Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​He was also firm-minded and devoted to democracy, as is clear both from his not yielding to Critias and his faction when they ordered him to bring Leon of Salamis, a wealthy man, to them so that he might be put to death; and from his being the only one to vote against the condemnation of the ten generals. Moreover, when it was possible for him to escape from prison, he refused; he rebuked those who wept for him, and delivered those most beautiful discourses while in chains. He was self-sufficient and dignified. And once, as Pamphile says in the seventh book of her Memorabilia, when Alcibiades offered him a large tract of land so that he might build a house on it, he said: "If I were in need of shoes, and you offered me a hide so that I could make shoes for myself, I would be ridiculous if I accepted it."

​Often, looking at the quantities of goods offered for sale, he would say to himself: "How many things there are that I do not need!" And he used constantly to repeat these iambics: "Silver plate and purple cloth are useful to tragic actors, but not to life." He also looked down upon Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon, and Eurylochus of Larissa, neither accepting money from them nor traveling to their courts. And he was so orderly in his regimen that, although plagues occurred often in Athens, he alone did not fall ill.

​Aristotle says that he married two wives: first Xanthippe, from whom Lamprocles was born to him; and second Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just, whom he took without a dowry, and from whom were born Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Others, however, say that he married Myrto first; and some, among whom are Satyrus and Hieronymus of Rhodes, assert that he had both at the same time. For they say that the Athenians, wishing on account of the shortage of men to increase the population, decreed that a man might marry one citizen woman and also procreate children by another; whence Socrates did this as well.

​He was also capable of looking down on those who mocked him. He took pride in frugality, and collected no fee. He used to say that he who eats with the greatest appetite needs seasoning least, and he who drinks with the greatest appetite least awaits a drink that is not at hand; and that he who is in need of the fewest things is closest to the gods. This may also be gathered from the comic poets, who, without realizing it, praise him through the very things for which they mock him. Aristophanes speaks thus: "O man who hast justly yearned for great wisdom, how happily shalt thou live among the Athenians and the Greeks! For thou art mindful and a thinker, and endurance resides in thy mind; thou art not worn out standing or walking, nor excessively distressed by shivering, nor dost thou desire breakfasts; and thou abstainest from wine, gluttony, and the rest of follies."

​And Ameipsias, bringing him on stage in a coarse cloak, speaks thus: "Socrates, best among a few men, but by far the most foolish among many, hast thou too come to us? Resolute art thou indeed. Whence could a warm cloak come to thee? B: This misfortune has arisen through the malice of the shoemakers. A: Yet this man, though so starving, never deigned to flatter." This contemptuous and high-minded spirit of his is also displayed by Aristophanes, who says: "Because thou swaggerest along the streets, and castest thy eyes askance, and endurest many hardships barefoot, and wearest a solemn face among us." And yet at times, adapting himself to the occasion, he would dress splendidly, as when walking to Agathon's house in Plato's Symposium.

​He was able to do both: to exhort and to dissuade. Just as, having conversed with Theaetetus about knowledge, he sent him away inspired, as Plato also says; and having discussed piety to some extent with Euthyphro, who had brought an indictment for the killing of a stranger against his own father, he turned him away from his purpose; and by exhorting Lysis he made him a man of the highest character. For he was capable of drawing arguments from the facts themselves. He also reproached his son Lamprocles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon has also stated somewhere. And when Glaucon, the brother of Plato, wished to engage in politics, he dissuaded him because of his inexperience, as Xenophon says; but Charmides, on the contrary, who had a natural aptitude for it, he urged to take it up.