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The Practical Irony of the Historical Socrates Author(s): Lowell Edmunds Source: Phoenix, Vol. 58, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 2004), pp. 193-207 Published by: Classical Association of Canada Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4135165 Accessed: 05/11/2009 11:06
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THE PRACTICAL IRONY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCRATES

LOWELL EDMUNDS

verbalsense of irony, one can comparethe definitionin the roughlycontemporary Rhetorica adAlexandrum: "Ironyis to say something while pretendingnot to say it or to call things by the opposite names"(1434a17-18). The author of this rhetoricaltreatise has formulateda definition in which the notion of practiceis absent. Irony now has the purely verbal status that it will have in Cicero and in Quintilian (except for a single intriguing statement to be discussed below, 202).3 Vlastos, thinking of verbal irony, resolutely denied irony in Aristophanes' Clouds."The anti-hero of the Clouds many things to many men, but an ironist is to none."4But with this comedy one can begin to describethe practicalirony of the historicalSocrates.
1Vlastos 1991.

XEypov7tpdx(c0v K~a X6yov, Char. 5.1 Jebb-Sandys). For a narrower, exclusively

PROBABLY FROM SOCRATES' OWN TIME, certainlyfrom Aristotle's time, irony has been a central feature in the descriptionof the philosopher from Alopeke. The importanceof Socrates'irony is reflectedin the title of an influentialbook, stemming from influential teaching and articles, by Gregory Vlastos: Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher.' In Vlastos's discussion, and generally, irony is assumed to be an exclusivelyverbal phenomenon. The Greeks, however, down through the fourth century B.C.E., knew of a practicalirony. It was an Ethics, Aristotle irony of manner or more broadly of style. In Nicomachean uses Spartan dress, i.e., the imitation of Spartan dress by Athenians, as an example of irony (1127b27-28). Socrates, it will be seen, was associated by with this particular contemporaries style and thus with practicalirony as defined by Aristotle. Aristotle's discussion of irony appearsin a chapteron truthfulness,the mean between the extremesof boastfulnessand irony.He begins:"letus discusstruthful persons and untruthfulpersons in words and in practices(rpd~4cat)and in their claims about themselves"(1127a19-20). An irony of practices,a practicalirony, is presupposed.Consistentlywith this startingpoint, Aristotle'swhole discussion of the mean and the extremes looks to public and social context. Theophrastus follows Aristotle.2 He begins his charactersketch of the ironist: "Ironywould seem to be ... a pretenseof the worse in practicesand in words"(7npoatnoorlat; Ti

2Steinmetz 1962:8, 36-37. On Theophrastus' see 1941:348-349. ironist, Biichner an 3Cic. Brut.292; De orat.2.67 (Socrates example); Quint. 6.2.15, 8.6.54-59, 9.2.44-46
(Socratesan example). 4Vlastos 1991: 29.

193
PHOENIX,VOL. 58 (2004) 3-4.

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I. CLOUDS

to is To talk about Socratesin Clouds apparently step into a yes-no cycle that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century,has not run down.5Yes, it is starting the historical Socrates.No, it is not the historicalSocrates.A forcefultwentieth on (1968), only initiated centuryno, that of K.J. Dover in his commentary Clouds a new yes phase of the cycle.6 But everyone, including Dover, agrees that the description of Socratesin lines 362-363 can be taken as historical,and one of the elements of the descriptioncan be shown, with referenceto Aristotle, to be a matterof practicalirony. Their context is as follows. The old farmer,Strepsiades, deeplyin debt because with horses, is forced to enter Socrates'school in order to of his son's obsession learn how to defraud his creditors. He asks Socratesto teach him "the unjust speech."In orderto matriculate,Strepsiadesmust be initiatedinto the religion of the Clouds, the divinitiesof Socratesand his followers.As partof the ceremony, Socratesmust invoke the Clouds, who appearand speak to him as one of their favorites. They say that, when called, they would answer, among present-day only "meteorosophists," Prodicusand Socrates-Prodicus becauseof his skill and intelligence (361), i.e., because of genuine abilities. Why Socrates?Because, say the Clouds,
td40(XOaji1 t' v tcotv 60ot; Kco't &it PEV06MT'& KaK Kavu368'tOCo kt6XX' vCXEt iljinv ircpad4XX&st, Kcu' oelgvoitpooortc,. in and Youswagger the streets castyoureyessideways, face endure ills, and,goingbarefoot, many andputon a grave on ouraccount. (362-363)

They answer Socrates, then, not because of his abilities or inner qualities but because of externals-his mannerisms and his lifestyle. The description of Socrates'in these two lines consists of four elements. 1. ppnv06ct. It is coupled with by ... Kai, and the two verbs nrcaptpdkgt;zc seem to form a unit. In Plato's Symposium thus (221b3-4), Alcibiades couples the passagein Aristophanesjust quoted, in a descriptionof the two verbs, citing Socrates'braveryduring the retreatfrom Delium. "I thought that there as also here [i.e., in Athens] ... he went along swaggeringand castinghis eyes sideways." Alcibiades then goes on to provide a gloss on casting the eyes sideways, but nothing on the verb ppcv6Oo0eoat. This verb is the most difficult of the four elements in the description of is Socrates. The main reason for the translation"swagger" context: the phrase "to in ev raolatv 605o~"inthe streets" Aristophanesand the verb5taXropE;eC0out
5Part I of this articleis a revisedand updatedversionof partof Edmunds 1987. 6Dover 1968; the new yes-cycle (for example):Rossetti 1974; Nussbaum1980; Kleve 1983a.

