6
The Trial and Execution of Socrates
Socrates was without any doubts one of the greatest Greek philosophers and his name is well-known till nowadays, as well as his famous Socratic Method. He is the author of a great number of sayings and even through he did not write any books himself, his ideas were reflected in the books by his pupil Plato. Socrates was a unique personality during his lifetime and even his death was not usual. The great thinker of Athens was accused of corrupting the young and impiety and finally was sentenced to death. Xenophon wrote about the reason of sentencing Socrates to death in the following way in his Memorailia: “Socrates is guilty of crime in refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, and importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of corrupting the young.” (Reginald 1980).Citizens of Athens perceived Socrates as highly intellectual member of their society, but this was before he was accused of moral corruption and impiety. His philosophic ideas and teachings were associated with those of the Sophists, however Socrates did not accept this relation.
There are so many detailed descriptions of the events, leading to the death of Socrates, whereas so little information is available about his life. From the writings by Plato it is possible to know some of the names of the family members of Socrates, his father and mother, his wife and sons, he had three of them. Aristophanes in his comic play The Clouds represented Socrates teaching his pupil Pheidippides of formulating of the arguments, which could justify striking of his father. Generally the reputation of Sophists was considered rather controversial, they were commented as “they were a set of charlatans that appeared in Greece in the fifth century, and earned ample livelihood by imposing on public credulity: professing to teach virtue, they really taught the art of fallacious discourse, and meanwhile propagated immoral practical doctrines.” (Kerferd 2009).
The period between 425 and 415 BC in Athens was characterized by strong inter-generational conflicts, most of people of Athens considered that the Sophists and Socrates, because they had negative impact upon younger generations, making them morally nihilistic and deprived of the needed respectful attitude towards elder people of the society. In reality a lot of young men in Athens liked to imitate the elenctic method of Socrates. Also Socrates was said to develop certain political views, which were also considered to be the basis for his accusation. Socrates was a close friend of Alcibiades, who was rather controversial figure in Athens. He had defected Sparta, had some political impacts in Athens, then he was sent away from Athens. There is an assumption that some part of negative perception of Socrates by people of Athens was related exactly to their friendly relationship.
Some of the followers of Socrates commented that he had expressed some anti-democratic views, stating that the truth could not be related to the majority opinion, rather only few individuals possesses the real knowledge. Plato described the critical attitude of Socrates towards some well-known democratic leaders of Athens and did not reveal support for the officials, elected for the Athenian governance system. In addition to his extraordinary views in politics and philosophy, Socrates had also his views in religion. He spoke about his personal spirit, which was able to make warnings about prospective actions for him.
Finally the Council of 500 condemned Socrates to death with letting him to choose either pay a fine or be sentenced to death. Socrates did not agree to pay the fine and drank a cup of poison hemlock. Before there was a trial of Socrates in 399 BC, which was supposed to determine his guilt according to two major charges: first of all he was accused of asebeia, which meant impiety in Athens and corruption of young people of the state. Socrates was said to ignore the gods, which were acknowledged by the city and to introduce new gods. His pupils were asked various questions in order to support these accusations and during the trial most of the jurors, chosen from make citizens of the city voted for his conviction.
During the trial it became clear that Socrates could not be prosecuted for his actions, which took places before and during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. Only his actions during the four years before the trial could be considered and evaluated. “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 401. Athens finally had enough of "Socratified" youth.” (Kerferd 2009). Any citizen of Athens was allowed to launch criminal proceedings, this was done by Meletus, who gave oral summons to Socrates. After this Socrates was supposed to go to the legal magistrate or Kind Archon in order to present his own answer to the charges of impiety and young corrupting. The Archon was to take the decision upon listening to both sides – to Socrates and to Meletus, whether there was a need to start up the lawsuit. The preliminary hearing started with the reading of the written charge, brought by Meletus. The task of Socrates was to answer. Then they both were asked questions and then the defendant and the accuser could question each other. Upon finding merit in the accusation, the magistrate continued with formal charges, it stated: “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.” (Reginald 1980).
The second element of the trial of Socrates was formal accusation. Meletus had to swear that he was telling the truth in front of the Archon. The Archon studied the provided information and took the decision that the case was actionable and thus the philosopher was to bear legal responsibility. The juries for this trial were chosen with the help of lottery and there were a lot of them. There is no concrete information about the number of jury individuals, still most likely these were around 500 men, which was considered a legal norm in Athens. According to Plato in his writing Apology of Socrates around three-fifths of the jury voted against Socrates. Thus Socrates was declared guilty of corruption and impiety. It was suggested to pay the fine of 100 drachmae, which made around one-fifth of Socrates’ property, but there was no agreement about this sum and then the fine of 3.000 drachmae was defined. Plato, Critobulus, Crito, Apollodorus suggested covering this sum, but the case prosecutor insisted upon death penalty as the only possible punishment for Socrates. Under such circumstances the friends and followers of Socrates wanted him to leave Athens. This was actually expected by most of the other citizens of the city. However, Socrates remained true to his personal beliefs and principles and assumed that he was not going to avoid the legal responsibility to his city. He remained faithful to his teaching and being 70 years old Socrates executed his death sentence himself, when he drank the hemlock, as he was condemned to do after the trial.
There were various interpretations of the trial of Socrates. “In the time of the trial of Socrates, the year 399 BC, the city-state of Athens recently had perdured the trials and tribulations of Spartan hegemony, the thirteen-month régime of the Thirty Tyrants, imposed consequent to the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).” (Xenophon 1918). The Thirty Tyrants appointed the 500 men to represent the juries and perform judicial functions, which were before performed by Athenian citizens. This was a hard regime for Athens, as a lot of people were killed by Spartan oligarchs and their property was confiscated. Certainly that fact that Critias, who was the leaders of the Thirty Tyrants, used to be a pupil of Socrates, made most of people in Athens perceive Socrates negatively enough.
Plato worked over his own representation of the trial and death of Socrates and later his writings became utterly important for numerous researchers and philosophers, who were considering the execution of one of the wisest individuals in Athens, finding the evident drawbacks in that democracy and popular rule. Correspondingly most of the later writers and researchers concluded that Socrates chose to be executed to death, because he was not able to accept that form of democracy, which existed in the Athenian society and he realized that he was not able to impact this process, as he was old enough. Socrates seems to be a rather strong personality with highly developed intellectual abilities. This is probably the reason, why he did not want to hide his ideas and wanted to make his intellect useful for his society. When he realized that he had failed to reach his aim, he preferred to die.
Works cited:
Colaiaco, James A. Socrates Against Athens: Philosophy on Trial. New York, 2001
Kerferd, G.B. The Sophistic Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009
Reginald E. Allen. Socrates and Legal Obligation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980
Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Ithaca, 1991
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 1 and 2. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London, 1921