The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Bettany Hughes (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 8, 2011

We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did; in his unwavering commitment to truth and in the example of his own life, he set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy. And yet, for twenty-five centuries, he has remained an enigma: a man who left no written legacy and about whom everything we know is hearsay, gleaned from the writings of Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. Now Bettany Hughes gives us an unprecedented, brilliantly vivid portrait of Socrates and of his homeland, Athens in its Golden Age.

His life spanned “seventy of the busiest, most wonderful and tragic years in Athenian history.” It was a city devastated by war, but, at the same time, transformed by the burgeoning process of democracy, and Hughes re-creates this fifth-century B.C. city, drawing on the latest sources—archaeological, topographical and textual—to illuminate the streets where Socrates walked, to place him there and to show us the world as he experienced it.

She takes us through the great, teeming Agora—the massive marketplace, the heart of ancient Athens—where Socrates engaged in philosophical dialogue and where he would be condemned to death. We visit the battlefields where he fought, the red-light district and gymnasia he frequented and the religious festivals he attended. We meet the men and the few women—including his wife, Xanthippe, and his “inspiration” and confidante, Aspasia—who were central to his life. We travel to where he was born and where he died. And we come to understand the profound influences of time and place in the evolution of his eternally provocative philosophy.

Deeply informed and vibrantly written, combining historical inquiry and storytelling élan, The Hemlock Cup gives us the most substantial, fascinating, humane depiction we have ever had of one of the most influential thinkers of all time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The brilliant cultural historian Hughes (Helen of Troy) has again produced an intriguing and entertaining biohistory of one of the most important individuals in the ancient world, and of the Athenian society that condemned him to death for daring to question all received wisdom. Drawing on the abundance of contemporary references by both supporters and opponents to the philosopher, Hughes illustrates that "bsolutely of his time, he is also of ours," "the first ironic man" in an unironic age, a gadfly to Athens' citizens and leaders. Moreover, through careful description of fifth century B.C.E. Athens, she brings to life the social, political, economic, literary, and military realities of Socrates' society, in particular the centrality of the agora. Hughes devotes a substantial part of her account to the trial and forced suicide of the great philosopher, events which communicated Socratic humor mixed with courage. Regrettably, she offers little in the way of criticism of modern authors such as I.F. Stone who have clouded Socrates's reputation by championing the populist and "democratic" tyrants. But she aptly conveys the continuing urgency of Socrates' devotion to the inquiring mind. 16 pages of color illus.; 33 b&w illus.; 5 maps. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

There are certain historical figures whose lives merit perpetual reexamination because their impact continues to reverberate century after century. According to historian Hughes, author of Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (2005), Socrates is one of these seminal social and cultural architects. Beginning at the end of Socrates’ long life, she reaches back in time, analyzing the historical context responsible, in part, for spawning such an exceedingly influential thinker. If, as she purports, “we think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did,” it is important for us to understand why and how he posited the relentless questions about what it means to be human that drew attention to his famous philosophical method of inquiry and debate. This, then, is not only a lively and eminently readable biography of Socrates the man but also a vivid evocation of Athens, the city-state on the cusp of originating many of the greatest precepts of modern Western civilization. --Margaret Flanagan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1ST edition (February 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400041791
• ISBN-13: 978-1400041794
• Product Dimensions: 1.6 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #486,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Socrates & Athens Are Alive February 19, 2011

By michael mcgreevy

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Much like Susan Wise Bauer's excellent series on world history, the author provides an engaging and imaginative narration of Socrates in his time and in his city. You can't help but believe that you are reading an account of the people, living conditions, and culture of the polis by a person who had just returned from a visit there via a time machine. She brings it all alive with rich language, properly placed anecdotal information, and meaningful quotations from authors of a time 2,400 years ago. Appearing throughout this book are artfully placed descriptions of recent findings of various digs in Athens, as well as interesting descriptions of conditions in contemporary Athens.

Refreshingly, the author is a British classicist who can also tell a good story. I recommend this to those who are both familiar and unfamiliar with ancient history and to those who enjoy well-written, narrative history. Even fiction lovers may like it for its brisk narration. Experts may find it that it lacks the rigor and detail to which scholars are accustomed.

Greek words are sprinkled throughout the account, but not to worry: they are spelled out in our English alphabet. Also included is a translation of the word immediately following its use.

This is both a fun and insightful way to interpret and read ancient history.

Socrates and Athens are alive!