PRACTICAL IRONY

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go along"in Alcibiades'description(221b1).7 If, as seems likely, ppev06e0Xat comes from pp&vOo;,an unknown kind of waterbird, this verb would mean and specifically"towalk like a brenthos," the gait of this birdwould be implicit in the etymology proposedby Emile Boisacq.8He reconstructed Indo-European an root *g"rendhfrom which Latingrandisand Old Slavicgrodi"breast" would also descend. The Greek waterbirdwould thus gets its name from its chest, and the name would correspondto the English bird name "puffin," which refers to the bird'scharacteristic out of its chest. puffing 2. Casting the eyes sideways. Alcibiades'gloss on tJ0a0cLtg0rnapacdaXXStq is ilp7ClanrapacKoxrt Kai tob0 4tioug Kai T (221b4). flpjLia v obt; roke~4Lou;, here can hardly mean "gently." It must refer to a calm, slow glance (LSJ9s.v. 3): thus "slowlyglancing aroundat both friends and enemies."9But what would such a glance convey? Both Photius, citing Archippus (fr. 52 K = 59 K-A), a fifth-century comic poet, and Eustathius (204 ad 1l. 2.212), bring this sort of glance into their definition of "to ridicule or mock."'0 Eustathius at,hov, that this verbmeans"toturnthe eyes asideslowly(flp&gca) depreciation in explains or ridicule."" With this explanation, it is easier to understandhow Socrates, as Alcibiades said, used the same mannerismboth on the battlefieldand in the streets of Athens, towardboth enemies and friends. The phrase from Cloudsquoted by Alcibiades in praise of Socratesis quoted once again in Greek literature, this time by someone hostile to Socrates, the In Philodemuswrites about EpicureanPhilodemus.12 the tenth book of On Vices, varioustypes of the G6rcpilavo;, "the arrogantman." One of these types is the "theone who affectsgrandeur." Philodemusreports: Ge&CvoK67o;, and (verb3pev06esc0at) theyusedto namehimand [Theyusedto saythathe] swaggered still now namehim a swaggerer the one who ... looksdownandlooksaskance at ..., and with thosehe meets everyone nodsdownward hisheadandbelittles (rapflPpX&novTa) orthosewhomanyone even thoseconsidered with mentions, if theyareamong important, ridicule a brief,if any,answer reveals ownsuperiority assigns worthto and that his and no
363 connects the verbwith Socrates' 7The scholiast on Clouds gait. 8Boisacq 1950 s.v. ppeve6oCpat. He was followed by Pokorny (1994 s.v. gwrendh-). This etymology was abandoned in the etymological dictionariesof Frisk (1960) and Chantraine (19681980). 9Cf. P1. Phd. 103a: Kal' 6 &0Kpd6t7Crl v t KCav KcLi.... nXapapXaov 1'They cite a certainAelius Dionysius. See, in Der KleinePauly,no. 23 s.v. Dionysios: "angeblich ein Nachfahredes Rhetors ... in hadrianischer Zeit." 11I have these references from Lowry 1991: 130-137, where he discusses silloi, the Homeric Litai and their relationto Thersites, and Socrates'sidelong glances, which he interpretsas squinting. Cf. P1. Phd. 86d (he opened his eyes wide as he often used to do); 117b (6antep eitei0t tauprl6bv Cf. 6ntoPhXtC&g). Patzer 1993: 85-86. Borthwick (2001) explains that the adjectiveblepedaimon is applied to Socratics (at Eust. 206.27) because "it was by their being in thrall to ... Socrates' and insistentlyglaringeyes that their appearance behaviourcould, at least in the case of Chaerephon, be accountedfor"(301). 12Also quoted by Diogenes Laertius(2.28).

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PHOENIX

anyone else. As Aristophanessaid in his comedy,"He swaggersin the streetsand casts his eyes sideways." (Col. XXI.13-37 Jensen).13 In this context, the quotation from Clouds implicitly puts Socrates, whom

Philodemus also mentions by name in this treatise,14in the category of the the semnokoros, man who puts on airs, who is governedby a sense of his own which he does nothing to conceal. superiority, A preliminary conclusionfrom the firstand secondelementsin the description in line 362 of Clouds:Socrates, the public figure (note cv tTaitv of Socrates and the "in 668o0, the streets"), Socrateswho couldbe seen in the marketplace the the attitudeof haughtiness gymnasia,drew attentionto himself by his manner,by Socratesmaintained he conveyed,which was taken as depreciationand derision.15 this attitudeeven when he was on trialfor his life.'6 historical 3. "Barefoot, you enduremany ills"(363). If there is one indisputable fact about Socrates, it is barefootedness. Amipsias in his Connus(fr. 9 K = 9 K-A), producedon the same occasion as Clouds, jokes aboutit.'7 In Xenophon's the Sophist holds it againstSocrates(1.6.2-3). From the Memorabilia, Antiphon one descriptionof Aristodemusat the beginningof the Symposium, couldconclude that an enthusiastic follower of Socrateswould alwaysgo barefoot (173b2), as Socrates did (P1. Phdr. 229a3-4). When Strepsiadesemerges from Socrates' his school in Clouds, son, Pheidippides,askshim: "Whathaveyou done with your shoes?"(858).18 In the same context with Socrates'shoelessness, his single threadbarecloak (himation),alwaysthe same one winter and summer,will be mentioned(Amipsias culminates one ibid.;Xen. ibid.). In Clouds, of Socrates'scientificdemonstrations and in Socrates'school in the theft of a cloak from a wrestling school (177-179), Strepsiadesis relievedof this garmentas well as of his shoes (856). So much, then, for the shoelessnessof Socratesand the single cloak. As for "enduringmany ills," the reference is, of course, to his capacityfor enduring the deprivationsthat were the result of his chosen poverty (P1.Apol. 31c2-3). As someone in Amipsias' Connussays, y' e& ("you are capable of KaptepIKc6, endurance,"ibid.). Socrates practicedround-the-clock asceticism,sleeping not Ar. on a bed but a pallet (skimpous, Nub. 254; Pl. Prt. 310cl).19 Antiphon the Sophist, again in Xenophon, says to Socratesthat, if his regimenwere imposed
in 13 ellipsis in mytranslation;is nota lacuna thetext. it is The the discusses eirones. in 141n the nextsection (XXI.37-XXIII.37), whichPhilodemus wishedto avoid of withthe conclusion Bergson cannotagree (1971:418)thatSocrates being 15I for blamed beingsemnos. '6Cf. Danzig2003. of 1994:60-67 fordiscussion thefragment. 17 Patzer See see that is possible he gavethe shoesas payment: Dover1968on 859. Butthe pointof the 8sIt in take need and Socrates his followers shoesandwilltherefore payment the jokewouldbe the same: formof shoes. 1993:87-88. 19Cf.Patzer

