It is characteristic of Socrates to test people regarding their concern for virtue and justice, a habit to which he devotes extended discussion during his defence, even dramatising it provocatively in a central passage 29d7-e5 that I aim shortly to analyse in detail. Moreover, Socrates specifically withholds from the jury the title of dikastai or judges; he does finally award the title in his address following the sentence, but only to those who have voted [End Page 1] to acquit him 40a In that case, Socrates is putting on trial, not just those individual citizens, but the very legal system of democratic Athens.
Before considering Socrates' own explicit judgement during those final remarks on the jurors' moral offence and punishment, I should first address briefly the issue of Socrates' irony. In the past, some writers have asserted that this irony involves him in not telling the truth about himself during his defence, in which case the jury might well have been justified in convicting him.
Actually, there does seem to be a consensus among the more extended treatments of the Apology that have emerged during the last decade, at least on the point that Plato presents Socrates as committed to making as sincere an attempt at a defence of his case as is consistent with his philosophical commitment to virtue, and so to telling the truth.
I shall not re-argue this point in detail, but shall take it to be secured by two basic considerations: consistency with the Crito would require Socrates to recognise a legal obligation to make a sincere attempt at defence while his obligation to Apollo to continue his mission in Athens if possible would motivate that attempt with the goal of acquittal.
Where Socrates acknowledges the obligation to defend himself, he remarks on the difficulty he faces, a difficulty that has resulted from the slander to which he has long The Greek philosopher Plato was one of Socrates' star pupils, and his evidence against Socrates is given in the essay "The Apology of Socrates," which includes a dialogue that Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption. The Apology is one of four dialogues written about this most-famous trial and its aftermath—the others are " Euthyphro ," "Phaedo," and "Crito.
At his trial, Socrates was accused of two things: impiety asebeia against Athens' gods by introducing new gods and the corruption of Athenian youth by teaching them to question the status quo. He was accused of impiety specifically because the Oracle at Delphi said there was no wiser man in Athens then Socrates, and Socrates knew he was not wise.
After hearing that, he questioned every man he met to find a wiser man than he. The corruption charge, said Socrates in his defense, was because by questioning people in public, he embarrassed them, and they, in turn, accused him of corrupting the youth of Athens by the use of sophistry.
In his "Memorabilia," a collection of Socratic dialogues completed after BCE, Xenophon— philosopher, historian, soldier, and a student of Socrates—examined the charges against him. In addition, Xenophon reports that while acting as president of the popular assembly, Socrates followed his own principles instead of the will of the people. The boule was the council whose job entailed providing an agenda for the ekklesia , the citizen assembly.
If the boule didn't provide an item on the agenda, the ekklesia couldn't act on it; but if they did, the ekklesia was supposed to address it. Socrates, said Xenophon, also disagreed with the citizenry who imagined that the gods are not all-knowing. Instead, Socrates thought the gods were omniscient, that the gods were aware of all the things that are said and done, and even things thought about by humans. A critical element that led to Socrates' death was his criminal heresy.
Said Xenophon:. Finally, by corrupting the young, Socrates was accused of encouraging his students down the path he had chosen—in particular, the one that led him into trouble with the radical democracy of the time, Socrates believed that the ballot box was a stupid way to elect representatives.
Xenophon explains:. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Politicians and historians have often used the trial to show how democracy can go rotten by descending into mob rule. Athens, it is argued, rid itself of one of its greatest thinkers because he was a perceived threat to the political status quo.
Instead of being a warning from history, he argues, it is an example of just how different Ancient Greek politics often were. In it, he questions traditional arguments that Socrates was purely the victim of political in-fighting.
The corruption charge is seen as particularly important. Athens in BC had been hit by successive disasters — plague, internal political strife and a major military defeat by Sparta aided by Persian money. According to Professor Cartledge, however, Socrates was not just the unfortunate victim of a vicious political vendetta, but a scapegoat used for an altogether more spiritual bout of self-purging within a culture very different in kind from our own. Ancient Greeks were, after all, instinctively religious people, who believed that their cities were protected by gods who needed to be appeased.
To many, it must have seemed as if these gods were far from happy after the years of disaster leading up to BC. Athenians probably genuinely felt that undesirables in their midst had offended Zeus and his fellow deities. Socrates, an unconventional thinker who questioned the legitimacy and authority of many of the accepted gods, fitted that bill.
And crucially, Professor Cartledge argues that these charges were entirely acceptable in a democracy of the Athenian type. If the prosecution could prove that a defendant was responsible for jeopardising the public good, he was likely to be found guilty. With the gods clearly furious and more disasters perhaps just around the corner, a charge of impiety was not only appropriate, but clearly very much in the public interest.
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