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Since the dawn of civilisation, | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
the forces of nature and the whims of gods | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
held sway over humanity. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:13 | |
But 2,500 years ago, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:17 | |
humankind experienced a profound transformation. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
Suddenly, there were new possibilities. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
This is a time when rationality overrode superstition and belief. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
This is an ethic which does not rely on the gods. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
The world is now explained in terms of natural forces. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
We're now responsible for our own destiny. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
Upheavals across the globe | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
sparked an ambitious vision of what humans could achieve, | 0:00:48 | 0:00:52 | |
spearheaded by three trailblazers. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
Socrates, Confucius and the Buddha - | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
great thinkers from the ancient world | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
whose ideas still shape our own lives. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
Is wealth a good thing? | 0:01:07 | 0:01:08 | |
How do you create a just society? | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
How do I live a good life? | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
By daring to think the unthinkable, | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
they laid the foundations of our modern world. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
I've always been intrigued by the fact that these men, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
who lived many thousands of miles apart, | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
seemed spontaneously | 0:01:30 | 0:01:32 | |
and within 100 years of one another, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
to come up with such radical ideas. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
So, what was going on? | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
I want to investigate their revolutionary ideas - | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
to understand what set them in motion. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:49 | |
This time, Socrates. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
It's so thrilling, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:52 | |
imagining those big new ideas could possibly have been enacted there! | 0:01:52 | 0:01:57 | |
He was the soldier whose bravery in battle | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
was matched by the inflammatory courage of his ideas. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
Socrates encouraged his fellow citizens | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
to rationally examine every aspect of their lives. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
Does the person who possess knowledge in the big way know everything? | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
-You don't know? -I don't know. I give up! I give up! | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
I'm going to inhabit his world, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
to examine how his subversive philosophy | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
challenged superstitious belief that had reigned for millennia... | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
..and to discover how his search for truth | 0:02:26 | 0:02:30 | |
led to his downfall. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
In 469 BC, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
Socrates was born, the son of a midwife and a stonemason, | 0:02:54 | 0:02:59 | |
into a city in the midst of a tumultuous transformation. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
He grew up in the suburbs of Athens, | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
at eye level with the sacred Acropolis rock. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
But young Socrates wouldn't have looked out | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
over the elegant lines of the Parthenon Temple, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
that exquisite symbol of Western civilisation | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
that still stands proud today. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
Instead, he'd have woken every morning to a horror - | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
the blackened and burnt-out remains of buildings brutalised by war. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:33 | |
His city bore the scars of a ferocious conflict | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
with the region's superpower, Persia. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
But, against the odds, Athens had triumphed, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
just ten years before Socrates was born. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
Now, it revelled in what some call "the Greek miracle" - | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
a golden age. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
Burgeoning trade flooded the region with new wealth | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
and crucially, with new ideas. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
But the key ideology that would shape young Socrates' life | 0:04:09 | 0:04:14 | |
belonged to Athens alone - | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
because here, around 508 BC, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:20 | |
democracy, the power of the people, was born. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:25 | |
Virtually overnight, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
all adult male citizens found they didn't just serve the state - | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
they were the state. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
You cannot over-emphasise | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
how electrically exciting this must have been. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
Ordinary men were selected randomly at lot | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
to hold the very highest of offices - | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
the equivalent of being Head of the Foreign Office, | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
or Home Secretary for one day. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
Socrates wouldn't only witness a city being rebuilt, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
but the ethical hazards of a new social experiment. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
As he was growing up, democracy too was finding its feet. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
Ordinary Athenians now had the potential | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
to determine their own future, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
but their fate was still very firmly in the hands of the gods. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
Gods, demigods and spirits were believed to be everywhere, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
influencing people's everyday lives. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
If I'd been looking out over Athens during Socrates' lifetime, | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
then this scene would have been thick with smoke | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
and the smell of sacrifice would be heavy in the air, | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
as Athenians frantically rushed around, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
trying to keep their gods on side - | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
all 2,000 of them! | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
This "pantheon of gods" | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
gave people a sense of their place in the universe. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
But in these exciting times, | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
a few were daring to question religious convention. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
As a teenager, Socrates sought them out | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
in one of Athens' most edgy and marginal districts - | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
Keramiekos. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
For 600 years, this had been Athens' main burial ground. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
Come Socrates' day, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
and it had evolved into a kind of cosmopolitan suburb of sin. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:17 | |
Travelling salesman plied their wares here, | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
along with prostitutes, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:20 | |
who offered what were euphemistically known as | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
"middle of the day marriages". | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
Many young Athenians didn't need to work. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
There was one slave to every two free citizens. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
So, Socrates had the free time to come here | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
and listen in on theories carried in on the trade routes. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
He encountered thinkers from the Eastern Mediterranean, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
whose ideas had, for over a century, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
confronted traditional explanations of the cosmos. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
What people saw as mysterious and unfathomable, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
they viewed as rationally ordered - | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
and to some degree, rationally explicable. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
We refer to them now as one group, the pre-Socratics, | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