PRACTICAL IRONY

197

on a slave,the slavewoulddeserthis master(Mem.ibid.). This raptepi{aor is of of "endurance"Socrates thethemeof muchofAlcibiades' description Socrates a senseof its effect in the Symposium (219d7,220al, a6, c2). Alcibiades gives and went aboutbarefoot in his usualcloakwhilethe otherswerefreezing."The as lookedat him suspiciously if he wereshowingcontemptfor them" soldiers of thusbelongs ao4v, 220cl). The shoelessness Socrates (o discussed and of self-deprivation this style,likethe mannerisms to a Kacrapovowvta already style
(elements one and two), could convey to others an attitudeof superiority. on ordinarypeople. He tells how, in the winter weather at Potidaea, Socrates

4. "Youput on a graveface." What is a graveface, and how did Socrates a provides clue. Eachof the guests put on sucha face?Xenophon's Symposium is in turnis askedwhathe prideshimselfon. Socrates' response preceded a by in his facialexpression: a ocsgv6;&vaanadcTacq Ls "very change t6b n7p6oonov, himselfon the (3.10).Thenhe saysthathe prides drawing his face" up haughtily and But how did he drawup his tradeof being a procurer, everyone laughs.20 one that face?Of the two setsof facialmuscles can"draw the face," is around up as describes Socrates the nose, and the otheris in the brow. When Xenophon the his face," probably he refers raising eyebrows to drawing up "very haughtily so (andnot to tiltinghis facebackwards as to look downhis nose). Someone of Cratinus described &vehrKzcai is as in a three-word cacgv6v, fragment 6&p6ot comic with raised 355 K = 348 K-A).A fourth-century (fr. eyebrows" "haughty "withhaughtily described Platoas poet, Amphis, Zdt a&tv&iIn1pTIpKn) 64pGU, raised In (fr. then, eyebrows" 13 K = fr. 13 K-A).21 aECtvonpoaoneir, in Clouds or better and 363, therearetwo notions,raisedeyebrows haughtiness, perhaps withAnaxagoras, a trait (from "eyebrow"), he shared superciliousness supercilium, him whosenotionof mindasthe causeof allthingsattracted whenhe wasyoung (Pl. Phd.96a6-99d2).22 time.In the of became from The superciliousness Socrates proverbial an early of the Peloponnesian of Pedetai Callias,which can be datedto the earlyyears in War (on the basisof frs.20-21 K-A), someone(Euripides drag?Euripides' of is Muse?a personified (semne) why she is haughty tragedy Euripides?) asked me. "Because allowed it's andpresumptuous ... (4povEi; .~iya)?23 The answer: is is Socrates responsible" 15 K-A). (The speaker's (fr. reasoning apparently: is Socrates the causeof this traitin me and that'smy authority-that's why
20 4.56-60,Socrates' of assertion. ask At interlocutors forandgetanexplanation hisbizarre Vlastos of as (1991:30-31) citesthispassage anexample "complex irony." 21 Henderson of uses Bato(third century) thisphrase philosophers 5.13K-A),asJeffrey (fr. pointed was 1998a:127. Socrates the and frs. out to me. Cf. Menander 34, 395 Koerte Sic.160;Imperio of characteristicthephilosopher. of originator thisidentifying was see this traitin Anaxagoras, Turato1995: 20. Empedocles said to haveimitated 22On A style Anaxagoras' haughty (D.L. 8.56 = Pythagoras 5 D-K). 23 the veryproblematic 1994: 1998b:223;Patzer see identification the character, Imperio of For see s.v. 56. For4povic ... cya,x LSJ9 4povio II.2.b.

