内容简介

公元前399年5月的一天，日头轻快地升上彭特利山，500名雅典公民匆匆穿过泥砖房、公共澡堂和雅典娜胜利神庙，直奔宗教法庭。他们将要审判一位特立独行的老人——苏格拉底。他被控“不敬神”和“腐化青年”，很可能被判处死刑。因此，他必须站在陪审团面前，为自己的生命辩护。

苏格拉底的一生动荡不安。他从卑微的石匠之子成长为一名战士和一位哲学家。他没有在恢弘壮丽的学园、宫廷里思考，却在鞋匠店里演讲。他喜欢在雅典街头赤脚漫步，随机向人提问，质疑习以为常的观念。他担心追求富足会招致盲目的享乐主义，而“民主”则会沦为争斗的托辞。他关心生命和真理，关心美德是什么。

然而，这个西方伟大的思想家却没有留下任何书面文字，他本人始终是一个谜团。为了还原他的一生，贝塔妮·休斯走遍希腊的考古现场，带我们来到古代雅典人的家庭、街道、会场、酒宴，结识政客、将军、商人、工匠，参观热闹非凡的市政广场，走进举办大赛的竞技场，参与雅典神圣的宗教节日，重构苏格拉底生活过的世界。

最后，苏格拉底迎来的是一杯毒酒，等待雅典引以为傲之文明的却是战争、内讧和衰败，是古典精神的堕落。苏格拉底问道：我去死，你们去生，哪个更好？何为正当的生活？如果我们不幸福，城墙、战舰和恢弘的雕像意义何在？这是人类文明的大哉问。

作者：

贝塔妮·休斯（Bettany Hughes)，历史学家、作家，英国广播公司主持人，专长于古代及中世纪历史与文化，长年在牛津大学和剑桥大学任教，亦为伦敦古物家协会会员、伦敦国王学院研究员、伦敦新人文学院客座教授等，曾任奥兰治小说奖主席、布克国际小说奖主席，获评BBC100位全球女性之一，获颁希腊金十字皇家勋章、国际新闻奖、大英帝国勋章、英国历史学会的诺顿梅德利科历史奖，也是有史以来第一位获颁海伦娜·瓦兹·德席尔瓦欧洲文化遗产奖的女性。

译者：

李磊，人文社科类图书译者，译有《向您告知，明天我们一家就要被杀：卢旺达大屠杀纪事》《对民主之恨》《金斯伯格访谈录：RBG给未来世代的声音》《汉娜·阿伦特：爱与恶》《岛上寻星》等。

Content introduction

One day in May 399 BC, as the sun rose briskly over Pentley Hill, 500 Athenian citizens hurried past the mud-brick houses, public bathhouses and the Temple of Athena's victory to the Inquisition. They were going to try a maverick old man, Socrates. He is accused of "blasphemy" and "corrupting youth" and is likely to be sentenced to death. Therefore, he must stand in front of a jury and defend his life.

Socrates lived a turbulent life. He rose from the humble son of a stonemason to become a warrior and a philosopher. He did not think in the grand garden, the court, but he spoke in the shoemaker's shop. He liked to wander barefoot through the streets of Athens, asking random people questions and questioning conventional wisdom. He feared that the pursuit of affluence would lead to blind hedonism and that "democracy" would become an excuse for strife. He cares about life and truth, about what virtue is.

However, this great Western thinker left no written word, and he himself remains a mystery. In order to reconstruct his life, Bethany Hughes travels around the archaeological sites of Greece, taking us to the homes, streets, meetings, and feasts of ancient Athenians, meeting politicians, generals, merchants, and craftsmen, visiting the lively municipal square, entering the arena where the great competitions were held, participating in the sacred religious festivals of Athens, and reconstructing the world in which Socrates lived.

In the end, Socrates was greeted with a poisoned glass of wine, but what awaited the civilization that Athens was proud of was war, infighting and decay, the degradation of the classical spirit. Socrates asked, "Which is better, me to die or you to live?" What is a proper life? What's the point of walls and warships and grand statues if we're not happy? This is a great problem of human civilization.

Author:

Bettany Hughes is a historian, writer and BBC presenter specialising in ancient and medieval history and culture. She has taught for many years at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians of London, a Fellow of King's College London, and a Visiting Professor at the New College of the Arts, London. She has served as Chair of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Chair of the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction, was named one of the BBC100 Women in the World, received the Royal Gold Cross of Greece, the International Press Award, the British Empire Medal, the NORTON Medico History Prize of the British Historical Society, and was the first woman ever to be awarded the Helena Vaz de Silva European Cultural Heritage Award.

Translator:

Li Lei is a translator of humanities and social science books, including "To inform you that Tomorrow Our Family will be Killed: A Chronicle of the Rwandan Genocide", "Hate for Democracy", "Ginsburg Interview: RBG's Voice for Future Generations", "Hannah Arendt: Love and Evil", "Star Search on the Island" and other translations.