but in reality, they were brilliant, independent thinkers. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:25 | |
They asked hugely ambitious scientific questions. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:30 | |
What is the cosmos made of? | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
What is matter, and how do we perceive it? | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
Their answers, in some cases, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
undermined the role of the gods as rulers of the cosmos. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
Their abstract theories - | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
obviously conceived without the help of scientific instruments - | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
that the universe was made of atoms and empty space, | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
that water was the fundamental element of the world, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
and that the sun was one giant red-hot rock, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
were wildly provocative. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
The scale and audacity of their thinking was breathtaking. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:07 | |
The pre-Socratics not only struck at the core of traditional belief, | 0:08:12 | 0:08:17 | |
but their use of reason opened up a new way | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
to look at the entirety of human experience - | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
an approach eagerly taken up by the young Socrates. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
Suddenly, it's not just tradition or myth or religious hierarchies | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
that are telling you how to make sense of your world, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
but rational debate, systematic thought. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
Just like those other groundbreaking philosophers of the age - | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
Confucius in China and the Buddha in what's now India - | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Socrates and his contemporaries | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
are daring to harness the power of the mind | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
to explain the world around them. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
This is a quantum shift. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
Confident, brave-new-world Athens | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
didn't seek to suppress this new spirit of inquiry. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:06 | |
The city became a magnet for innovation - | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
thanks, in large part, to the man who would dominate Athenian politics | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
for almost half of Socrates' life - | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
the visionary politician, Pericles. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
He gathered thinkers and artists to advise him | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
and set about making democracy | 0:09:22 | 0:09:24 | |
the dominant ideology in the Greek world. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
He glorified the streets with sumptuous statues | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
and fetishized democratic principles. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
Athens built warships called "Freedom" and "Freedom of Speech". | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
Yet, Socrates would understand all this success had its flipside. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
Democracy's high ideals would need to be interrogated. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
A later source tells us that Socrates declared, | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
"Beautiful statues, high city walls and warships are all very well, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
"but what's the point, if those within them aren't happy?" | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
So, we have to imagine a young Socrates | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
walking around this fabulous, febrile city, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
beginning to ask those big questions | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
that are still utterly relevant today. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
Is wealth a good thing? | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
Can a democracy itself create a just society? | 0:10:15 | 0:10:20 | |
What is it makes us truly happy? | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
Democracy had opened a Pandora's box of new dilemmas and contradictions. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:37 | |
As he reached adulthood, | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
Socrates would become the one to point them out - | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
a constant irritant, known as "the gadfly of Athens". | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
An infamous celebrity of his day. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
But Socrates is also an enigma, because as far as we know, | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
he didn't write anything down - not a single line. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
He thought that writing was dangerous, | 0:11:01 | 0:11:03 | |
because it imprisoned knowledge. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
It's only thanks to contemporaries - | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
such as Plato, who may have coined the term "philosopher", | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
perhaps with Socrates in mind - | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
that his thoughts and life story have been preserved. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
And what a man he seems to have been. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
Ironic, courageous, brilliant, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
wildly charismatic | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
and utterly infuriating. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
Plato's compelling accounts of his life, his ideas | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
and his dramatic death are a jewel in the canon of Western thought. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
When we think of the ancient Greek philosophers, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
we often visualise them as they've been portrayed | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
in Renaissance works of art - | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
lofty grey beards, draped in elegant robes, | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
hanging around classical columns. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
We don't perhaps imagine them | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
involved in the dirty and bloody business of war. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
Athens' appetite for territorial expansion seems to been sharpened | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
by the collective will of democratic voters. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
Socrates, like all male Athenian citizens, was expected to fight. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:26 | |
He was in his late 30s when he was sent here, to Potidaea, | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
to help take control of this strategic city in Northern Greece. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:35 | |
It's from this time of war | 0:12:37 | 0:12:38 | |
we get sharper textual details of Socrates' life. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
The man himself starts to come into focus. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
His vision, his physical courage, his eccentricities - | 0:12:45 | 0:12:50 | |
and a man with something momentous on his mind. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
The fighting was fierce - | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
and for three years, the town was besieged. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
In desperation, locals turned to cannibalism. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
Yet, in amongst all these horrors and the pity of war, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
somehow Socrates found stillness. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
We're told he became absorbed by complex, private thoughts. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:26 | |
In the depths of winter, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:29 | |
wearing just a threadbare cloak and with bare feet, | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
he stood - for 24 hours at a stretch. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
Stock-still, | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
lost in his own mind. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
Unlike the pre-Socratic thinkers, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
Socrates came to believe that understanding the cosmos | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
was an esoteric diversion from something far more important. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
Studying the secrets of the stars was all very well, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
but human affairs had far greater urgency. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
So, Socrates did something truly ground-breaking. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
He turned rational thought inward, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
to solve the mortal dilemmas we all face. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
He threw all his energies | 0:14:21 | 0:14:22 | |
into resolving the fundamental questions of human existence. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
What kind of a life should we lead? | 0:14:26 | 0:14:28 | |
What sort of people do we want to be? | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
He's the first individual in the West | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
to put ethics at the very heart of his philosophy. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