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PHOENIX

it's allowed me.)24 At the end of Aristophanes'Frogs(405 B.C.E.), the chorus, explaining Dionysus' choice of Aeschylus over Euripides,sings a song in praise of the man of true intelligence,who would shun associationwith Socrates;only a crazy man, says the chorus,would waste time on hair-splitting,pretentious(adj. words in the companyof Socrates(1491-99). Lysias,in a speechwritten semnos) for a client prosecutedby a follower of Socrates,Aeschines of Sphettus,refersto the latter's"manypretentious(adj.semnos) discoursesaboutjustice andvirtue"(fr. 1.2 Thalheim), with the obviousimplicationthat Aeschines'wordswere hollow.25 To conclude, the four elements of Socrates'style describedin Clouds 362-363 have a common denominatorin his projection,throughvariousmannerisms,of an attitude of superiority. One of these elements, however, the third one, was considered a kind of irony, the kind which I am calling practicalirony. It is the example of Spartandress, mentioned above,in Aristotle'sdiscussionof irony which opens this particular karteria. perspectiveon Socrates'
II. ARISTOTLE EN 4.1127A13-B32

Truthfulness in the sense of sincerity or matter-of-factness,i.e., to claim neither more nor less than one has, is the mean between ironyor self-deprecation and its opposite, boasting(alazoneia). Aristotlegives one namedexampleof irony: Socrates.As P. W. Gooch has shown, Socratesis not for Aristotlejust an isolated And it is this analysis example but the model that controls his entire analysis.26 that, for the first time, allows ironyboth a degree of truthfulnessand a degree of gracefulness,freeing it from its earlierconsistentlypejorativesense.27Elsewhere, Aristotle'sview of irony is mainlynegative,in keepingwith what might be called the common-sense understandingof the matter.28 This understanding persisted in long afterAristotle. It reappears Epicurus' negativeevaluationof Socraticirony (Cic. Brutus292),29which is continuedby his followersPhilodemusand Colotes, for whom irony is still indistinguishable from alazoneia,as it was for Strepsiades in the fifth century.30 Irony is not, however, the virtue which Aristotle is discussing, but one of the extremesbetween which the virtue in question lies, and it is necessaryto be
jv 2.27:ostv6vvto ' tj Ecsi4q. TS K'v 25 deVries cidtp~c finds aEtLVO;; cognate xin ironical unfavorable in Cf. who or thatsemnos and words are 1944-45, Plato of thirty times). (twenty-eight
24Cf. D.L.2.24:

26Gooch1987.

1971: 27Cf. Ribbeck 388; 1876: Bergson 413-414. in as 28Gooch 1987: Contrary what 98. to Gooch suggests n. 7 on thispage, irony, associated sense refer withthe megalopsuchos would have simply not a (1124b29-31), positive butwould to haughtiness. was main to 1980andKleve 1983b. cf. Long 29Irony theEpicureans' objection Socrates: Riley of when a dominant feature Socrates weare be to (1988: cautions: cannot said constitute 152) "irony ofHellenistic his role philosophy." considering positive inthemainstream of as the section De vitiison irony, of Philodemus speaks the ironist a typeof alazon 30In atAr. Cf.Strepsiades Nu.449. Plut. Col. 16youV.used Socrates &Xa6vt; (21.37-38). Adv. 1117d:

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precise about where, according to Aristotle, Socrates stands in relation to the virtue. While it looks as if Socrates is the paragon of proper irony, Aristotle gives an example of improper irony (Spartandress) which applies perfectly to Socrates,althoughAristotle seems not be awareof this fact. This contradictionin Aristotle'saccount,to be explainedbelow, is one more puzzling trait in a chapter alreadypuzzling in crucialways.31 X EXazrrovyov'S XatptiorEpot Tdz 01 tavovorat-0o yydp ijOr Kiepoi 6' F'.p(ovE;ni U6 &Ptv
Xcyovat K~t 6uKatra(povr16JTpot Iotougjevot] IPtUKO(XVOupyot iotv. Kat Mv(oT& aX aoveia otov i1 K\c e?iv AaKvov KOtL ydp 6nEpPo'fl t fj XiaV taivcat, Ocic. Eip(veiE tItaepi r'rt Xl Mav KaXX&tyt kaXaovtK6v. o0 6A C i Xp(csEvot T, j8teprpimc 6 ,xaC(Ov tlno08ov K(a't 4avcph Eipowcu6sEvot xapiEVlE ~civovLrat. avtt&taOat 8' CiVaratLrip
Xi0eurtK"'
Xeipyv

8& Kai ou6ot Td 6ou; EVeKCL 6oKoGotXEyetv,&dOd (e6yovET Tb sdtkto(yT 8 ; boiet. 6YK*1p6v" Ev6o4(a &a(pvov-rat, otov Ka\ ZoKpdlpa11S o0i '& tgtKpM KI [XpooOayVEpd&

ydap. (1127b22-32)

I offer a paraphrase, with brief comments: Ironists, speakingin understatement, are, as such, alreadycloser to the virtuous mean than boasters (cf. 1127b7-8). They present a more graceful character. Ironists do not speak for the sake of gain, as, Aristotle has just shown, boasters sometimes do. They seek to avoid or pompousness.Especiallydo ironistsalsodenythings generallyapproved in good as Socratesalso used to do.32 (I shall returnto the question repute (zr 'v6o5a), of what these endoxaare.) Those, on the other hand, who deny things that are trivialand obvious are affecteddevils (the word is a hapaxand pauKonoavoupyot sounds like slang or something from a comedy) and rathercontemptible. And sometimes it (their behavior) is imposture (as I shall here translatealazoneia), for example, Spartandress. For excess and excessive deficiency are impostures. Those who use irony moderatelyand who are ironic with respect to that which is not too commonplace and obvious appear as graceful, while the impostor (alazon) appearsto be the opposite of the truthfulperson, for he is worse (than the ironist). (The ironist, then, is not completely the opposite of the truthful
person.)

