16.4 Homo Oeconomicus

This brings us to Socrates’ own finances. We see Socrates behaving as a man of leisure, spending his time conversing with friends, acquaintances, and strangers, often steering the conversation to his favorite topics, attending parties, helping friends. What is odd about Socrates is that, unlike members of the leisured class, he seems to have no visible means of support. He does not own vast tracts of land worked by slaves, or silver mines, or a trading emporium, or workshops. He seems to understand the principles of making money, but not to participate in the practice.

As noted above (ch. 3*), there is an ancient tradition that Socrates was a stonemason. The tradition goes back to Aristoxenus, a member of Aristotle’s Lyceum. Masonry was common in Socrates’ deme or township. It is likely that Socrates’ father practiced that trade and that Socrates learned its rudiments. But the fact that the young man studied with Archelaus and at some early age engaged in the life of intellectual inquiry shows that, whatever his early upbringing, he did not practice the trade as an adult. According to Demetrius of Byzantium Crito discovered the young Socrates and paid for his education. Socrates certainly was a close friend of the wealthy Crito, but was of a similar age and not obviously his protégé.

Socrates had enough property, including a suit of armor, to qualify as an infantryman rather than a rower in the navy. On the other hand, he famously went around barefoot wearing an old cloak. He ate and drank moderately for the most part and was well-known for his austere lifestyle. Thus he did not have any great need for expensive outlays. He did, however, need some income to live, and it is unclear where that money came from. Aristoxenus says that Socrates would lend money on interest and live off the income, but we get no hint of that from the sources who knew him personally.

When Crito’s son Critobulus asks Socrates how much property he has, Xenophon’s Socrates answers that, if he were lucky, it might fetch five minas, or five pounds of silver. He specifically mentions his home as part of the value, indicating that he owned real estate. Critobulus’ estate, by contrast, was worth at least a hundred times more. At his trial, Socrates says he could pay on his own behalf perhaps one pound as a fine. This seems to indicate the value of property he could liquidate easily, and is consistent with the net worth identified by Xenophon. A pound is equivalent to one hundred drachmas, where a drachma represents the approximate value of a day’s wage for a skilled worker in fifth-century Athens. So Socrates was not destitute, but in terms of his possessions, he certainly did not qualify as a gentleman of leisure who could live off the income of his produce or rents of his property.

Socrates, however, tells Critobulus that he is wealthy enough, while Critobulus is the poor one. For Socrates’ property suffices for his own needs, while Critobulus needs three times as much as he has to support the lifestyle he lives. Living within your means, Socrates implies, is much more important than having vast resources. If your wants are unlimited, you will never have enough wealth to satisfy them.

Xenophon has Antiphon the Sophist insult Socrates for his poverty. “If as other teachers make their students copies of themselves, you will do that to your companions too, you should think of yourself as an instructor of wretchedness.” In reply, Socrates points out that since he does not take money from students he is not obliged to associate with anyone he doesn’t wish to. Though he doesn’t eat rich foods, he doesn’t savor his meals any less than others, and perhaps more as his food is more nourishing and he is genuinely hungry and thirsty when he dines. His clothing may be old and simple, but it protects him adequately. He never lets the weather, either hot or cold, keep him from his activities. “Antiphon, you seem to think that happiness amounts to luxury and sumptuousness. But I think to have need of nothing is divine; and to have as few needs as possible is next to godliness.”

Xenophon reports another conversation with Antiphon he claims to have heard himself, presumably another showdown in front of students. Antiphon gives a back-handed compliment to Socrates for his honesty in not charging tuition, saying he surely would not give away his knowledge for free if he had anything worthwhile to impart. Socrates responds by comparing the practice of sophists in selling their wisdom, to prostitution. In contrast, what Socrates has to offer is too precious to sell like merchandise. In this exchange Socrates responds to a verbal slap with a knockout punch.

Xenophon’s Socrates defends himself ably by pointing out his superior commitments and principles. Plato’s Socrates, by contrast, would never bother to defend himself directly — or almost never. He would put Antiphon in the witness chair and ask questions until he revealed the sophist’s values and showed how they were inconsistent with his stated aims. Socrates doesn’t get down on all fours with his detractors, but admires and flatters them until he draws them into his own style of inquiry. Xenophon’s Socrates is a more pedestrian wise man. Yet Xenophon has Socrates tell us of his motivations in a way that Plato would not.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Plato captures the devious misdirection of Socrates while Xenophon simplifies the arguments to present his master as a conventional moral preceptor with edifying lessons to impart. Plato challenges his readers to follow the toils of Socrates’ arguments, while Xenophon distills Socrates’ views into simple precepts. The notion that self-sufficiency is next to godliness, which Xenophon’s Socrates spouts in a mini-sermon, is implicit in Plato’s Lysis and explicit later in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; it is deeply imbedded in the Socratic tradition. But what seems to have fascinated philosophers — like Plato — about Socrates was the latter’s ability to draw the principle out of others. Plato’s Socrates never lectures, yet he imparts — by not teaching — the secrets of the good life.

Plato’s Socrates continues to challenge us, the readers, to enter into a new kind of discussion designed to lay bare the soul. It is only Plato’s Socrates for whom dialogue is not just an opportunity for sermonizing, but an essential medium of inquiry. And it is only Plato’s Socrates who, we suspect, captures the full complexity of the historical thinker Socrates. For Plato’s Socrates, poverty is not a philosophical commitment or a social statement, but a side effect of being otherwise occupied.

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