Socrates' starting point was simple. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Everyone yearns for a full and flourishing life, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
but it wasn't to be found in the transitory pleasures | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
and distractions of the material world. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
Socrates believed we can only realise our human potential | 0:15:00 | 0:15:04 | |
when we nurture the most precious, | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
the most permanent part of our beings - our souls. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
When we do right, we protect our soul. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
When we do wrong, we harm it. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
Knowing right from wrong was fundamental to every aspect of life. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:23 | |
And in fifth century Athens, the issue was acute. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
As many as 4,000 legal cases were heard each year. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:32 | |
Democracy had revolutionised the law courts. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
Now, any male citizen, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
from aristocrats right down to fishmongers, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
could be a judge for the day. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
We're told Socrates found such amateur governance troubling. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:49 | |
If those sitting in judgment weren't qualified to understand | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
the difference between right and wrong, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
then they could convict an innocent person. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
They'd be punishing someone who didn't deserve to be hurt. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
But in Socrates' view, the innocent person would only suffer physically. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:08 | |
It's the jurors who would be harming themselves much more. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
By unknowingly doing wrong, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
they would inflict terrible, lasting damage to their own souls. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:20 | |
In order to protect Athenians, Socrates needed to teach them. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:25 | |
"The only evil is ignorance", he said. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
But Socrates faced a problem. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
The Greeks did have an ethical framework of sorts, | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
but it wasn't either clear or consistent. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
The destiny of all Greeks was in the hands of the gods. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:45 | |
They were venerated, | 0:16:45 | 0:16:46 | |
even though their personal lives were pretty short on moral guidance. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
Capricious and vengeful, | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
they fought with each other, they slept with one another's wives, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
they abducted mortals. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
And appropriately, | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
the gods didn't seem that interested in human morality, either. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
Living a good life didn't guarantee favour with the gods. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
Respecting their power | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
and offering the most expensive and bloodiest sacrifice | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
was a much safer bet. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:15 | |
Greeks did, however, believe there were five virtues - | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
justice, temperance, courage, piety and wisdom. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:27 | |
But in practice, these virtues were slippery, shifting ideals. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:32 | |
What was considered just or pious for an aristocratic man | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
wasn't necessarily the same for a slave woman. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
In Socrates' experience, traditional moral thinking - | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
the kind taught by elders and priests and epic poets - | 0:17:43 | 0:17:47 | |
just didn't stand up to scrutiny. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
His philosophy became a search for more robust, universal definitions. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:54 | |
Socrates thought that all the virtues were interlinked. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
They couldn't be separated. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
He thought of them as one thing - | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
something he called "knowledge of the human good". | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
For him, virtue is knowledge - knowledge of the human good. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
He says that this knowledge of the human good | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
is going to, in some sense, save your life. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
This is really strong language. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:26 | |
But is that an abstract idea, | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
or is there something that can play out in people's day to day lives? | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
Oh, no, absolutely. Knowledge of the human good | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
is what enables us to make the right practical decisions | 0:18:34 | 0:18:38 | |
in our daily lives. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
But it's going to look different in different contexts. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:44 | |
For instance, if you're on a battlefield, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:46 | |
it will manifest itself as courage. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
If you're sacrificing in a temple, it will look like piety, | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
And it's through those decisions and actions | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
that we are enabled to take care of our souls - | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
our most precious possession, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
on which all our happiness depends. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
But that means that people have real agency, | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
because it seems to me that he's saying | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
it's not down to the Gods to make the world a better place, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:10 | |
-it's down to us. -Absolutely. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
Socrates is saying, you don't have to depend on the whims | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
and the caprices of the gods. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
It's really about individual empowerment and responsibility. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:22 | |
And furthermore, whereas he inherited a tradition which said | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
there was one kind of virtue for a man, another for a woman, | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
one for, you know, a well-born person, another for a slave, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
he's saying, no - it's about knowledge of the human good, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
in a universal sense. It's available to everybody. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
Cicero later says of him, | 0:19:40 | 0:19:41 | |
he brings philosophy down from the heavens and into people's homes | 0:19:41 | 0:19:46 | |
and into people's individual homes. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
This really is a very radical moment in Western thought. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:53 | |
Exciting and empowering, but also dangerous. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
Indeed, because even though Socrates himself | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
was personally very religious, as far as we know, very pious, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
this is socially threatening. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
It's threatening traditional religion and of course, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
these messages are disturbing to a lot of people. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
Socrates didn't deny the existence of the gods, but his emphasis | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
on the capacity of humans to shape their own destiny | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
could be seen as challenging their traditional roles. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
Fortunately, the sacrificial fires to the Gods, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
which had burnt for centuries, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:36 | |
were now lit in a city that also prized freedom of expression. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:40 | |
Initially, Socrates' unorthodox ideas were tolerated. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
But then, in 431 BC, | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
the good times looked set to end. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
The violence of Potidaea escalated into all-out conflict. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
The pitiless Peloponnesian war between Athens and its nemesis - | 0:21:01 | 0:21:05 | |
the city-state of Sparta. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
Here at the National Archaeological Museum, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
funerary urns depict the heartbreaking suffering and loss | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
