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Socrates and the Myths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. Tate
J. Tate
Affiliation:
The University, St. Andrews
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Extract

In Plato's Euthyphro two suggestions are offered to account for the accusation of impiety brought against Socrates. The first comes from Euthyphro (3b), who takes it that the accusation is directed primarily against Socrates' ‘divine sign.’ The second is made by Socrates himself (6a), who puts forward the view that he is being brought to trial because he refuses to accept such tales about the gods as Hesiod told regarding the maltreatment of Uranus by Cronus and of Cronus by Zeus—tales which Euthyphro not merely believes but regards as justifying his action in prosecuting his own father. Both these suggestions used to be taken at their face-value, as, for example, by Grote (Plato I, chap. IX). But according to J. Burnet (notes on Euthyphro 3b 5 and 6a 8), followed by A. E. Taylor (Plato, chap. VII), neither is meant to be taken seriously.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , April 1933 , pp. 74 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1933

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References

page 76 note 1 For this see Libanius, , Orat. XVI 46, XVII 4Google Scholar; Negri, G., Julian the Apostate II, p. 486Google Scholar, and, for Julian's reliance on the early poets (for educating the young in paganism), pp. 388 sqq. So small was the effect of Plato's criticism of the myths and of Aristotle's view (Poet. 1460b) that the poets did not create the myths (whether under divine inspiration or otherwise) but merely reflected the common opinion of their time.

page 80 note 1 The helpless attitude of ‘respectable Athenians’ towards the unsavoury myths is illustrated by Aristophanes' treatment of Euripides. In the Frogs (1052) ‘Euripides’ asks whether the story he told about Phaedra was untrue. ‘Aeschylus’ replies that it is true, but that it should have been suppressed by the tragic poet, whose function it should be to act as school-master to the mature in years. Nor should Euripides have written about Stheneboia, who (as Anteia) figures in the Iliad (VI 160). Ought not Homer also to be censured for recounting the tale, even though he passes over it very briefly, or at any rate for dwelling on stories at least equally objectionable? The explanation is that the conservative Athenian mind exempts Homer from the principles it applies to Euripides, just as it exempts the Olympians from the moral laws that should govern mankind. To the ordinary Athenian way of thinking, Homer and Hesiod were Olympians among poets.