The word endoxaoccurs six times in EN, twice in the masculine plural, of
persons, and twice in a well-known programmatic passage, where it means "things generally admitted" (1145b2-7). The other two occurrences are in the passage

under discussion.BecauseAristotle begins his descriptionof the ironistwith two referencesto irony as speech (1127b22-23, 24) it seems that Socrates' denial (verb must also be a matterof speech and not a practicalrefusal.Then &rapvcao0at) Aristotle's Socrates is, on account, denying or disclaiming (that he has) things generally approved(as good or desirable). The main such thing that Socrates
31Gooch 1987:98: "Wewerenotprepared to haveAristotle's ... scheme upwitha putative end vicevicious that its vice. onlyin the measure it harbours opposing Thatis puzzling." the 32The verbnotno is "usedin the secondclause,to avoidrepeating Verbof the first" (LSJ9s.v.).

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denied or disclaimed, to judge by Plato and Xenophon, was wisdom.33 The inferior ironists, again on Aristotle's account, deny or disclaim that they have qualitieswhich areunimportant.At this point, however,just whereAristotle says that their irony can turn into its opposite, i.e., alazoneia,he uses an examplethat takes the discussionout of the realmof verbalirony. Spartandressis a matterof what someone does, not what someone says. Although Aristotle uses Socrates, in the passage under discussion, as an example of proper, verbal irony, which is attractiveand is closer to the virtue under discussion than is irony'sopposite (alazoneia),it happensthat, in his own to Aristotle'sexcessiveirony,which becomes time, Socratesappeared demonstrate its opposite, i.e., alazoneia,jumping over the virtuousmeanwith which Aristotle wants to associate Socrates. It was preciselyin the matterof dress that Socrates went to this opposite extreme. His single cloak has alreadybeen mentioned. Its connotation would have been obvious to his fellow-Athenians,who were well awareof philo-Laconian, anti-democraticcirclesin their midst who went in for boxing and hard exercise(P1.Gorg.515e8-9; Protag.342b6-c2). The single cloak was unambiguouslySpartan.From the age of twelve, the Spartans wore a single cloak throughout the year (Xen. Lac. 2.4, on the Lycurganeducationalsystem). The Spartanking Agesilaus was highly esteemed for his moderation,of which a simple cloak (tribon)was an aspect (Plut. Ages. 14.4). Socrates'shoelessness, alreadymentioned, also connoted Sparta.In the same passagein which he refers to the young Spartans' single cloak,Xenophon saysthat they were requiredto go without sandals(14.3). Aristophanes explicitly links Socrateswith the Spartanstyle as practicedin Athens. In Birds, the verb awKopactiv, "to be a Socrates,"is synonymouswith is also specified as to go without a haircut, to be hungry, and to be dirty (Av. 1281-82; cf. Nub. 440-442 [Strepsiades' expectationsconcerninglife in Socrates' school], 833-837 with schol.).34A freshlybathed and well-shod Socrateswas a rare sight (P1. Symp.174a3-5; cf. Ar. Nub. 837); his food was generallyof the poorest kind (Xen. Mem. 1.6.2; this passagewas cited above in connectionwith Socrates'capacityfor endurance). Cloudsprovides a good example of how Socrates'particularstyle could be perceived as alazoneia or imposture. When, at the beginning of the play, Strepsiadestries to persuadePheidippidesto enter Socrates'school, it turns out that Strepsiadesdoes not even know Socrates'name (just as in Plato's Laches old Lysimachus,Socrates'fellow demesman, knows nothing about Socratesand his activities [180b7-el]). Pheidippides, however,who is more au courantthan his father, says: "I know them. You mean the alazones, the palefaces, the
rhetorical andargumentative skill, 33Gooch1987:101-102:one couldadda goodmemory, skill, Socrates sometimes denies he possesses. that allof whichthe Platonic of that Av. (2002: 122)suggests it wasbecause thesingle, never-changed 34Citing 1281-82,Lipka looked (and cloakthatthe Spartans theirAthenian imitators) dirty.
.aKcovoiaveLv,

"to be possessed by Laconomania," "to be philo-Spartan," which

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ones who go without shoes, like the godforsaken Socrates and Chaerephon" (102-104). (Similarly, Laches' sons know who Socratesis [180e4-181a3].) In Pheidippides' mind, alazoneia and going barefoot are closely connected and belong to the essentialdescriptionof Socrates.Pheidippides'spontaneousremark gives the common-sense version of Aristotle'spropositionthat irony of the kind exemplifiedby Spartandress could seem to be an imposture. Aristotle'sexample of Spartandress, then, happensto fit the case of Socrates perfectly,though not the case of Aristotle'sown Socrates.Further,this example could be perceivedas practicalirony. shows that Socrates'style of self-deprivation A case of this irony and its effect has alreadybeen cited abovein Part I: Socrates at Potidaea barefoot and wearing only his usual cloak, which his fellow-soldiers took as a sign of contempt (P1.Symp.220c1).
III. SOCRATIC IRONY IN PLATO