experienced by the Athenians. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:17 | |
With Spartan hordes ravaging the countryside around Athens, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
Pericles ordered every citizen from the surrounding area | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
to come inside the city walls. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
It was a fatal strategy. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
A new kind of terror was unleashed from within. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
Athens became one giant refugee camp. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
With the population hemmed in together, | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
a deadly disease spread like wildfire. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
The symptoms were ghastly - | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
sweats, fevers, a suppurating rash | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
and a racking cough. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
At a conservative estimate, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
at least one third of the population was wiped out. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:05 | |
Angry and frustrated Athenians turned on their poster boy | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
and removed Pericles from office. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
Eventually he died, it's believed, of the plague himself. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
A thriving Athens had been robust enough | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
to deal with the searching questions of Socrates. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
Now, with confidence ebbing away, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
tolerance was threatened. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:31 | |
Yet, energised by the same sense of crisis and danger | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
which motivated the philosophies of Confucius and the Buddha, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
Socrates seems to have flourished. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
By now in his 40s | 0:22:46 | 0:22:47 | |
and surrounded by war, death and disease, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:51 | |
his search took on a new intensity. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
How do we decide what is good? | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
Is wealth a good thing? | 0:23:01 | 0:23:03 | |
What makes us truly happy? | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
In Athens, Socrates wasn't the only one discussing big ideas | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
with its embattled citizens. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
The sophists were cock-sure, showy educators - | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
masters in the art of persuasive argument. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
They acted as speechmakers in legal trials, | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
entertaining huge crowds in stadiums. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
Socrates was sceptical, to say the least. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
Like the sophists, he challenged orthodox thought, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
but he also passionately believed | 0:23:39 | 0:23:40 | |
that philosophy should have a higher purpose. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
Clever ideas and persuasive arguments just weren't enough. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
To the sophists, smart words were currency. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:55 | |
They sold their services to the highest bidder. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
But Socrates refused to be paid, | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
preferring handouts from friends. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
That's not to say he didn't enjoy worldly pleasures. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
He drank and made love, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
but barefoot and unwashed, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
he stood out in materially minded Athens. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
We're told that he marched past shop stalls in his shabby robes, saying, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:23 | |
"How many things I don't need!" | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
He saw wealth as impermanent - | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
a distraction from the search for absolute values. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:33 | |
Socrates believed you couldn't buy knowledge - | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
and wisdom didn't come from listening to long speeches. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
It could only come through something else - | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
dialogue. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
-So, Bethany, I understand you're here to do a documentary about Socrates. -Yes. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:49 | |
Why are you making this documentary? | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
'His Socratic method worked something like this - | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
'Socrates would engage someone in the street...' | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
I can learn something more about Socrates | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
and I can share that knowledge with the people who are watching it. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:02 | |
These are big words - "knowledge" and "truth". | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
Shall we take one of them? What would it mean...? | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
'He'd ask them an ethical question.' | 0:25:07 | 0:25:09 | |
So what is this thing - knowledge - that you want to impart? | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
In my book, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:14 | |
knowledge is love of what it is to be human. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:19 | |
'The person would attempt to define the concept, | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
'but Socrates would find inconsistencies in their answers.' | 0:25:22 | 0:25:26 | |
-So, knowledge is love? -Yeah. -OK. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:28 | |
So, if you wanted to have an operation for an appendicitis, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:33 | |
would you go to a woman who was full of love, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
-but knew nothing about surgery? -No! | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
OK, So I would say that the definition of "knowledge as love" | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
is not good enough. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
'They would be forced to withdraw their definition | 0:25:45 | 0:25:48 | |
'and to reformulate and refine their ideas.' | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
So, let's try it again. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
Is there one kind of knowledge, or many kinds of knowledge? | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
Knowledge is one thing... | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
Take your time. I don't know the answers to this. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
Maybe knowledge is one thing, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
but knowing is many things. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
'This process would spiral | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
'into a dizzying round of question and answer.' | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
..To know how the stars move | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
and to know how the liver operates is the same thing? | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
No, they're not the same thing. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:21 | |
Does the person who possesses knowledge in the big way know everything? | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
Between those two, who is probably the best stone maker? | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
Er... The one who... | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
I don't know! I give up, I give up! | 0:26:32 | 0:26:36 | |
'Socrates likens his role to that of a midwife, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
'who helps to nurture and deliver the thoughts of others. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
'But it was never an easy birth.' | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
I have to say that the one thing you've proved to me | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
is that I know nothing. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:48 | |
Ah, no, no. That's me! LAUGHTER | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
I am the expert at making other people know things, but I'm no good - | 0:26:51 | 0:26:55 | |
I know nothing and that is the only knowledge I claim for myself. | 0:26:55 | 0:27:00 | |
That Socratic method is fascinating and stimulating, | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
but it is also infuriating. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
Yes, because it's in an oral context, the way we do it, | 0:27:08 | 0:27:11 | |
and Socrates famously believed | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
in the supremacy of the oral over the written | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
and that also stirs up the emotions. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
First of all, in his pretence of being the fool. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
-The ignorant man. -Of knowing nothing, yeah. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
Yes, and because that is his tool, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
that he turns, in fact, against his friends - | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
or opponents, as you may take it - | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
and makes them admit to things that they don't want to admit to, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
