s n a p p e r h e a d: Socrates Taught Plato How to Turn Prehistory Into History

Prehistory did not begin when our universe coalesced, when our galaxy began to rotate together, when gravity caused our star's fusion, or when oceans collected. It also didn't begin when our moon began to spin overhead, when single-cellular life started, or even when complex life evolved. Those events occurred billions of years ago.

We humans easily understand the word year because we have personal reference points, which we can empirically measure. (In the previous 365 days, the covid19 pandemic killed over 500,000 Americans and 2.5 million worldwide.) Some of us might be able to think in terms of a hundred years, because we understand it's possible to live that long. However, when we learn that over a century ago, the 1918 pandemic killed 50 million people, we begin to lose the related-to-me focus. And when we read that more than five centuries ago, the bubonic plague killed maybe 200 million people? We're mentally drifting without a point of personal reference.

And that's only half of a millennium in the past! The numbers: billion (a thousand million) and million (a thousand thousand) are completely non-relatable. Our minds struggle to grasp-comprehend (or even imagine) what it means when we hear:

Prehistory began when millions of years ago, some of our stone-age, bipedal, hominid ancestors crafted tools, buried their dead, worked collectively in order to survive, and decided it would be valuable to start communicating with their future selves.

Those someones thought it would help to augment their memories. And they started marking with chalk or soft stone or charcoal on flat surfaces; tieing knots in rope; cutting gouges in wood; making impressions in mud or clay; burning or dieing on hides; etcetera. This lasted for hundreds of millennia. Time ate all their chalkboards and etch-a-sketches; toys and utensils; caves and corpses, until a confluence of location, luck, and lack-of-liquid (ll&lol™) made it possible for their distant descendants (us) to unearth a few of their grocery lists, calendars, and guidebooks.

Try hopscotching forward—Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, to the Ancient Historical Era. Don't stop skipping until you reach the Modern Era:

The fossil record contains evidence anatomical homo sapiens existed at least 250,000 years ago.
Cave painting and art has been found which has been dated to more than 45,000 years ago.
Earth's magnetic poles reverse (then reverse back 800 years later) about 42,000 years ago.
Sculptures and jewelry have been carbon dated to more than 35,000 years ago.
Standing stones and stone structures date to more than 10,000 years ago.
Cuneiform writing (indentations in clay) date from 5,000 years ago (Bronze Age, starts in areas).
Egyptian pyramids and hieroglyphs date from 4,500 years ago (Ancient Historical Era starts in areas).
Stonehenge stones date from about 4,400 years ago.
Gilgamesh epic poems (Sumeria) on stone/clay tablets from 4,000 years ago.
Chinese logosyllabic writing dates from 3,500 years ago.
Hindu texts began to be written/edited about 3,500 years ago (Iron Age, starts in areas).
Pueblo dwellings and cliff houses date from 3,200 years ago (Stone Age mostly ends).
Hebrew bible began to be written/edited about 2,800 years ago (Bronze Age mostly ends).
Nazca lines (Peru) date from 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Confucius of Zou (China) reportedly lived 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Buddha of Lumbini (Nepal) reportedly lived 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Socrates of Athens (Greece) reportedly lived 2,400 years ago.
Philosopher Zhuang of Dao (China) began to be written/edited 2,400 years ago.
Philosopher Epicurus of Samos (Greece) reportedly lived 2,300 years ago.
Sandstone city of Petra (Jordan) begun carving in stone cliffs 2,000 years ago.
Philosopher-statesman Seneca of Cordoba (Spain) reportedly lived 1,950 years ago.
Philosopher-slave Epictetus of Hierapolis (Turkey) reportedly lived 1,950 years ago.
Philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius of Rome (Italy) reportedly lived 1,900 years ago.
Christian bible began to be written/edited about 1,800 years ago.
Roman empire began to shrink/collapse about 1,500 years ago (Modern Era begins in areas).
Muslim quran began to be written/edited about 1,400 years ago (Iron Age mostly ends).

Rise & fall of the Roman Empire

Spend a few cups of coffee perusing theo-philosophic writings in a down-the-rabbit-hole manner and your wanderings will bring you to the Documentation Vanishing Point. Albeit "vanishing" is only accurate if describing the historical record as if looking back at it and "point" erroneously implies a single point in time exists between history (from written records, which still survive today) and prehistory (before written records were made or have survived).

One of the more famous examples of prehistory becoming history—at the very beginning edge of durable communication—is the Greek philosopher Socrates, who allegedly was born about -470 and died about 71 years later.

Why allegedly? Because if he was a real person—and not just an archetype, invented by others—no words written by him and no books of his have survived (which Socrates might have paid to be stamped onto papyrus). After his death by execution in -399, for the crimes of irreverent disrespect of the State's Gods and for preaching his brand of atheism to other citizens, (citizenship was restricted to Athenian males of the property-owner/slave-owner class) Socrates was either a central character or mentioned in dozens of plays, books, and written 'conversations' (and is still written about today).

If Socrates was merely an author-surrogate character, created by Plato (and used by others like Aristotle, Et al.) to permit writing/talking about things which would otherwise be illegal, documenting "Socrates's Philosophy" shielded authors from punishment. If Socrates was a flesh-and-blood man, he never wrote anything down (the latter is what all surviving documents tell us is the truth.)

In my opinion, Socrates was not actually a man who lived in the -5 century. He was too perfect of a caricature and is credited with too many well-thought-out philosophies (as would any character be, who's an amalgam-pilation of several philosopher-authors imaginations).

His mother was a midwife and his father a stonemason. As an adult, Socrates referrs to himself as a midwife (helping 'birth new ideas' by asking 'what is it?') and he builds/constructs theories using dialectic Q&A's and logical arguments. This is just one example of many contrived coincidences.
He was uniquely ugly, odd, and dressed without care (bulging & askew eyes; a pig nose; short and fat; unkempt/disheveled dress). Staged-contrast: overt visual flaws while speaking flawlessly.
He "exploded into existence" on the pages of many playwrights/authors, but only after his death.
His publicly ordered execution was, in actuality, a calmly accepted suicide (he could have chosen exile, but didn't). He willingly carried out his suicide by drinking hemlock tea. What a hero! What a soliloquy!
Hemlock poison paralyzes the diaphragm and respiratory system. Plato's description of Socrates's death (itself, told from a fictional character's POV) details a growing numbness beginning in his feet and traveling up his body, eventually killing Socrates when it reached his heart. Someone bitten by a cobra might die in this manner. Do we need any more evidence Plato's faux description was fabricated?

I suspect—if Socrates was a real person—he was not at all the figurehead and intellectual powerhouse depicted in "his student's" books. But, since Plato's and Aristotle's (Et al.) words survived, they are considered to be the first to quote what they heard "prehistory say". I think they were creative nonfiction writers (like all successful theo-philosophical authors/editors must become, to reach and hold an audience).

... Socrates showed displeasure with those who thought him to be poor by stating: 'One can be rich, even with very little, on the condition that one has limited his needs. Wealth is just the excess of what one has, over what one requires.' ... — Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, circa 360 (700+ years after Socrates "died")