The Hemlock Cup

Product Description

We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did. His aphorism ' The unexamined life is not worth living' may have originated twenty-five centuries ago, but it is a founding principle of modern life. Socrates lived & contributed to a city that nurtured key ingredients of contemporary civilisation
- democracy, liberty, science, drama, rational thought
- yet, as he wrote nothing in his lifetime, he himself is an enigmatic figure. The Hemlock Cup gives Socrates the biography he deserves, setting him in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean that was his home, & dealing with him as he himself dealt with the world. Socrates was a soldier, a lover, a man of the people. He philosophised neither in grand educational establishments nor the courts of kings but in the squares & public arenas of Golden Age Athens. He lived through an age of extraordinary materialism, in which a democratic culture turned to the glorification of its own city; when war was declared under the banner of democracy; &, when tolerance turned into intimidation on streets once populated by the likes of Euripides, Sophocles & Pericles. For seventy years he was a vigorous citizen of one of the greatest capitals on earth, but then his beloved Athens turned on him, condemning him to death by poison. Socrates' pursuit of personal liberty is a vibrant story that Athens did not want us to hear, but which must be told. Bettany Hughes has painstakingly pieced together Socrates' life, following in his footsteps across Greece & Asia Minor, & examining the new archaeological discoveries that shed light on his world. In The Hemlock Cup she reveals the human heart of the man, & relates a story that is as relevant now as it has ever been.