by playing essentially the fool, saying, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
"I know nothing, I know nothing. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
"I can only ask you to tell me, because I know nothing." | 0:27:43 | 0:27:45 | |
So, he laid an emphasis on the definitions, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
then on what he called "dieresis" - division - | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
of breaking down a problem into little parts, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
analysing parts, analysing it. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
And then, attacking each one separately | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
and then trying, inductively, to group them back together | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
into a more general concept. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
So, Socrates uses that to make people become aware | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
that things they consider simple and elementary and basic | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
and that they know - they in fact don't know. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
And what about the modern world? | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
Do you think we could have the modern world | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
without Socratic debate, | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
without questioning what it is to be human | 0:28:25 | 0:28:27 | |
and what it is to be human in the world around us? | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
Well, I think that the best way to accept, | 0:28:30 | 0:28:35 | |
to find Socrates' place in it | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
is to see that the opposite of the Socratic method, essentially, | 0:28:37 | 0:28:42 | |
is fanaticism and dogmatism. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:45 | |
And in that sense, the modern world very much needs | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
an antidote to those things, at every level. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
The Socratic method was cathartic. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
It got difficult issues out into the open | 0:29:00 | 0:29:02 | |
and defined concepts with much greater precision. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:05 | |
Socrates' tough questioning, with his trademark irony, | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
was conducted in public, | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
causing a stir wherever he went. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
He was inviting everyone to seek knowledge of the human good, | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
to identify fundamental truths. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:25 | |
But people could only do this for themselves | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
by constantly interrogating their actions | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
and most deeply held beliefs. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
"The unexamined life," Socrates said, "is not worth living." | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
But there was a problem. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
Socrates' teaching found particular favour with the young. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:49 | |
With no end in sight to war with Sparta, | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
these human resources were vital to Athens' future. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
Laws attempted to protect the youth from malign influence. | 0:29:56 | 0:30:00 | |
Encouraging them to think for themselves was fraught with danger. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
Yet Socrates sought them out, | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
close to the most public place in the city - | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
the Agora. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
Across the ancient world, | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
commerce was increasingly a driver for change - | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
and that was felt particularly keenly here in Athens. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
The Agora was a buzzing market, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
a place where people came to exchange goods and gossip. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
Socrates loved sharing his ideas here. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
It's from Agora we get the word "Agoraphobia" - | 0:30:35 | 0:30:39 | |
a fear of open spaces. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:40 | |
There was anxiety back then, too, as under-18s were barred. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:46 | |
Now, archaeology helps to point to how Socrates met young Athenians | 0:30:47 | 0:30:51 | |
just outside the Agora's boundary, in a private dwelling. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:56 | |
So, we're right on the edge of the Agora space, | 0:30:56 | 0:30:58 | |
and we're in-between the public space and the private space behind us here. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:02 | |
And this wall behind us right here | 0:31:02 | 0:31:04 | |
is one of those private establishments. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
And we have a later source that mentions | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
Socrates visiting the house of a friend of his | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
and we have this figure, Simon the Cobbler | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
and he's hosting young men. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
So, we have the literary source, | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
but what's nice is that during the excavations right here, | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
they found hobnails, they found bone eyelets | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
and then, they also found a cup | 0:31:24 | 0:31:26 | |
and this is the amazing bit of evidence really, | 0:31:26 | 0:31:29 | |
because this cup has the name "Simon" scratched on it. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:32 | |
And this is a replica right here of the cup | 0:31:32 | 0:31:35 | |
and you can see that it does have "Simonos" scratched on it. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
Yeah, I just... It's so thrilling being here, | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
imagining those big, new ideas | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
could possibly have been enacted there 2,500 years ago. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
We can say that Socrates was walking around this space | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
and he was probably hanging out right here, | 0:31:49 | 0:31:51 | |
in order to discuss things, things that might otherwise be... | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
Something that might get him in trouble, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
I mean, it's a dangerous situation that, potentially. | 0:31:57 | 0:31:59 | |
So, you've got this magnetic personality, | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
having these rumbustious conversations with young men | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
-and encouraging them to think for themselves. -That's exactly right. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
This is the place where we're supposed to have freedom of thought | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
and freedom of expression and so on, in this democratic idea, | 0:32:10 | 0:32:15 | |
but this is a place where you have to respect the gods | 0:32:15 | 0:32:18 | |
and you have to respect your elders | 0:32:18 | 0:32:20 | |
and you have to respect the laws of the city. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
He's questioning the gods, he's questioning the laws, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
so he's really putting it to the test | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
and forcing these young guys to see things in a different way | 0:32:28 | 0:32:32 | |
and the city didn't really like that. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:34 | |
Socrates was storing up trouble, | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
especially as some of his devotees were confident young aristocrats - | 0:32:39 | 0:32:43 | |
the city's future leaders. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
Most notable was Alcibiades. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
Well born, wealthy and an Olympic champion, | 0:32:54 | 0:32:58 | |
this sexually promiscuous hell raiser | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
entranced and scandalised Athens for decades. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
Yet this playboy was friends with Socrates, | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
who was 20 years his senior. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
Socrates had actually saved Alcibiades' life | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
during the battle of Potidaea. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:17 | |
Plato's Symposium describes an infamous exchange | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
that took place between them | 0:33:22 | 0:33:23 | |
during a heady, aristocratic drinking party. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
A drunken Alcibiades, we're told, crashes the discussion, | 0:33:28 | 0:33:32 | |
which turns to the question of beauty. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
In Greek culture, Alcibiades' body beautiful | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
would typically have been regarded as a sign of his moral beauty, too. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:43 | |
But it appears Alcibiades bought into | 0:33:44 | 0:33:46 | |
Socrates' alternative concept of real beauty. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:50 | |
Socrates, he says, might be ugly on the outside, | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
but he has an inner beauty that by far outshines any physical beauty - | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
and that he, Alcibiades, loves Socrates | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
