Sir: Without wishing to enter into debate on the re-
spective merits of Socrates the son of Sophroniscus and Christ the son of—who knows?—I feel I cannot let Auberon Waugh's derogatory remarks on the sanitary arrangements of the former go by without an answer (25 August). That Socrates was bald and went about barefooted no one can deny. (Is it then a virtue of Christ that he was hirsute and went about shod?) But Socrates 'unbelievably dirty'? Come, Mr Waugh!
Aside from the canard habitually thrown at Socrates by contemporary comic poets such as Aristophanes, the main evidence for the belief that Socrates was filthy comes from a passage in Plato's Symposium. There one Aristodenos meets Socrates and is surprised to find him 'bathed and wearing sandals, things he did infrequently.' Beside this, however, one ought to set the last sentence of the Symposium—'Aristodenos said that Socrates got up and went away to the Lyceum, washed and spent the day as he would any other and finally at eve went to bed.'
The evidence would appear to suggest that if bathing was not a regular Socratic habit, washing was.
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