An Ancient Troll Who Attracted Rich Young Snobs
Socrates was a well-known and controversial figure in his native Athens. A gadfly, he often stopped people and asked them a series of questions that ultimately left them tied up in logical knots and contradicting themselves – the Socratic Method. That made him unpopular with many, and he was frequently mocked in the plays of comic dramatists, such as Aristophanes’ The Clouds. He emerged when Athens was at the height of her power – a flourishing democracy and the most powerful polis, or city state, of the era. A bit like the USA of the Greek world.
Socrates questioned democracy. That was music to the ears of Athens’ snobby rich young – think the equivalent of modern trust fund preppy spoiled brats. He validated their view that privileged people like them had a natural right to lord it over the unwashed masses. One of those students, Alcibiades, went on to betray Athens and turn it upside down and inside out in the Peloponnesian War, which ended catastrophically for the Athenians. Socrates was not responsible for the actions of Alcibiades, who was a live wire and dangerous force of nature. However, Alcibiades is an example of the kinds of privileged youth who liked Socrates because they thought he was “edgy”.