because he is the wisest man | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
and therefore, the most beautiful. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
However, when it came to achieving inner beauty for himself, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
Alcibiades was woefully out of step. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
He thought his good looks could help him, | 0:34:22 | 0:34:25 | |
but his cocky plan to seduce Socrates was rebuffed. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:29 | |
"You're plotting to get real beauty | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
"in exchange for its appearance", Socrates said. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:34 | |
"That would be gold for bronze". | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
For Socrates, the talents of young aristocrats were worthless | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
without the wisdom to use them properly. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
By debating with them, he was pushing the patience of Athens. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
Yet Socrates didn't compromise his principles... | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
..as demonstrated in the story of the Oracle of Delphi. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:04 | |
We're told that a friend of Socrates, called Chaerephon, | 0:35:09 | 0:35:12 | |
a rather impetuous individual from all accounts, | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
came on pilgrimage here, to this sacred site. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
Delphi had been a place of religious devotion for 2,000 years. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
Chaerephon, in time-honoured fashion, | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
climbed the sacred way to ask a question of the god Apollo, | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
who spoke through a priestess. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
When he finally reached the Oracle, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
he asked, "Is there any man wiser than Socrates?" | 0:35:44 | 0:35:49 | |
And the answer came back - | 0:35:49 | 0:35:51 | |
"No". | 0:35:51 | 0:35:52 | |
Chaerephon took the message to Socrates, | 0:35:57 | 0:35:59 | |
who in typical manner, questioned the Oracle's words. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:03 | |
Even the words of Apollo - a god, for heaven's sake - | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
was subject to Socrates' scrutiny. | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
He set about cross-examining people who had a reputation for wisdom, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
or a particular kind of specialist knowledge. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
After questioning public officials, poets and craftsmen, | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
he discovered that they all lacked the wisdom they claimed. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
Eventually, Socrates concluded that the Oracle was indeed right. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:36 | |
He was the wisest of men, but only, because as he put it, | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
"I don't pretend to know what I don't know." | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
Socrates was wiser | 0:36:55 | 0:36:57 | |
because he acknowledged the limits of his own understanding. | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
By publicly exposing the false pretensions | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
and ignorance of those who did claim to know the truth, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
he was bound to make enemies. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
But there was something else about Socrates | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
that was even more unsettling. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:13 | |
He claimed to have his own daimonion, or guiding spirit. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:18 | |
A kind of hotline of communication to the supernatural world. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:22 | |
This daimonion spoke to him during trance-like episodes. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:36 | |
It warned him from making wrong decisions. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
On one occasion, it advised against entering public politics. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
Socrates' followers would have been in awe of this | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
uniquely personal divine calling, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
but the average Athenian | 0:37:50 | 0:37:52 | |
would have been confused and deeply disturbed by it. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:56 | |
Don't forget, this is a time and place | 0:37:56 | 0:37:58 | |
where ritual, devotion and belief all take place out in public, | 0:37:58 | 0:38:03 | |
as part of a shared experience. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:05 | |
Not only that, but Greek folk culture imagined the world | 0:38:06 | 0:38:10 | |
to be infused with spirits - | 0:38:10 | 0:38:12 | |
not all of them good. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:13 | |
Socrates' unorthodox, private spirituality | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
could easily be confused with | 0:38:24 | 0:38:25 | |
a darker, more troubling kind of magic. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
Some muttered that he was a sorcerer. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:31 | |
In this super-religious culture, | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
the philosopher was laying himself open to scandal. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
False rumours and innuendo would culminate on a very public stage, | 0:38:41 | 0:38:47 | |
fostering the kind of misinformation | 0:38:47 | 0:38:49 | |
that would ultimately spell disaster for Socrates. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:53 | |
Picture Socrates, bustling up here to the theatre of Dionysus | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
in spring, 423 BC. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
He finds some snacks to munch during the show - | 0:39:10 | 0:39:13 | |
chickpeas, figs, nuts - | 0:39:13 | 0:39:15 | |
settling down to watch the drama. | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
He's here to watch a new comedy, called Clouds, | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
by the young buck of Athenian theatre, Aristophanes - | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
only 22 and eager to make his mark. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:29 | |
By now a big character in the city, Socrates is considered fair game - | 0:39:31 | 0:39:36 | |
and he's parodied pretty mercilessly. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:39 | |
He's portrayed as a ludicrous figure, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:41 | |
the head of a ridiculous school called "the think shop". | 0:39:41 | 0:39:45 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
Socrates' character was merged with other intellectuals | 0:40:04 | 0:40:07 | |
who were arousing popular suspicion - | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
the devious sophists, who undermined society by making | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
"the weak argument defeat the stronger". | 0:40:14 | 0:40:17 | |
And the pre-Socratics, who in some cases, | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
displaced the pre-eminence of the gods with their science. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:24 | |
We're told that Socrates actually came to the theatre | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
to watch Aristophanes' Clouds. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:28 | |
What could it have felt like, to see himself portrayed in that way? | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
I think he must have been amused. There is this anecdote of Socrates | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
actually standing up in the seats of the theatre, | 0:40:36 | 0:40:40 | |
so that those who didn't know him knew who he was | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
and what he looked like, | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
as his character was being ridiculed on stage. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
So I think Socrates was detached from all these standard norms of society | 0:40:48 | 0:40:53 | |
and I think it's possible that he might have enjoyed that. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:58 | |
On the face of it, this is all very amusing, | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
but do you think that Socrates should be worried by | 0:41:01 | 0:41:03 | |
the way that Aristophanes is choosing to portray him? | 0:41:03 | 0:41:06 | |
In hindsight, I think he should have been worried. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:08 | |
The core of democracy, | 0:41:08 | 0:41:10 | |
the principle democracy is that the citizens be educated. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:14 | |
If you don't have educated citizens, democracy does not work. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
The theatre was a major tool for educating the Athenian citizens | 0:41:17 | 0:41:22 | |
and the memory of that portrayal | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
would have remained for decades to come, | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
as a whole generation of Athenians would have been exposed to it. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
It's the ancient equivalent of trial by media? | 0:41:30 | 0:41:32 | |
It is, in fifth-century Athens, yeah. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
But the cracks appearing in Socrates' reputation | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
were nothing compared to what was happening to Athens itself. | 0:41:59 | 0:42:02 | |
As the war with Sparta dragged on, | 0:42:08 | 0:42:10 | |
people questioned the success of the democratic experiment. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:14 | |
At the heart of the uncertainty was Socrates' close friend, Alcibiades. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
He'd been chosen to lead an expedition | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
