MODULE 1…CHAPTER 2:

Chapter 2 Discussion

Using the text and online resources in this module, summarize any video, and respond to one
of the following focused questions in at least 500 words. (Be sure to cite online sources by
author or title and date as well as Web address/URL.) Also, respond to two classmates (at
least 100 words).
Focused Question:
1. Describe Socrates and his key ideas. Use primary sources in the words of Socrates.
Evaluate the arguments in his trial and defense. How is he a model for the
philosopher’s way?
Reply to at least two other student Discussion postings in at least 100 words. For this
Discussion, you must post first before you will see the postings of your classmates.
 What did you learn from the other student's post?
 What can you add to their Discussion post?
 Can you offer a different interpretation of the trial and defense of Socrates?

Socrates

Socrates (ca. 469 – 399 B.C.E.) (Greek Σωκράτης Sōkrátēs) was an ancient Greek philosopher and one of
the pillars of the Western tradition. Having left behind no writings of his own, he is known mainly
through Plato, one of his students. Plato used the life of his teacher and the Socratic method of inquiry
to advance a philosophy of idealism that would come to influence later Christian thought and the
development of Western civilization.

Socrates made a clear distinction between true knowledge and opinion. Based upon his conviction about
the immortality of the soul, Socrates defined true knowledge as eternal, unchanging, and absolute
compared to opinions which are temporal, changing, and relative. Socrates was convinced that true
knowledge and moral virtues are inscribed within the soul of every individual. Learning is, therefore, to
cultivate the soul and make one’s implicit understanding of truth explicit. Socrates engaged in dialogues,
not to teach knowledge, but in order to awaken the soul of a partner, a method comparable to certain
practices in Zen Buddhism.

Truth, for Socrates, is something that should not only be discussed but lived, embodied, and practiced.
Socrates understood the care of the soul as the primary task of philosophy and fought against moral
relativists such as the Sophists. They mistakenly replaced the effort to discover truth with the practice
of rhetorical skills understood as tools for social success, and substituted the pursuit of pleasure for the
attainment of genuine happiness.
Socrates was prosecuted, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for charges of impiety and corrupting
youth, a legal but unjust prosecution. Refusing to compromise with politically motivated opponents,
Socrates took poison in prison, preferring an honorable death than flight from Athens to preserve his life.
Thus he is revered as a martyr for the truth of philosophy.

Contents

Socrates' seminal role in the development of Western thought, providing the basis for individuals to
arrive at the truth through investigation of the self and the world apart from the dictates of communal
tradition, draws comparisons to near his contemporaries (Buddha), Confucius, and Lao Tsu. The near-
simultaneous appearance of history's great sages led the nineteenth-century philosopher Karl Jaspers to
posit an "Axial Age"—the period from roughly 600 B.C.E. to 400 B.C.E.—during which "the spiritual
foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently… upon which humanity still
subsists today." Jaspers saw Socrates, Confucius and Siddhartha Gautama as "paradigmatic
personalities," whose quest for meaning would bring transformative change in humanity's self-
understanding.

Socrates in Greek Philosophy

Historians divide the history of Greek philosophy into two periods: before Socrates and after Socrates. All
philosophers who appeared before Socrates are grouped together and called Pre-Socratics.

Philosophy began as the quest for unchanging principles. This distinguishes philosophy from Greek
mythology, which sought transcendent meaning through imaginative projections of observed
phenomena to origins among the divinities. Pre-Socratics tried to find natural principles without a clear
understanding of the distinct characteristics of human beings. Socrates is the first person who brought
the issues of human beings to the center of philosophical inquiry. With Socrates, deep inquiries into
human life and human beings really began. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” (Apology, 38) is
one of the best-known phrases of Socrates.

Every philosophy is built upon certain a priori presuppositions, and Socrates’ thought follows from two
important insights: the soul is immortal, and the care of the soul is the task of philosophy. Human life
does not end at one’s death, Socrates taught. Death is merely the departure for afterlife. Facing his own
death, Socrates explained the meaning of death in front of weeping friends and disciples and asked, why
not celebrate death? Death, he explained, is the departure of the soul for the eternal world.

