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.
This was a period of great suffering for the Athenian people and they had to endure wars, famine, and plague. The Peloponnesian War ended in a total and catastrophic defeat for the Athenians. The victorious Spartans imposed an oligarchic government on the city-state, known as the Thirty Tyrants.
Their rule was brief and bloody, but ultimately democracy was restored by Thrasybulus. There are a number of diverse sources for the life of Socrates, including Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Diogenes Laertes. The best-known source is the Platonic dialogues. The exact date of the birth of Socrates is not known, but it was probably sometime between and AD.
The future philosopher was born outside the walls of Athens and was the son of a stonemason or a sculptor and his mother was a midwife. According to one tradition, he was an apprentice sculptor and even sculpted some of the statues that adorned the Acropolis. It seems that from a young age that he was renowned for his conversation, wit, and intellect. Socrates was a full citizen of Athens and was expected to participate in the political, civil and military life of the city.
Like other citizens he was expected to serve as a hoplite, a heavy infantryman. Socrates according to the sources was often seen in the streets and public spaces of Athens and he was always raggedly dressed. He would engage people in conversation and often would demolish their cherished assumptions. This did not always make him popular. In Aristophanes' play, The Clouds, he is satirized as a ridiculous figure. He taught people that virtue, which he defined as a kind of excellence as the essential aim of life and not money, fame or honor.
Socrates was very concerned with ethics and subjects such as justice. He held that people will be moral if they know what the good is and virtue is knowledge. Athens was a radical democracy and the citizens were directly involved in all aspects of the government and the legal system. However, despite Socrates' efforts, the generals were executed.
He was a very well-known public figure in Athens and a very controversial figure. During the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, he defied their request to arrest a man. In BC, Socrates was charged with corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and with not believing in the gods of the state.
He was found guilty by the Council of Athenian citizens and condemned to death by poison. The jury was composed of Athenian citizens who voted by a majority to find him guilty. The trial of Socrates is often condemned as a show-trial. When he was found guilty, Socrates claims that he was convicted because the Athenians feared the truth and his urgings to live an examined life. Other plays of the time offer additional clues as to the reputation of Socrates in Athens. Comic poet Eupolis has one of his characters say: "Yes, and I loathe that poverty-stricken windbag Socrates, who contemplates everything in the world but does not know where his next meal is coming from.
Aristophanes labels a gang of pro-Sparta aristocratic youths as "Socratified. The standing of Socrates among his fellow citizens suffered mightily during two periods in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in and another slightly longer period in The prime movers in both of the anti-democratic movements were former pupils of Socrates, Alcibiades and Critias.
Athenians undoubtedly considered the teachings of Socrates--especially his expressions of disdain for the established constitution--partially responsible for the resulting death and suffering. Alcibiades, perhaps Socrates' favorite Athenian politician, masterminded the first overthrow. Alcibiades had other strikes against him: four years earlier, Alcibiades had fled to Sparta to avoid facing trial for mutilating religious pillars-- statues of Hermes --and, while in Sparta, had proposed to that state's leaders that he help them defeat Athens.
Critias, first among an oligarchy known as the "Thirty Tyrants," led the second bloody revolt against the restored Athenian democracy in The revolt sent many of Athens's leading democratic citizens including Anytus, later the driving force behind the prosecution of Socrates into exile, where they organized a resistance movement. Critias, without question, was the more frightening of the two former pupils of Socrates.
Stone , in his The Trial of Socrates , describes Critias a cousin of Plato's as "the first Robespierre," a cruel and inhumane man "determined to remake the city to his own antidemocratic mold whatever the human cost. One incident involving Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants would later become an issue at his trial.
Although the Thirty normally used their own gang of thugs for such duties, the oligarchy asked Socrates to arrest Leon of Salamis so that he might be executed and his assets appropriated.
Socrates refused to do so. Socrates would point to his resistance to the order as evidence of his good conduct. On the other hand, Socrates neither protested the decision nor took steps to warn Leon of Salamis of the order for his arrest--he just went home. While good citizens of Athens were being liquidated right and left, Socrates--so far as we know--did or said nothing to stop the violence.
The horrors brought on by the Thirty Tyrants caused Athenians to look at Socrates in a new light. His teachings no longer seemed so harmless. He was no longer a lovable town eccentric. Socrates--and his icy logic--came to be seen as a dangerous and corrupting influence, a breeder of tyrants and enemy of the common man.
A general amnesty issued in meant that Socrates could not be prosecuted for any of his actions during or before the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. He could only be charged for his actions during the four years preceding his trial in B. It appears that Socrates, undeterred by the antidemocratic revolts and their aftermaths, resumed his teachings and once again began attracting a similar band of youthful followers.
The final straw may well have been another antidemocratic uprising--this one unsuccessful--in Athens finally had enough of "Socratified" youth. In Athens, criminal proceedings could be initiated by any citizen. In the case of Socrates, the proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses.
The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, or King Archon, in a colonnaded building in central Athens called the Royal Stoa to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. The Archon determined--after listening to Socrates and Meletus and perhaps the other two accusers, Anytus and Lycon --that the lawsuit was permissible under Athenian law, set a date for the "preliminary hearing" anakrisis , and posted a public notice at the Royal Stoa.
Royal Stoa scene of the preliminary hearing for Socrates. The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Socrates answered the charge. The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other.
Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges. The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document:. This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities.
He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death. The trial of Socrates took place over a nine-to-ten hour period in the People's Court , located in the agora , the civic center of Athens.
The jury consisted of male citizens over the age of thirty, chosen by lot. Most of the jurors were probably farmers. The jurors sat on wooden benches separated from the large crowd of spectators--including a year-old pupil of Socrates named Plato--by some sort of barrier or railing.
Guilt Phase of Trial. The trial began in the morning with the reading of the formal charges against Socrates by a herald. This Day In History. History Vault. Socrates: Early Years Socrates was born and lived nearly his entire life in Athens. Recommended for you.
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