against Sicily in 415 BC - | 0:42:22 | 0:42:24 | |
the largest in Athens' military history. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
But one night, before they set sail, | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
someone stalked through Athens' streets, | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
mutilating statues of the protector god, Hermes. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
The rumour spread that Alcibiades and his aristocratic friends | 0:42:39 | 0:42:43 | |
were the vandals, part of a plot to bring down democracy. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:47 | |
Back in Athens, rumour escalated to outrage | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
and Alcibiades was ordered home to face trial on charges of sacrilege. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:57 | |
But then, en route, he vanished. | 0:42:57 | 0:42:59 | |
And where he reappeared shocked everyone. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:03 | |
He turned up, a traitor, | 0:43:03 | 0:43:05 | |
in the bosom of Athens' greatest enemy, | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
Sparta. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:09 | |
Alcibiades' damaging defection | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
exacerbated the anxieties of a god-fearing public. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:22 | |
They needed a scapegoat - | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
and Socrates was tainted by association. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:28 | |
But he seems unconcerned, | 0:43:30 | 0:43:32 | |
doggedly pursuing the knowledge of right from wrong above all else. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
So when the philosopher unexpectedly entered public life in his 60s, | 0:43:40 | 0:43:45 | |
he was on a collision course with Athens. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
He became presiding officer in an emotionally charged case, | 0:43:55 | 0:43:59 | |
whose drama was played out here on the hill of the Pynx. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
Six disgraced Athenian generals | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
were accused of failing to collect the bodies of dead soldiers, | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
lost at sea. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:10 | |
The public called for the generals to be tried together, | 0:44:13 | 0:44:17 | |
in breach of Athenian law. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:19 | |
But Socrates refused to be swept along | 0:44:20 | 0:44:22 | |
by the vengeful mood of the crowd. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
Even though threatened with indictment for treason, | 0:44:27 | 0:44:30 | |
Socrates refused to budge. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:32 | |
He wanted no part in this kangaroo court. | 0:44:32 | 0:44:35 | |
As the sun set, there was stalemate. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
And then, the next morning, Socrates was off the case. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:42 | |
Later that day, | 0:44:42 | 0:44:43 | |
the generals were all tried here together at the Pnyx - | 0:44:43 | 0:44:47 | |
condemned and then executed. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
To me, this case embodies one of the most important ideas | 0:44:56 | 0:45:00 | |
that Socrates has been developing all his adult life, | 0:45:00 | 0:45:03 | |
which is that one should never take revenge. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
And in this, he's completely turning on its head | 0:45:06 | 0:45:10 | |
one of the foundational tenets of traditional Greek morality, | 0:45:10 | 0:45:15 | |
which said that you should help your friends and harm your enemies. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:19 | |
And Socrates says, no - | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
because all you can do to another person is, | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
you can take away their possessions, you can damage their body, | 0:45:23 | 0:45:27 | |
you can kill them, but you can't harm their soul. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:30 | |
But by doing wrong to somebody else, you are damaging your own soul | 0:45:30 | 0:45:35 | |
and thereby, taking away your chance of a virtuous | 0:45:35 | 0:45:39 | |
and hence also, a happy and flourishing life. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:42 | |
This was a city-state that believed in justice, | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
that wanted to see justice enacted, | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
so in Socrates' book, what form should punishment take? | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
It's a good point. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:53 | |
He does believe that sometimes, punishment is appropriate, | 0:45:53 | 0:45:56 | |
but you punish somebody solely in terms of trying to cure their soul | 0:45:56 | 0:46:01 | |
of the damage that they have brought upon themselves by doing wrong. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:06 | |
So, punishment is there to cure and purify a damaged soul. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:12 | |
Even today, those still feel like quite progressive ideas. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
Absolutely, I mean we're barely catching up with these ideas. | 0:46:15 | 0:46:19 | |
Even now, we still have debates. What is the purpose of punishment? | 0:46:19 | 0:46:23 | |
Is it to...is it a kind of retribution, | 0:46:23 | 0:46:26 | |
or is it some kind of reform? | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
Now, Socrates is absolutely clear - | 0:46:29 | 0:46:32 | |
the purpose of punishment is to reform. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:35 | |
They are fascinating ideas, | 0:46:35 | 0:46:37 | |
but they must have been very, very troubling to the Athenians, | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
because it must have felt as if he was kind of unpicking | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
the foundations that that kept communities together. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
Yeah. It would have looked weak to them. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
It would have looked like, "Oh, no, you're not a real man, | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
"you're not standing up for yourself, what are you doing?" | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
In a way, he's almost anticipating | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:00 | |
You know, turn the other cheek, in a sense. | 0:47:00 | 0:47:03 | |
-But he's 500 years before all that. -Oh, yes. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:05 | |
How does he dare to march so out of step from the rest of society? | 0:47:05 | 0:47:10 | |
Because I think he absolutely believes | 0:47:10 | 0:47:14 | |
that nobody else can harm his soul, | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
but if he takes part in the illegal actions | 0:47:17 | 0:47:20 | |
that he was invited to take part in, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
then he will be absolutely damaging his own soul | 0:47:22 | 0:47:27 | |
and taking away his chance of a happy and flourishing life. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:31 | |
In the name of wisdom and truth, | 0:47:34 | 0:47:35 | |
Socrates was prepared to stick his head | 0:47:35 | 0:47:38 | |
dangerously high above the parapet. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
Interestingly, it's a quality that he shares | 0:47:41 | 0:47:43 | |
with both Confucius and the Buddha. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
For all three philosophers, | 0:47:46 | 0:47:47 | |
personal comfort and personal security | 0:47:47 | 0:47:50 | |
came a poor second to principle. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
And in the case of Socrates, having the courage of his convictions | 0:47:53 | 0:47:57 | |
would prove to be a matter of life or death. | 0:47:57 | 0:47:59 | |
As Athens' enemies closed in, | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
society turned in on itself. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
Freedom was a luxury it could no longer afford. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
Finally, the Spartans brought Athens to her knees. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:28 | |
They tore down her city walls | 0:48:28 | 0:48:29 | |
and installed a junta of 30 hand-picked oligarchs. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
Death squads roamed the streets | 0:48:37 | 0:48:39 | |
and thousands of democrats were "disappeared" - | 0:48:39 | 0:48:43 | |
forced into exile or executed. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:46 | |
Even though a counter-revolution restored democracy | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
just eight months later, | 0:48:51 | 0:48:53 | |
it was a deeply compromised democracy, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
riven with suspicion and recrimination. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
In this poisonous atmosphere, | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
Athens finally decided to deal with its troublesome gadfly. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:07 | |
In 399 BC, at the age of 70, | 0:49:21 | 0:49:24 | |
Socrates was back in court. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:27 | |
This time, HE was on trial. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
The accusations against him were read out here, in the Agora, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
close to this oath stone. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
The first charge was impiety - | 0:49:36 | 0:49:38 | |
denying the gods and introducing new ones. | 0:49:38 | 0:49:41 | |
The second, that he'd corrupted the young. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
Both could carry the heaviest penalty - | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
execution. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
The trial took place in a religious court, using the latest technology. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:59 | |
A water clock measured the three hours allowed | 0:49:59 | 0:50:03 | |
to the prosecution's case. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:04 | |
Were his accusers politically motivated? | 0:50:06 | 0:50:08 | |
Was he being scapegoated | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
