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Apology Of Socrates And Crito And Virgil's Aeneid

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Immortality, the ability to live forever, is a powerful theme addressed throughout history and literature. The Greeks were one of the first to analyze and investigate how one can obtain everlasting life. In Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito and Virgil’s Aeneid, fathers reach immortality by passing on lessons to their offspring, but Aeneas acts as a biological father to his son whereas Socrates is a philosophical father and his sons are his followers. These differences in fatherhood ultimately create different kinds of son figures as Aeneas teaches Ascanius to be a leader more like himself whereas Socrates pushes his sons to be philosophers themselves. Throughout Apology of Socrates and Crito, Socrates represses his responsibilities as a physical father to his sons in order to pursue his duty as a father of philosophy. In Socrates’ defense speech, Socrates says that “I [Socrates] do have family, and sons too, men of Athens, three of them,” but while Socrates is supporting his argument of the gods’ will, he says that “for so many years now I [Socrates] have endured that the things of my family be uncared for”(Apo. 34d, 31b). He gains little to no monetary pay for his philosophy, which strains his ability to care for his family’s physical needs and, as a result, Socrates fails as a physical father. However, Plato depicts Socrates as a strong advocate for one to examine oneself “for I [Socrates] go around and do nothing but persuade you [Socrates’ followers]…..how your
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