Another accuser of Socrates, Lycon, may have been angry that the philosopher encouraged his young son to maintain a homosexual relationship with a much older man. More generally, the allegation of 'corrupting youth' had to do with Socrates's relationship with Alcibiades and some of the 'Thirty Tyrants'. We may say he was being scapegoated from the crimes of much richer men some of whom had first made his acquaintance as impressionable youths. In particular, Socrates was blamed for the misdeeds of the Robespierre-like Critias, who was his cousin.

Thanks to a general amnesty, Socrates could not be prosecuted for anything he had done or said during or prior to the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. But he could be prosecuted for things he had done and said for the 4 years preceding his trial in 399 BC. It appears that there was some sort of attempted putsch, by 'Socratified youth', in 401 BC which led to a complete loss of patience with the old fool. 

About 14 years after Socrates was executed, Plato wrote in the Meno gives us this rather poignant, or ironic, dialogue between them- 

Soc. Please, Anytus, to help me and your friend Meno in answering our question, Who are the teachers?

Teachers are guys who get paid to teach even if they are as ignorant as shit. It is a different matter that a person may receive training from the master of a particular craft of skill or that there might be a system of apprenticeship or mentorship.  

Consider the matter thus: If we wanted Meno to be a good physician, to whom should we send him? Should we not send him to the physicians?

Our answer would be that Meno should first do well in School- more specifically in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. After that he should attend lectures on various aspects of Medicine. Only then might he serve as an 'intern' or 'apprentice' to practicing physicians or surgeons or what have you.  

Any. Certainly.

Soc. Or if we wanted him to be a good cobbler, should we not send him to the cobblers?

Any. Yes.

Soc. And so forth?

Any. Yes.

Soc. Let me trouble you with one more question. When we say that we should be right in sending him to the physicians if we wanted him to be a physician, do we mean that we should be right in sending him to those who profess the art, rather than to those who do not, and to those who demand payment for teaching the art, and profess to teach it to any one who will come and learn? And if these were our reasons, should we not be right in sending him?

No. If I send my son to my G.P and say to him 'teach him medicine', he will politely but firmly decline. The theory of comparative advantage applies. The GP's time is costly. He ought not be teaching my son the basics of Chemistry or Biology. School teachers may do a worse job of this but their time is worth less.  

Even in Socrates's time, busy statesmen let their kids be educated in the normal manner and only sought a mentor for them, or themselves took them as an apprentice, after they had received the best available education. 

Any. Yes.

Would Anytus actually have given this reply? No. He thought his own son should receive a good education and then come into the family business before entering public life. This is the course he himself had taken. Unlike Socrates, he and his family had risen greatly. True, if 'Socratified Youth' had taken over Athens, then, perhaps, Socrates would have had great influence. The problem is that his head was full of shit.  

Soc. And might not the same be said of flute-playing, and of the other arts? Would a man who wanted to make another a flute-player refuse to send him to those who profess to teach the art for money,

He might do if they are shit. The fact is some kids have musical talent. They pick up a flute and master it on their own.  

and be plaguing other persons to give him instruction,

or plaguing other people in the belief that you can give them instruction 

who are not professed teachers and who never had a single disciple in that branch of knowledge which he wishes him to acquire-would not such conduct be the height of folly?

Any. Yes, by Zeus, and of ignorance too.

Who taught Socrates his foolish type of Elenchus or forensic cross-examination? It was either a prostitute or a shrew, not a lawyer or a statesman.  

Soc. Very good. And now you are in a position to advise with me about my friend Meno. He has been telling me, Anytus, that he desires to attain that kind of wisdom and-virtue by which men order the state or the house,

i.e. 'economia'. This has nothing to do with seeking for definitions and axioms and deducing theorems. Indeed, such 'akreibia' (seeking for a precision greater than the subject-matter affords) is antithetical to economia. 

and honour their parents, and know when to receive and when to send away citizens and strangers, as a good man should. Now, to whom should he go in order that he may learn this virtue?

Not Socrates, who was poor and wasted his time gadding about instead of raising up in status his own sons. Anytus- who ran a profitable business and was a successful statesman- was the 'bonus paterfamilias' whom you might ask to act as the mentor or guardian of your sons.  

Does not the previous argument imply clearly that we should send him to those who profess and avouch that they are the common teachers of all Hellas, and are ready to impart instruction to any one who likes, at a fixed price?

No. You send your kids to school with other kids but also ensure they have proper mentors or that they undertake an apprenticeship with recognized masters of the craft or profession in which they seek to rise.  

Any. Whom do you mean, Socrates?

Soc. You surely know, do you not, Anytus, that these are the people whom mankind call Sophists?