for his association with prominent anti-democrats, like Alcibiades? | 0:50:10 | 0:50:15 | |
Perhaps. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:16 | |
But then, he'd set about to open the minds of the young | 0:50:16 | 0:50:20 | |
and with his goading questions, | 0:50:20 | 0:50:22 | |
to challenge the status quo. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
Eventually, the water clock was refilled | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
for the philosopher to defend himself. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
Plato recounts how Socrates feels he's fighting a lost cause, | 0:50:34 | 0:50:38 | |
thanks to Aristophanes' searing, damaging caricature of him. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:42 | |
"It is not my crimes that will convict me", he said, | 0:50:50 | 0:50:52 | |
"but rumour and gossip. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:54 | |
"I can't possibly defend myself - | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
"it's like boxing with shadows. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
"You will persuade yourselves that I am guilty." | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
Yet, in typical style, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:06 | |
Socrates uses his defence to sting his fellow Athenians | 0:51:06 | 0:51:10 | |
from their moral slumber. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:12 | |
It is a brilliant, audacious speech, | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
but it's also provocative and arrogant, | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
and the jurors don't like it one bit. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:21 | |
The city that once fetishized freedom and freedom of speech | 0:51:21 | 0:51:25 | |
could not tolerate freedom to offend. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
Socrates was judged by at least 500 men, chosen at random | 0:51:35 | 0:51:39 | |
and recruited from all over the traumatised city-state. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
The jurors would have used these ballots in a secret vote. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
A solid stem for acquittal. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
A hollow for condemnation. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
Found guilty, a second vote is held to determine his punishment. | 0:52:01 | 0:52:06 | |
Socrates has the chance to avoid execution | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
by proposing a lesser alternative - | 0:52:09 | 0:52:11 | |
typically a fine, or exile. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:13 | |
Instead, by speaking freely, democratically, | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
he seems to invite martyrdom. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:21 | |
He declares that he's lived his life for the benefit of the city. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
He deserves reward, not retribution. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:29 | |
He suggests dinner, in perpetuity, at the citizens' expense. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:33 | |
Socrates' irony loses him more support in the second vote. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
It seems he takes the news philosophically. | 0:52:42 | 0:52:45 | |
The jury couldn't harm his soul, | 0:52:45 | 0:52:48 | |
but they had harmed their own. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:51 | |
"Now I go to die and you to live. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
"God only knows which is the better journey." | 0:52:54 | 0:52:56 | |
Socrates didn't fear what he didn't know, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
including death. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:06 | |
The man the Oracle proclaimed to be the wisest | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
was now on death row for putting his own philosophy into practice. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:15 | |
One of the things I find so compelling about Socrates | 0:53:18 | 0:53:21 | |
is that even though he lived 25 centuries ago, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
in many ways, he saw us coming. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:28 | |
He denounces an obsession with looks, | 0:53:28 | 0:53:30 | |
with material goods, | 0:53:30 | 0:53:32 | |
with spin and with fame. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:35 | |
He wasn't just exploring the meaning of life, | 0:53:35 | 0:53:38 | |
but the meaning of our own lives. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
Just listen to this. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:42 | |
"Oh, my friend, why do you, | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
"who are a citizen of the great and wise city of Athens, | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
"care so much about laying up wealth and honour and reputation? | 0:53:49 | 0:53:54 | |
"And so little about wisdom and truth and improvement of the soul? | 0:53:54 | 0:53:59 | |
"Are you not ashamed?" | 0:54:00 | 0:54:02 | |
Socrates would have to wait a month for his execution - | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
a sentence intended to silence him. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
But Socrates' death at the hands of the people | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
provided the perfect ingredients | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
for his resurrection as an ideological martyr - | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
a kind of blueprint philosopher. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
And ironically, what secured his legacy | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
was the very thing that he'd disregarded throughout his life - | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
the written word. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:35 | |
His supporters wrote detailed accounts of his extraordinary life, | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
immortalising his ideas and his spirit. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
Through their words, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
his game-changing, history-making voice endures . | 0:54:45 | 0:54:50 | |
Still asking those probing, universal questions | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
which, even today, are at the heart of our value systems. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
What makes us good? | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
What is justice? | 0:54:58 | 0:55:00 | |
How can we be happy? | 0:55:00 | 0:55:01 | |
Socrates was the inspiration for Plato and Aristotle - | 0:55:03 | 0:55:08 | |
two giants of philosophy, | 0:55:08 | 0:55:10 | |
whose ideas would shape Western and Eastern civilisation up until today. | 0:55:10 | 0:55:15 | |
Following Socrates' death, | 0:55:17 | 0:55:18 | |
Plato abandoned his political ambitions in disgust | 0:55:18 | 0:55:23 | |
and set up his Academy, which would continue as a centre of learning | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
for close on 1,000 years. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
This building is Athens' modern Academy | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
and it's just a couple of miles from the original. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
And it's part of a network of academic institutions, | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
right across the globe, inspired by that Athenian example. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:42 | |
On the day of Socrates' execution, | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
his distraught friends and family came here to the Agora. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
The place where Socrates had once walked freely was now his cage. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
But he is serene. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:14 | |
Calmly, he lifts the lethal little cup of hemlock poison... | 0:56:16 | 0:56:20 | |
and drinks. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:21 | |
We're told that Socrates' last words | 0:56:28 | 0:56:30 | |
as the lethal hemlock took effect were, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
"Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius." | 0:56:32 | 0:56:36 | |
With this cryptic message, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
even on the brink of death, | 0:56:39 | 0:56:41 | |
he kept his followers and future scholars guessing. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
Was he proving himself pious by invoking one of the city's deities? | 0:56:48 | 0:56:52 | |
Or was he ironically giving thanks to the god of healing | 0:56:53 | 0:56:57 | |
for relieving him of the sickness of existence? | 0:56:57 | 0:57:00 | |
Socrates might have been infuriating, | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
but his tenacious questioning of what it means to be human | 0:57:05 | 0:57:09 | |
still has absolute resonance. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
By stating that the ultimate evil is ignorance | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
and that a good life is within our reach, | 0:57:15 | 0:57:19 | |
he challenges us all never to be thoughtless. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:23 | |
"The unexamined life is not worth living." | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
With his head covered, | 0:57:35 | 0:57:36 | |
no-one saw the final moment, when Socrates' precious soul | 0:57:36 | 0:57:41 | |
slipped from that ugly, satirical, unforgettable face. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:47 | |
If the mind of Socrates has made you think, | 0:57:58 | 0:57:59 | |
then explore further with The Open University | 0:57:59 | 0:58:02 | |
to discover how great minds have influenced our thinking today. | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
Follow the address on the screen | 0:58:06 | 0:58:07 | |
and then the links to The Open University. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
Next time, I investigate the gentleman philosopher, Confucius. | 0:58:14 | 0:58:18 | |
His attempts to influence the rulers of his day ended in failure... | 0:58:19 | 0:58:23 | |
..yet his vision of a harmonious society, | 0:58:25 | 0:58:28 | |
inspired by the sage kings of the past | 0:58:28 | 0:58:32 | |
would eventually shape one of the world's greatest civilisations. | 0:58:32 | 0:58:36 |