Plutarch on the Tutelary Daimon of Socrates

Plutarch · Buddhas and Initiates Series · 32 pages

Plutarch's dialogue, framed as a conversation among friends at Thebes at the time of the return of the exiles — Pelopidas, Epaminondas, Charon, Archias, Leontidas and Lysanoridas among them — while the plan to liberate the city from Spartan rule is being laid. The philosophical question and the conspiracy run in parallel through the whole piece, so that the argument about what guided Socrates is repeatedly interrupted by news, portents and the fear that the plot has been discovered.

The question itself is put sharply: what shall we think of his daemon — was it some trifling thing, an omen or a sneeze, or could it be nothing but sound judgement? Around it Plutarch sets a strange antiquated writing sent to Egypt for interpretation, the folly of superstition against the more rational method Socrates pursued, and the arrival of a stranger from Italy, Theanor, who offers money in requital for the hospitality shown to Lysis after his escape from the massacre at Metapontum — an offer refused, with Epaminondas explaining why. The later sections give a romantic dream and a descent into the infernal regions where daemons are seen and their connection with human beings on earth explained, the Pythagorean philosophy of dreams and sacred impulses, and the refusal of Epaminondas to kill any citizen without process of law. It closes with the slaughter of the Spartan commanders and the liberation of Thebes.

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