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Socrates and Athens, a Brilliant History March 31, 2011

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

If you were walking the marketplace of Athens a couple of millennia ago, you might have been accosted by an ugly man who wanted to talk to you. He wouldn't have anything to sell, he would just want to ask questions. Not questions like how to get to the upcoming festival or who you supported for civic leaders. He would want to know about truth, about love, about justice, and about how we could know anything about such subjects when he professed that he himself was no expert, and in fact he didn't have any answers himself, just questions. This would have been Socrates, and as everyone knows, his questions were to get him into trouble and cost him his life. Socrates talked about the founding ideas of philosophy, and although he didn't write anything down, his dialogues and speeches written down by Plato (they cannot have been transcriptions) have been the talk of philosophers ever after. Bettany Hughes is a historian focusing on antiquity, not a philosopher, and her book _The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life_ is a surprisingly detailed biography of Socrates and a history of the turbulent Athens of his times. It succeeds wonderfully in both spheres. Hughes is a brilliant explainer, taking a long-ago and strange land and brightly communicating it to us moderns; for example, when she writes about the trial of Socrates and how a poet testified against him, she tells us, "The glitterati and their lackeys were turning against the irritating gadfly." She does not write an informal biography and history; this is a large book, full of notes and her own translations of ancient texts. It is, however, far from dry; the city and the philosopher are dazzlingly brought to life in these pages.

Socrates was born around 469 B.C., and it was a spectacular time for Athens. Not only were art and architecture flourishing, but there was a bustling democracy. One of Socrates' roles before becoming a marketplace philosopher was to be a soldier. Sparta was a mere three days walk from Athens, and it was a constant worry during Socrates' life. He fought in the Peloponnesian War during his late thirties and into his forties, and he served well. Athens was to have its military endeavors after Socrates had finished up his years of soldiering. The history here, of a time rich in thought and action and populated not just by Socrates and his students but by Euripides, Herodotus, Pericles, Aristophanes and others, is punctuated and overcome by strife. Socrates was tolerated while the Athenian democracy thrived and expanded, but as times changed, "shamed by their defeats in war, confused by the freedom their own political system gave them, the Athenians from around 415 BC onwards chose oppression over liberal thinking." Socrates returned from his war campaigns and took up his peculiar life of wandering in the marketplace and holding philosophical discussions there; he did not do so in schools or homes where people would pay him. He was no killjoy; he liked beautiful things and people, and he liked a good dinner. One of the reasons he bothered Athens was that he may have enjoyed physical pleasures that could be bought, but he was resolutely unmaterialistic. The other great reason he bothered Athens was his effect on the youth; this (besides his unacceptable view of gods) was the other great charge against him, that he corrupted them. Socrates loved young men, but so did all of the city: "Being a young man in Athens brought with it an ecstatic belief that if raised in an appropriately virile, legal, state-sanctioned way, you could bring security, wealth, and great good to your _polis_." The worry was that Socrates was capturing young men from their efforts in the gymnasium, chatting them up not sexually but intellectually, and making them question family, religion, and democratic loyalties.

Hughes starts her book with scenes from Socrates' climactic trial, and intersperses them throughout the chapters. We learn that his jury of 500 (!) Athenians were randomly drawn by a mechanical device, a sort of primitive computer. Hughes even ground up hemlock, but sniffs rather than quaffs it ("a nose-wrinkling sour smell"). And of course we read again about Socrates' infuriating his jurors by his assuming the role of a know-nothing or innocent, refusing to play word games with his accusers but also refusing to flee from the judgement against him. If you have read these episodes before, you will encounter them here with a new appreciation for why Athens was scared of this man. The way Hughes explains it, they were right to sense the danger, as should we be: "Nowadays we look anxiously for our enemies; for anarchists, terrorists, capitalists, communists, nihilists. But Socrates reminds us of the uncomfortable truth, that the enemy is always within. It is down to us. That it is not `their' fault, but `ours' has to be his single most important, and hard-to-swallow, philosophy."

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Depiction of the Life and Times of Socrates February 26, 2011

By David Sheppard

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Sometimes a reader will find a book that was seemingly written just for him. For me, this is such a book. Having visited Greece twice myself (once in 1993 and again in the fall of 2009), I'm attuned to this subject matter as few readers outside the academic community would be. And I couldn't put it down. I was like a starving man being served a banana split that won't melt, so that I ate a little, savored, and ate again, relishing each bite. I will admit that I haven't yet quite finished reading it, and in some ways, I hope I never will. Once finished, all I'll have left is... to read it again. As an author myself of both fiction and non-fiction set in Greece, I've frequently tried to visualize ancient Greek cities, including Athens, with varying degrees of success. Bettany Hughes seems to hit the mark on every page. She provides a sense of discovery that won't be repeated with rereading. And this is a book of discovery. She takes you there, lets you walk around with Socrates, see his ancient world through his eyes, and bask in its glory and ruin. As it says on the dustcover, she "illuminate[s] the streets where Socrates walked, to place him there and to show us the world as he experienced it."

Her book is a marvel. It's history, it's archaeology, and it's biography. No one has done it better. I have 1,400 books in my home library, much of it dedicated to ancient Greece. Many authors have tried to make ancient Greece come alive, but so far I've not come across one that approaches what Ms Hughes has accomplished. The 120 pages of appendices, notes, bibliography, and index will also be of immense use when doing research.

If you have a shred of interest in the origins of Western Civilization, you owe it to yourself to indulge in Hughes' intellectual feast. Read it slowly, savor it on your intellectual palate like a slow-melting piece of the finest dark chocolate.