Socrates Would Kick Your Ass, and Musashi Would Paint a Nude of your Girlfriend

By Aubrey Marcus February 14, 2017

Forget about the white hair, the white robes, and don’t even think about anything having do to with Keanu Reaves and a phone booth time-machine. Socrates was a bad ass. With a rough sword-cut beard he took part in three brutal military campaigns at Potidaea (432-429 BC), Delium (424 BC) and Amphipolis (422 BC). The oracle-proclaimed and peer accredited smartest man in the ancient world was stabbing people in the throat for most of his adult life.

Why don’t we all know about this? How did I make it through a double major in philosophy and classical civilization at a top 25 academic school and still never hear about this man’s decorated military history? If it wasn’t for Steven Pressfield’s Tides of War triggering my own inquiry into the matter, I would still be ignorant of these biological details about the progenitor of philosophy. This is like a physics major learning for the first time about Einstein’s amateur boxing career, which included 9 of 12 wins by way of knock out (Don’t get excited, I just made that up).

But seriously… can you imagine Einstein, with 8 oz leather gloves… jet black hair Vaselined back on his head, just pummeling some dumb lout with savage hooks to the body and crosses to the jaw before retiring to his study to talk with his fellow scientists? That is exactly what it was like for Socrates. After a day of hand to hand combat on the front of the Athenian lines, he would casually retire to his tent to discuss the human psyche and the meaning of life with all who came calling. And its not like he was just some ordinary soldier, he was on some Dick Marcinko medal of valor shit. Here are two of his most famous military exploits:

The rescue of Alcibiades at Potidea

During the campaign at Potidea Socrates spent 3 winters alongside Athens’ bravest fighting against other highly trained Greek soldiers from neighboring states. One particular battle, as recounted by Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium should have earned Socrates the Athenian medal of valor. After suffering a grave wound and being stripped weaponless inside the enemy formation, Alcibiades was surrounded on all sides by enemy hoplites (the heavily armed and highly trained knights of antiquity). Although the dashing self-appointed prince was held in high esteem by the whole military, none of his comrades dared rush to his side. Wounded, weaponless and cut off from safety, the only thing left to do was pay the boatman for his trip. Except there was Socrates. The warrior-sophist abandoned the line and charged forward, shielding Alcibiades from the piercing blows of lance and spear. He fought for several minutes like a tethered lion, unwilling to leave his wounded friend until the Athenians, seeing this act of courage, sunk their feet deep in the rocky sand and pushed the line forward to envelope their comrades in safety. When the battle was over the General came to distinguish Socrates for his brave actions, but instead the philosopher convinced the General to give the medal to Alcibiades. While Alcibiades protested the honor, he had no chance of winning the argument against the smartest man in the world.

Heroics in the Retreat to Delium

It was mid afternoon and General Hippocrates, commander of the allied Athenian forces, was giving his speech to his men: 7,000 hoplites (which included Socrates) 10,000 light troops, and 1000 cavalry. As he was riding down the lines, explaining to his soldiers no doubt about the sweet Boeotian puntang, puckered anuses and gold that awaited them if they succeeded in conquering Boeotia, the Boeotian General Pagondas charged. With only a slight advantage in cavalry he immediately took the element of surprise by catching Hippocrates before he was done running his mouth. The Athenian hoplites took the middle of the formation and as the legions clashed together the Athenians began pushing deep into the enemy middle. Things did not fare so well on the left and right wings however, and in the meantime the military genius Pagondas (also credited with the invention of the first flamethrower!) had sent his cavalry back around to flank the Athenian force. As the Boeotian horsemen charged from the rear, chaos ensued, leading to mass confusion and at one point, Hippocrates’ soldiers from allied states became so disoriented they began fighting themselves. This first ever recorded incident of ‘friendly fire’ led to standardized shields to be distributed in all further conflicts.

It was a bloodbath, and a accordingly a retreat was signaled. So here was Socrates, right in the middle of the mayhem. As a man of legendary physical stamina, he easily could have out-sprinted his men and made it back to the safety of the fort at Delium and watched out the portcullis as his men straggled in. That was not his style. For hours, the Boeotian cavalry and hoplites pursued and terrorized the retreating Athenians and their allies, cutting them down like wheat. Socrates, being the bad ass that he was, lagged to the rear, and met horse and hoplite head on until nightfall when the last of his men straggled back to the fort. Hippocrates and over 1000 of Athens’ bravest knights lay dead in the field that day. How many more would have been slain were it not for Socrates only Zeus knows.

