Aristoxenus on Socrates

In traditional scholarship, Aristoxenus’ Life of Socrates has been considered very often as an untrustworthy testimony, as the Socrates being described seems to be at odds with what we know about him by our main sources Plato and Xenophon. Recent reassessments, however, note that Aristoxenus’ account provides a balanced picture of Socrates, which is not at odds with earlier Socratic literature. This chapter follows this more positive hypothesis. It reviews all fragments available in the extant editions of Aristoxenus’ Life of Socrates, and provides new texts not included in these collections. I show that Aristoxenus’ characterization of Socrates as an irascible, sex-driven man who eradicates his licentiousness through education is widely confirmed: not only by Aristotle and other Peripatetics, but implicitly also by Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, Phaedo, and other Socratics. Both the account based on Aristoxenus’ father Spintharus, who knew Socrates personally, and the report about Socrates’ youthful association with Archelaus, the historical reliability of which has been shown by recent studies, give us good reasons to claim that Aristoxenus had solid grounds for depicting Socrates the way he did.