The word for teacher was didaskalos. The Sophists were not teachers but rhetoricians whom we might term 'idealogues'.  

Any. By Heracles, Socrates, forbear! I only hope that no friend or kinsman or acquaintance of mine, whether citizen or stranger, will ever be so mad as to allow himself to be corrupted by them; for they are a manifest pest and corrupting influences to those who have to do with them.

They may have made some money for themselves but they neither enriched the State nor increased its military power. Still, it was possible that they increased 'soft power'. But so did famous courtesans or jesters or acrobats.  

Soc. What, Anytus? Of all the people who profess that they know how to do men good,

e.g. wizards, witches, swindlers and those who show how you can save money by eating only your own shit.  

do you mean to say that these are the only ones who not only do them no good, but positively corrupt those who are entrusted to them, and in return for this disservice have the face to demand money?

It is better to be paid to transmit a STD than to do so just for the pleasure of the thing. After all, the money a prostitute earns may feed her family.  

Indeed, I cannot believe you; for I know of a single man, Protagoras, who made more out of his craft

which wasn't teaching 

than the illustrious Pheidias,

who wasn't a teacher of sculpting or architecture.

who created such noble works, or any ten other statuaries. How could it be that a mender of old shoes, or patcher up of clothes, who made the shoes or clothes worse than he received them, could not have remained thirty days undetected, and would very soon have starved; whereas during more than forty years, Protagoras was corrupting all Hellas, and sending his disciples from him worse than he received them, and he was never found out.

Unlike Socrates, the careers of whose most famous pupils- Critias & Alcibiades- were calamitous, Protagoras was associated with Pericles in Athens' golden age. For Plato, I suppose, Socrates was important in linking he himself to Protagoras and Heraclitus and Parmenides etc. What is certain is that Plato's Academy was a success. 

For, if I am not mistaken,-he was about seventy years old at his death, forty of which were spent in the practice of his profession; and during all that time he had a good reputation, which to this day he retains: and not only Protagoras, but many others are well spoken of; some who lived before him, and others who are still living. Now, when you say that they deceived and corrupted the youth, are they to be supposed to have corrupted them consciously or unconsciously? Can those who were deemed by many to be the wisest men of Hellas have been out of their minds?

If Periclean Athens had become the regional hegemon- sure. But it didn't. Athens lost to Sparta which, in their different ways, Alcibiades and Critias ended up serving.  

Any. Out of their minds! No, Socrates; the young men who gave their money to them, were out of their minds, and their relations and guardians who entrusted their youth to the care of these men were still more out of their minds, and most of all, the cities who allowed them to come in, and did not drive them out, citizen and stranger alike.

 You spend good money educating your son and getting him to move in the right social circles and he turn around and says he despises you and the manner in which the family makes its money. Still, expressing fury at this outcome is a backhanded way of saying 'my son is a real Nob. He will have nothing to do with 'trade'. I suppose I will have to spend a lot of money maintaining that idler in the style he has become accustomed to.' 

Soc. Has any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so angry with them?

Any. No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.

I suppose, it was at a later point that Anytus's son came under Socrates's influence.  

Soc. Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?

Any. And I have no wish to be acquainted.

Soc. Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good or bad of which you are wholly ignorant?

Ignorance is not the same thing as lack of acquaintanceship. Socrates wasn't ignorant of Homer though he wasn't acquainted with him.  

Any. Quite well; I am sure that I know what manner of men these are, whether I am acquainted with them or not.

Anytus was better acquainted with himself than Socrates which is why the latter, not the former, says-

Soc. You must be a diviner, Anytus 

just as Socrates must be a cat because I say so.  

for I really cannot make out, judging from your own words, how, if you are not acquainted with them, you know about them.

Socrates did not know that you can acquire knowledge from third parties. Anytus was in the leather business. He employed and did business with people of good repute even if he had no prior acquaintance with them.  

But I am not enquiring of you who are the teachers who will corrupt Meno (let them be, if you please, the Sophists); I only ask you to tell him who there is in this great city who will teach him how to become eminent in the virtues

e.g. the virtue of levitation or the yet greater virtue of flying around the place shitting on the heads of your friends 

which I was just, now describing. He is the friend of your family, and you will oblige him.

By not fucking him in the ass

Any. Why do you not tell him yourself?

Soc. I have told him whom I supposed to be the teachers of these things; but I learn from you that I am utterly at fault, and I dare say that you are right. And now I wish that you, on your part, would tell me to whom among the Athenians he should go. Whom would you name?

Modesty forbids... 