This seems like something we should know about, right? But we don’t. Not 1 in 100 people who know of Socrates have heard about his military life. So the question is WHY? Perhaps it was just simply overlooked, but I speculate that it is reflective of society’s reluctance to admit that a person can and should be great AT EVERYTHING. People want to believe that mathematicians should be nerdy and socially awkward, poets should be effeminate and affected, and fighters should be blunt and crude. We don’t like it when someone is better than us not just in their own field, but in life. We like to be able to say “Yea, he may be way smarter than me, but I could kick his ass.” Or as the hippy might say “Look at that meathead, he doesn’t get it mannn” before even talking to him. Because of this phenomenon, often times the physical exploits of great thinkers are under-appreciated and conversely the philosophical exploits of great warriors are overlooked.

Miyamoto Musashi is the perfect example of the latter. This 16th century samurai was so gangster he once showed up to a sword duel to the death against a samurai nicknamed “the Demon of the Western Provinces” and beat him with a staff he carved from the oar of his rowboat. Are you fucking kidding me? I would love to continue the history of Musashi, but that is a topic for another story. What interests me from the point of this blog is that while many people know of his combative exploits, Musashi is also easily one of the most underrated philosophers of the Renaissance period. Beyond that, while only a portion of his original art survives, he was credited as an outstanding calligrapher, painter and sculptor as well. One of the tenants of his philosophy was that by applying the same systematic strategy for improvement as you would use in swordplay, you could become a master in anything. Musashi lived by his own philosophy.

The above images are likely the first time you or anyone you know have seen any of the original paintings of the great samurai, and while The Book of Five Rings should be required reading in schools, it languishes on the shelves. People just don’t seem to be able to admit that there were true warrior poets, and part of the problem is that they are becoming increasingly rare.

Some reasons for the decline in those as mighty with the proverbial pen as sword are obvious. For one, it is no longer necessary to learn the martial arts in order to survive, so the entire physical component of humanity can be overlooked with very few consequences to one’s health. More importantly than the obvious though, is that from a very early age people are encouraged to be a specialist. The boy who is athletically gifted is rewarded for focusing solely on those gifts. Academics and arts for the stud jock, even if graduating college is a goal, are made to be secondary. The Academic on the other hand, is lauded for his ‘grades’ and ‘papers’ but required to do just a handful of credits in “physical education” which more often than not involves walking around a track every once in a while tweeting about how much it sucks. Even the very concept of being good at many things is chastised by the cliché “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Whatever happened to “Master of many trades, jack-ass in none?”

The latter mantra was much more applicable for most of civilized history. Education in classical civilization was designed precisely to create the optimal balanced man (forgive my use of the masculine here but unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of education offered for women until the 19th-20th century). The same applies to feudal Japan and the warrior-monks of the mountains. Military instruction blended with the arts and sciences, and men were encouraged to excel in all fields. The warrior gifted in swordplay was encouraged to paint, to write, to play an instrument, connect with the spirit, and study math and the sciences. It was understood that this would make the man in turn a better swordsman, and furthermore a better leader should his might on the field translate to a leadership position. This ideal continued through the Middle Ages, past the Renaissance and likely all the way to the industrial revolution. That is around where things changed. After the industrial revolution it became evident that the way to make the most money was to become a specialist in only one field. If you excelled in any one craft and had the robotic dedication to do only that for the rest of your life, then you were rewarded with enough money to hire people to protect you. The profession that required a vast mastery of many things, leadership of men, was now being occupied by mostly shrewd reptilian politicians, so there was a diminishing return on breadth of talent.

In Closing; A Note About this Blog

I call this blog Warrior Poet, not because I believe that I am anything like the great Socrates or Miyamoto Musashi. I don’t have the discipline, courage, or brilliance of these men. But I aspire to be a warrior poet…and this makes me an outlier in this era of homogenized 2% milk, just as the very term warrior poet seems like a sentimental idea of a time long gone. My aspirations have probably done me no favors in my financial standing, however the path of many paths was the only one I felt I could follow. As Cyrano De Bergerac, the iconic warrior poet said “I once was troubled by all the many options that lay before me… So I decided to be admirable at everything.” I do my best to live up to those words.

–WP

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