Excellent. ( )

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know.

Socrates was innocent! And also the master of the humble brag. ( )

Socrates was a super smart dude, kind of smug and sarcastic. So he's basically Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock. ( )

Elegant and memorable. Could use a little more on the logical reasoning. ( )

(Original Review, 2000-12-02)

I'm not trying to do much more than suggest Plato isn't starting from a blank sheet but from huge trauma: the death of a way of life that produced his great teacher, Socrates, but at the same time, killed him. The jurors who vote to put Socrates to death, after listening to the speeches, are the citizens who voted to exterminate the Melians, and many other atrocities.

Plato shows us a Socrates who stands against the idea that persuasive speeches and a majority vote are sufficient to establish the justice of a cause: although we still use trial by jury in 2500 years since. In the dialogues he is not just discussing abstract subjects with abstract pupils, but debating with the players in the real, historical drama. The question I'm asking, I suppose, is - where does Plato think the flaws are in the world of Socrates, that eventually killed him? What's he trying to put right? I don't pretend this is easy to answer satisfactorily: not least because the characters in the dialogues who are so charming and admiring of Socrates are often the same people who screw everything up for their teacher down the line.

I think Hanson is pretty good on military history but like many military historians, sees military solutions to political conflicts everywhere he looks. He also seems to be growing increasingly partisan.

I just wish I were living and teaching in Thebes so that I often could take my coffee at the kafenion on Epaminondas Square, in the shadow of his statue. Thebans notoriously picked the wrong side – they usually elect a communist mayor when the rest of the country lurches to the right, and thus the roads never get properly repaired. Epaminondas' tactic of attacking the superpower by isolating its allies was very successful against Sparta, not least because there were so few Spartans and their strength really resided in keeping the allies under control. But I don't think Thebes really chose not to have an empire: I think the league was the limit of its power anyway.

Yes, they were crushed by Macedonia. Did Epaminondas unwittingly teach Phillip how, when he was a young hostage in Thebes? And did Epaminondas learn his tactics in turn from studying the Theban general Pagondas, who did something similar at the battle of Delium? Where Socrates stood in the front line... ( )