Any. Why single out individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at random, if he will mind him, will do far more, good to him than the Sophists.

more particularly those of the pederastic persuasion 

Soc. And did those gentlemen grow of themselves;

No! They were taught to grow in the same way that seeds go to school and are taught how to turn into trees or bushes or plants of various tupes.  

and without having been taught by any one, were they nevertheless able to teach others that which they had never learned themselves?

People can teach themselves things and then teach those things to other things. But, equally, a teacher may be little more than a glorified child minder even if his 'students' are doing PhDs in stupid shite.  

Any. I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?

Soc. Yes, certainly, Anytus; and many good statesmen also there always have been and there are still, in the city of Athens. But the question is whether they were also good teachers of their own virtue;-not whether there are, or have been, good men in this part of the world, but whether virtue can be taught, is the question which we have been discussing.

It is certainly possible to teach ethics or morality of various types. In some cases, this is protocol bound and 'buck stopped'- e.g. Medical ethics or professional etiquette.  

Now, do we mean to say that the good men our own and of other times knew how to impart to others that virtue which they had themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being communicated or imparted by one man to another?

Neither. It is also not the case that we mean to say that Virtue is the sock of the imaginary cat which is also a top hat every other Tuesday.  

That is the question which I and Meno have been arguing. Look at the matter in your own way: Would you not admit that Themistocles was a good man?

Any. Certainly; no man better.

Soc. And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever was a good teacher, of his own virtue?

Any. Yes certainly,-if he wanted to be so.

Soc. But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard from our elders of him?

Any. I have.

Soc. Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?

Any. Very likely not.

Soc. But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, was a wise or good man, as his father was?

Any. I have certainly never heard any one say so.

Soc. And if virtue could have been taught, would his father Themistocles have sought to train him in these minor accomplishments, and allowed him who, as you must remember, was his own son, to be no better than his neighbours in those qualities in which he himself excelled?

Did any one say Cleophantus's overmastering ambition in life was to be considered wiser or better than his father? No. On the other hand, he may have wished to excel as a horseman.  

Any. Indeed, indeed, I think not.

Soc. Here was a teacher of virtue whom you admit to be among the best men of the past. Let us take another,-Aristides, the son of Lysimachus: would you not acknowledge that he was a good man?

Any. To be sure I should.

Soc. And did not he train his son Lysimachus better than any other Athenian in all that could be done for him by the help of masters? But what has been the result? Is he a bit better than any other mortal? He is an acquaintance of yours, and you see what he is like.

Some are more teachable than others and some who are teachable may not want to be taught.  

There is Pericles, again, magnificent in his wisdom; and he, as you are aware, had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus.

Any. I know.

Soc. And you know, also, that he taught them to be unrivalled horsemen, and had them trained in music and gymnastics and all sorts of arts-in these respects they were on a level with the best-and had he no wish to make good men of them? Nay, he must have wished it.

 So what? A smart man may have stupid sons. 

But virtue, as I suspect, could not be taught.

There are rules of conduct which can be taught and those who live by them will be considered virtuous. But some may be too stupid, too lazy, or too lacking in motivation to learn much or retain what they had learnt.  

And that you may not suppose the incompetent teachers to be only the meaner sort of Athenians and few in number, remember again that Thucydides had two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, whom, besides giving them a good education in other things, he trained in wrestling, and they were the best wrestlers in Athens:

Clearly, Thucydides, the leader of the Conservative faction, considered wrestling to be superior than talking nonsense in the manner of Socrates.  

one of them he committed to the care of Xanthias, and the other of Eudorus, who had the reputation of being the most celebrated wrestlers of that day. Do you remember them?

Any. I have heard of them.

Soc. Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them to be good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been taught?

What did Socrates teach his sons? Why does Aristotle say this progeny were fools and dullards? I suppose this had become apparent by the time Plato wrote this.  

Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught?

Which is why he didn't give a fart for his own sons and went roaming about the place hoping to influence the sons of the richer or better born.  

Any. Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm than to do them good, and this is certainly the case at Athens, as I believe that you know.

Sadly, the blathershite didn't know shit. 

Soc. O Meno, think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these gentlemen; and in the second place, he is of opinion that he is one of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me.

Anytus did not forgive Socrates. He knew the meaning of defamation well enough to get the municipality to apply a swatter to a gadfly who, it has been suggested, turned his son against him. 

I suppose, Plato's point is that though metaphysical strife is as pointless as political stasis, nevertheless, it is a 'Form' which it is less lethal to 'participate' in. Also, instead of seeking to bugger the brains out of the jeunesse dorée , maybe one should just make a little money ensuring they learnt the elements of Mathematics. That way angry fathers won't try to get you executed or exiled or just beaten to a pulp by brawny family retainers.