derivesfrom the Spartanipi7v (= Attic Joseph Cotter has arguedthat dp(pov whose trainingnotoriouslyincludedthe system"youngSpartansoldier"), e'prlv, atic use of paramilitary deception. To the base of this word was added the suffix a common way of creatingepithets and nicknames.If Cotter is right, then -Wv, in its origin Elpov has to do at least partly and perhapswholly with practical irony.35 As Vlastos observes, in the earliest uses of eironeiain Aristophanes and down through Theophrastus in the fourth century B.C.E.,the word often denotes "sly, intentionally deceptive speech or conduct."36 Deception is indeed the common denominatorof the earliestuses of clpov and words formed on this base, which have such connotations as pretext and trickery(Ar. Vesp.174-176; note rcXvo0?6vou) and feigned ignorance and mockery (Ar. Av. 1208-11; note Iris' mocking repetition of Pisetaerus'words).37 But alreadythe word refers to terms for verbalbehavior(as most clearlyin Strepsiadeslist of variouspejoratives clever,deceptive speakersat Ar. Nub. 449), and one can see why Vlastos, having neverreturnedto this matter.38 mentioned ironic "conduct," As for irony in Plato, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that it is a verbal phenomenon, even if, as the discussion of Clouds362-363 showed, both Plato and Xenophon preservetraits of Socratesthat amount to a practicalirony. The persistentverbalirony of the Platonic Socrates,of which all readersare aware,is what matters. It can be shown, however, that, in at least one attestationof the verb eipcvce6otc0 in Plato-and an importantone-, practicalirony is part and t all of the meaning. perhaps
in 1992. Cf. the possible tribe 35Cotter originof 0kXaOv the nameof the Thracian 'Ahka ivEc Bonfante 1936. (Hdt.4.17.52):
36Vlastos1991: 25.

The has denominator. generalization 37Ar.Pax623 probably the samecommon (tetpcov6,Evot) 58)overlooks patent sense mockery Ar.Av. 1208-11. of at about the (1998: Aristophanes Nehamas by
3 Vlastos 1991: 25.

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For Socrates'irony, Vlastos finds a "keysentence"in the speech of Alcibiades and "He spends his entire life eironeuomenos jesting with people" in Symposium: (216e4).39 Vlastos's procedureis to use another, later sentence to explain this one (218d6-7: Socrates spoke eironikos).These places are crucial to Vlastos's or interpretationof Socrates'irony as free from any untruthfulness deceit, so that into irony."40 Socrates role Socrateswill play a "critical in the mutationof eironeia is not deceitful because he both means and does not mean what he says, so that his irony is a teaching device. His interlocutorshave to figureout what he really means. Vlastos'sname for this device is "complexirony."41 A year afterthe publicationof Vlastos'sbook on Socrates,AlexanderNehamas of in his Sather Lectures(1992-93) offered a critiqueof Vlastos'sinterpretation He Socrates'irony.42 arguedthat "[t]he simple contrastbetweentruthfulnessand or lying cannot captureeither Socrates'character his way of doing philosophy."43 In his earlierreview of Vlastos, Nehamas had said more strongly: "Takinghis [Socrates']disavowalsas complex ironies robs him of his strangenessand in fact Nehamas stressedthe elementof concealmentin Socrates' eliminateshis irony."44 irony, which "introducescomplexity even in the simplest cases of irony."45He constant companion,"46 also emphasized the sense of superioritythat is "irony's the sense that, I have suggested,lies behind the practicalironyof Socrates. Nehamas discussed the second of the two passages in the Symposium just mentioned at length (218d6-219a4). As for the first passage,Nehamas was well aware that practicalirony is presupposed,and he cited this passage aproposof Quintilian'sobservationon Socrates'"wholelife"as ironic (9.2.46), on which he acutely observed that, on this account, it "does not even depend on words."47 But the first passageNehamas did not discuss at length, and its implicationsfor practicalirony remainto be drawnout. is The context of 216e4 (eironeuomenos) Alcibiades'accountof his attempted seductionof Socrates,a distinctsectionof his speechwhich beginsat 216c4.48Like
39Vlastos 1991: 33. The translationis Vlastos's. 40Vlastos1991: 31. 41Vlastos 1991: 31: "In 'simple' irony what is saidjust isn't what is meant: taken in its ordinary, commonly understood,sense the statementis simplyfalse. In 'complex'ironywhat is said both is and isn't what is meant: its surfacecontent is meant to be true in one sense, false in another.Thus when he Socratessays that he is a 'procurer' does not and yet does, mean what he says." 42Nehamas 1998: 46-69. Vlastos'sbook also provokeda spateof articleson Socrates'irony. For a bibliography,see Vasiliou 1999: 458, n. 6, to which add Vasiliou2002. 43Nehamas 1998: 59. 44Nehamas [1992]1999: 102. 45Nehamas 1998: 62. 46Nehamas 1998: 62. 47Nehamas 1998: 56. 48A paragraphindentation in the OCT correctly indicates the beginning of this section of Alcibiades' speech. Cf. the outline of the speech in Dover 1980: 164-165. Dover also sees the beginning of a new section at 216c4.

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all the restof the speech,this sectionis guidedby the imageof Socrates satyr, as moreprecisely carved a of Marsyas opensup to reveal that figure imagesof the inside(215a6-216a2).The outsideandthe insidehaveopposite gods qualities.
With the outer erotic Socrates, Alcibiades contrasts the inner sophrosyne of Socrates. Vlastos's"keysentence"appearsin Alcibiades'characterization this of

sophrosyne:
oXtt i'X8t aOtL oi6~v, &xXhL 6oov O TtEE "oooot9ov r&ov ci ~irlv rtv& rtti v oi6'1Uv Et; &(9 E,oit' o'Sr' 6Xov vrc6 Oi0hi ritc; - X0o6motoF, irXi00oucgClK(CptogCV)V flyCitOtta6cdLvZtX TaGZtrX t&KTJgilzar o65cvb z & ta Kotl x lUC4M o6i8v ivatcu-Xiyo 6{iv--ipo--pvCu6sgvog6 Koit dvrta zrv fiovtpbo robg

tc

ij

oU

K Ka6U

Kaa~tpovet

. a&vOptrnouc ttcxarXs

i:r?ciov

I cantell you thathe doesn't careat all if someone good-looking, he disdains is but [it] morethan anyonemight think, nor does he careif someoneis rich or has any other honorof thoseesteemed the multitude. considers thesepossessions worthless He all as by and thatwe arenothing--I'mtellingyou-and eironeuomenos in playfulness and toward

