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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies
and
Program in Classical Philosophy
Luncheon Workshop
Two Socratic Puzzles
George T. Mavrogordatos
University of Athens
Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies
Two well-known but largely overlooked facts from the life of Socrates bring into question either what we
believe we know about him or what we know about Athenian democracy—or perhaps both? These are (a) his
term as member of the Council (Βουλή) in 406/5 and (b) his military service as a hoplite. There is nothing odd
about his term on the Council only if we assume a system of sortition not requiring any initiative on the part
of the citizen. There is nothing odd about his military service as a hoplite only if we assume that, despite his
poverty, he still remained in the third census class of zeugitai (ζευγίται), corresponding to an annual income
between 200 and 300 medimnoi. Otherwise, he would belong to the thetes (θήτες), mobilized only as rowers
(and, possibly, as marines) but never as hoplites. In that case, he would also be legally disqualified from the
Council and it is even more unthinkable that he would be prepared to cheat on this score in order to become
a councilman.
George T. Mavrogordatos is Professor of Political Science at the University of Athens, where he has been
teaching since 1982. He has also taught at Tufts University, the University of Salzburg, the Johns Hopkins
University Bologna Center, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has written extensively on
contemporary Greek politics and on modern Greek history, and received the Woodrow Wilson Foundation
Award of the American Political Science Association for his book Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party
Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936.
Friday, November 19, 2010
1:00 p.m.
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103