The Virtue Of Honor In The Apology By Socrates

Throughout the Meditations, honor is shown as an irrelevant characteristic. Aurelius believes that honor is not a trait to die for, because both the honored and the ones that honor other will die. Along with that Aurelius states that all human beings are the same in that every person possesses a body, mind in the form of intellect, and a soul. By this reasoning everyone is same and no one is above or below another by profession or status. Aurelius states that one should, “…be free from vain conceit with regard to worldly honours…” meaning that one should not expect or have a desire for bodily praising (Meditations, 1.16). Due to this belief that Aurelius has, one is able to see that no praise or honor is needed for a body that is exactly the same as the majority of beings around one.
In the Apology, Socrates asks many people at various status levels about their view on virtue and what wisdom truly means to them. From this he is able to deduce that the most honorable people in the society; mainly by their possession of money and a high ranking job, are the ones with the least wisdom. Even though these people had little to no “useful” wisdom, they were praised and honored more than people like Socrates who have wisdom and the knowledge that they know nothing. The meaning of honor changes from being a completely useless trait to becoming important only if virtuous people are being honored. This is very different from Aurelius’ beliefs because Socrates gives higher importance to those that are virtuous, whereas to Aurelius, everyone is