all mankind spends hislife. (216d7-e5) he

Firstof all,the innerSocrates anything obsessed beautiful is but with youngmen. He scornsthis beauty.Second,this scornextendsto everything that most else eironeuomenos paizon(translated and "in peoplevaluehighly.The twoparticiples, canbe takenas summing the attitude Alcibiades described, has playfulness"), up will andeironeuomenos havethe connotation scornful of (note"weare superiority This attitude couldof course expressed be asI shallshowin a nothing"). verbally, but formof Socrates' moment, it alsotookthevisible irony.In particular, practical showedhis contempt possessions, his Spartan his chosenpoverty for and dressin showedhis contempt someof the endoxa, thingsesteemed for the particular by others. The participle whichI at firsttranslated playfulness" "in functions exegetically two participles be construed sharing preposition can as the (the ipp6;,"toward") andthusmeans"making of,"or, morestrongly, mockery mankind.49 fun "in of' in Socrates' interlocutors PlatoandXenophon sometimes thatit is mockery feel that they are suffering. "Mockery" the word used by the young Glaucon, is who wiltsunderSocrates' 3.6.12: (Mem. questioning by Alcibiades oFarsopatt); in FirstAlcibiades in Phaedrus the eponymous (109d6);by dialogue(264e3).50 accusesSocrates "laughing others(4.4.9).51 of at" Hippiasin the Memorabilia Socratescommentson the extremedistressof Protagoras says that he and the tone of his questioning the greatsophist(P1.Prt. 333e2-5). of changed
49Contrast milder with For of and Vlastos's "jesting people." thecollocation mockery "playfulness,"

cf. ps.-Pl. Theag.125e4, where Theages says to Socrates: Ka narst; ctp6d ;te ("youare aKctrtc; mocking me and making fun of me"). 50Cf. ps.-Pl. Eryx. 399c7. s5 Cited by Vlastos (1991: 32-33) as evidencethat the Xenophontic Socratesis not ironic.

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Socrates'mockerywas connected, in the biographicaltradition,with one of the charges on which he was condemned. The scholiast on Plato Apologia 18b reports that Anytus, one of Socrates'accusers,was "a lover of Alcibiades and a rich man from his leatherbusiness;mocked for this by Socrates, (oKconrt6jevov) he therefore bribed Meletus to bring a charge of impiety against Socrates."52 To return to Alcibiades' speech, in order to illustrate Socrates' sophrosyne, Alcibiades proceeds to tell an anecdote from his youth, when he attemptedand failed to seduce him. Here what I would add to Nehamas's discussion is the force of this speech as a speech act as Alcibiades later understood Alcibiades it. Socrates'speech with three adverbs:Socratesspoke (1) "veryironically" prefaces of (mala eironikos),(2) "sharply" (sphodra),and (3) "characteristically himself' All three modify the verb of speaking. The first two (eiothotos,218d6-7).53 can be taken to refer not to the propositionscontained in Socrates'speech but to qualities of the speech as an act, i.e., to the performativeaspect of what he says. But the speech act did not succeed.Alcibiadesdid not heara refusalin Socrates' words, and he proceeded to lie down next to him. It is only now, at the time what Socratesreallymeant:no Alcibiades is telling the story,that he understands he exchange of knowledgefor sex. With this presentunderstanding, can describe Socrates'words as malaeironikos, phrasewhich, it turnsout, has a meaningclose a in to that of eironeuomenos 216d7-e5, which, takenwith the participle with which it is paired, meant "in haughtiness"or "in mockery."As Alcibiadessays a little cf. later, "He was so superior,he scorned[verbkataphronein; 216d7-e5 and 220cl cf. quoted above] and derided [verbkatagelan; Xen. Mem. 4.4.9 cited above] my bloom, and was arrogant[verbhubrizo]" (219c3-5).
IV. CONCLUSION

in Though Vlastos recognizesthe element of mockeryin eironeia the earliest, Aristophanic usages and in Plato,54this element is marginalin his definition. Losing the clue of mockery, he fails to see irony as a dimension of Socrates' hybris,to borrowAlcibiades'description(Pl. Symp.215b7, 219c5, 221e3, 222a8),
52The scholiastcites the Apologies life of Lysiasand of Xenophon and also Aristoxenus' of Socrates (fr. 60 Wehrli). In Xen. Apol.29-31 Socratespredictsthat the son of Anytuswill not continuelong in to "the servileoccupation" which his fatherhas consignedhim. In this passage,Socratesis denigrating for the occupation of Anytus (though his main point is the educationthat would be appropriate the son), whereas in the scholiast on P1.Apol. 18b it may be that Socrateswas also mocking Anytus as a lover of Alcibiades, as the upstartleather-dealerin love with an inaccessible young aristocrat. 53For the use of rT in this tripartitephrase,see Denniston 1966: 500 b.a. Vlastos (1991: 34 and in 36) translatesthe phrase as if it were bipartite: "most eir6nik6s his extremelycharacteristicand habitualmanner,"takingthe second adverbas modifyingthe third,whereasall three modify the verb of speaking. 54Vlastos 1991: 21, 25, 28, 29.

