The Last Days of Socrates

In the Peloponnesian region of Phlius, Phaedo recounts the last days of Socrates for Echecrates. Phaedo explains the reason for the trial’s delay, having to do with proper observation of ritual, and names the friends who were with Socrates at the end, noting that Plato was not present, having been ill.

On the day he was to take the hemlock, Socrates’s followers found him with his wife, Xanthippe, who had brought his little son to see him. She became overwhelmed with emotion, and Socrates requested one of his followers to escort her and the child home. After having been relieved of his leg irons, Socrates noted the interdependence of pleasure and pain; one cannot have one without the other. He had earlier been composing poems from the works of Aesop, despite never having previously done so, because he wished to explore “the meaning of certain dreams” that had visited him, instructing him to make music (121). He assumed this meant continuing his philosophy since, for him, it “was the highest music,” but with the trip to Delos, a site dedicated to Apollo, who is also the god of music, delaying his trial, Socrates decided to make music of the usual sort, just in case (121).