F I S H I N G

The Greek assembly had passed the death sentence on Socrates.

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Before he died, in prison, he spoke to his friends. They would have liked to free him by bribing the guards, but he refused. He did not believe in death as a final thing.

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He explained that in his view things on Earth and Earth itself were only blurred images  reflected from a more perfect world. This idea was later developed by Socrates’ most famous student, Plato.

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Socrates accepted the death sentence and carried it out by drinking the hemlock tea that he was offered, but he still warned his friends not to take his theories as the last word.

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“No sensible man would think it proper to rely on things of this kind being just as I have described them, but…..”

And then he added : ” but ……..that this is so seems to me proper and worthy of the risk of believing; for the risk is noble.”

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Socrates never wrote. Most of what is known about him was written by his student, Plato. It was also Plato who wrote down how Socrates died :

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For some reason painters always liked to dramatize the scene of Socrates receiving the poison. However, Socrates rather explicitly rejected  dramatization as nuisance, when his wife came weeping to say good bye to him, and he simply told one of his friends to take her home.

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