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in which was manifested to his contemporaries his mannerismsas well as in his words. This hybris is the common denominatorof the verbal and the practical irony of Socrates. Vlastos's"complexirony"may be a philosophicallyinteresting kind of irony, and indeed it provokeda large discussion,but (Nehamas is right) it is not a kind that was known to Socratesor his interlocutors.It is the manner of Socratesas interpreted Aristotle(on the basis of the Platonic dialoguesand/or by hearsayfrom Plato and others) that causes the change in the meaning of irony. Socrates is thus appropriatedfor a new sense of irony that will ever after be read back into the Platonic dialogues, where it is absent. Indeed the relevant Ethics seems to be the origin of the notion of "Socratic chapter of Nicomachean irony."ss55 What remains of Vlastos's work on Socrates' irony is the insight, which was hardly original with him but needed to be recuperated, that irony is central to the personality of Socrates, that Socrates is, in short, an ironist. This insight rewrites the history of irony: there was a philosophic irony, in Socrates, beforethere was irony as a rhetoricalfigure and before the Romantic (re)discoveryof philosophic irony. The central contribution of Nehamas has been the aspect of concealment in Socrates' irony, a constant surd element. Obiterdicta of Nehemas, cited above, show that he is aware that, as in the cardinal statement by Alcibiades, this irony was a way of life and not only verbal.56I have tried in this paper to specify the non-verbalirony practicedby Socrates. Irony is ultimately the vanishing point at which the social-historicalline of researchconductedhere convergeswith the philosophicline. Maddening though it may be, one cannot penetratethe mask createdby Socrates'irony.57But the mask-or could one say the life of Socrates?-is worth studyingfor its own sake. A corroborating reasonfor studyingthe life is suggestedby Aristotle, again, as in Part ii above, in spite of himself. In Metaphysics 1078b34-1080a8, he discusses Socrates as a predecessor of Plato. Socrates, it turns out, did not "separate" the Forms but only sought general definitions through inductivereasoning. On Aristotle's somewhat belittlingview of Socratesas philosopher,58 seems at first it glance to be impossibleto explain Socrates'impact on Plato, on the other writers of Sokratikoi logoi, and on those who went off to other cities in Greece and elsewhere to found philosophic schools. What Aristotle leaves out, of course, is Socratesthe person, and it is this Socrateswho must have caused the enormous
55Gooch 1987: 95, n. 1. 56Cf. Nehamas 1998: 68: "not as a rhetoricalfigurebut trulyas a way of living." 570n irony as a mask, see Nehamas 1998: 67-68. 58As Field ([1930]1967: 203) comments, Aristotle's"historical sketchesare neverundertakenfor their own sake, but as a preliminaryto the developmentof some positive view of his own .... He is always... anxious to show that his own philosophyis the final consummationof previouslines of thought ....

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effect on others which his philosophic activity, at least on Aristotle's account, could hardly explain. To the person, then, or to its mask, one is compelled to return.59
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS RUTGERS UNIVERSITY NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY08901-1414

U.S.A.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

edmunds@rci.rutgers.edu

Frammentidellacommedia Belardinelli, A. M. et al. (eds.). 1998. Tessere: greca:studi e commenti. Studi e commenti 12. Bari. Hermes99: 409-422. Bergson, L. 1971. "Eironund Eironeia," E. 1950. Dictionnaire de Heidelberg. Boisacq, grecque. etymologique la langue de Bonfante, G. 1936. "Etymologiedu mot grec alazon,"Bulletinde la Socihtt Linguistique deParis 37: 77-78. Borthwick, E. K. 2001. "Socrates,Socratics,and the Word Blepedaimon,"CQ N.s. 51: 297-301. Hermes 339-358. 76: Btichner,W. 1941. "Uberden Begriff der Ironeia," Histoiredes mots. de la languegrecque: Chantraine, P. 1968-80. Dictionnaire etymologique Paris. Cotter, J. 1992. "The Etymology and EarliestSignificanceofsYptov," Glotta70: 31-34. Danzig, G. 2003. "Apologizingfor Socrates:Plato and Xenophon on Socrates'Behavior in Court,"TAPA 133: 281-321. and 3rd de Vries, G. J. 1944-45. "Eegtv6c Cognate Words in Plato,"Mnemosyne ser. 12: 151-156. Oxford. Particles2. Denniston, J. D. 1966. The Greek Clouds. Oxford. Dover, K. J. 1968. Aristophanes: 1980. Plato:Symposium.Cambridge. Edmunds, L. 1987. "I1Socratearistofaneoe l'ironiapratica," QUCC N.s. 26: 7-21. 59 method in followed thisarticle could be The (Nehamas [1992]1999: ideally called "triangulation" it I three(though sometimes wastwo)of ourfourmain 89). Whenever couldfindagreement among that and sourcesfor Socrates-Aristophanes, Plato,Xenophon, Aristotle-I assumed it was the of to The historical Socrates aboutwhomtheywerespeaking. objections this method combination fromPlatoandtheshakiness of Aristotle havelongsincebeenmadedear:thedubious independence the from the canon"; dubious premises ofXenophon Plato; fictionalizing independence of"Fitzgerald's of of distortion theportrait Socrates in the of the forms whichPlatoandXenophon wrote; ineluctable in of of havearisen,however, discussion the philosophy in the comedyClouds. These objections and to what thosewhointended establish Socrates and Socrates havebeenmadeagainst thought how reactions and behavior Socrates on others' of on havefocused the non-verbal he argued. formypart, I, are for to him.The kindsof details whichI havelookedin the sources notoneswhichthesesources whichI have in to wouldhavehadanyreason invent. cited,I canseeno pointat Further, thepassages is of or from whichone is echoing borrowing another. (Alcibiades' quotation Aristophanespresented is of and as a quotation, its description Socrates corroborated.) on comments thisarticle. sent Victor Bers,andSara Henderson, Rappe mevaluable Jeffrey

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