Upon the conviction that the essence of the self is the soul and that one continues to live in the world
after death, Socrates took the caring of the soul to be the most important issue in human life. Socrates
challenged a variety of secular relativists, Sophists in particular, who taught the art of success and
promoted a hedonistic way of life.

Interestingly, three of history’s greatest thinkers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, appeared synchronously
in fourth-century B.C.E. Greece. Socrates was the teacher of Plato, who in turn was the teacher of
Aristotle. Karl Jaspers, a twentieth-century philosopher, noticed the roughly simultaneous appearance of
major thinkers in human history worldwide, such as Jewish prophets, Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, and
writers of the Upanishads. He conceived the period of three centuries before and three centuries after
500 B.C.E. as the Axial Age which laid the foundation for religions and philosophies.

Contemporaneous accounts of Socrates

There are no recorded works by Socrates. Modern knowledge concerning the philosopher essentially
depends upon a limited number of contemporaneous secondary sources, primarily the works of his
student Plato, accounts of conversations with Socrates by the historian Xenophon, and historically
problematic references in the writings of the satirist Aristophanes. While Plato, Xenophon,
and Aristotle are the main sources for the historical Socrates, Xenophon and Plato were direct disciples
of Socrates, and perhaps idealize him. They wrote the only continuous descriptions of Socrates that have
come down to us. Aristotle refers frequently, but in passing, to Socrates in his writings.

Socrates was prominently lampooned in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds, produced when Socrates was
in his mid-forties. Socrates later said at his trial (in Plato's version) that the laughter of the theater was a
harder task to answer than the arguments of his accusers. Socrates is also ridiculed in Aristophanes'
play The Birds and in plays by Callias, Eupolis, and Telecleides. In all of these, Socrates and
the Sophists were criticized for the "moral dangers inherent in contemporary thought and literature."

Fragmentary evidence also exists from Socrates' contemporaries. Giannantoni collects every scrap of
evidence pertaining to Socrates in his monumental work Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, which
includes writers such as Aeschines Socraticus (not the orator), Antisthenes, and a number of others who
knew Socrates.

Life, trial and death

According to accounts from antiquity, Socrates' father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and his mother
Phaenarete, a midwife. He was married to Xanthippe, who bore him three sons. She was considered a
shrew, and Socrates himself attested that, having learned to live with Xanthippe, he would be able to
cope with any other human being, just as a horse trainer accustomed to wilder horses might be more
competent than one not. He also saw military action, fighting at the Battle of Potidaea, the Battle of
Delium, and the Battle of Amphipolis. It is believed, based on Plato's Symposium, that Socrates was
decorated for bravery. In one instance he stayed with his wounded friend Alcibiades, and probably saved
his life; despite the objections of Alcibiades, Socrates refused any sort of official recognition and instead
encouraged the decoration of Alcibiades. During such campaigns, he also showed his extraordinary
hardiness, walking without shoes and a coat in winter.

It is unclear what exactly Socrates did for a living. In Xenophon's Symposium, he explicitly states that he
devotes himself only to discussing philosophy, and that he thinks this is the most important art or
occupation. It is unlikely that he was able to live off of family inheritance, given his father's occupation as
an artisan. In the accounts of Plato, Socrates explicitly denies accepting money for teaching; however,
Xenophon's Symposium clearly has Socrates state that he is paid by his students, and Aristophanes
depicts Socrates as running a school of sophistry with his friend Chaerephon. It is also possible that
Socrates survived off of the generosity of his wealthy and powerful friends, such as Alcibiades.

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the Athenian Empire to its decline
after its defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens was seeking to
recover from humiliating defeat, the Athenian public court was induced by three leading public figures to
try Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the youth of Athens.

According to the version of his defense speech presented in Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the "gadfly"
of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than
Socrates; the Oracle responded negatively. Socrates, interpreting this as a riddle, set out to find men who
were wiser than him. He questioned the men of Athens about their knowledge of good, beauty,
and virtue. Finding that they knew nothing and yet believing themselves to know much, Socrates came
to the conclusion that he was wise only in so far as he knew that he knew nothing. The others only
falsely thought they had knowledge.

By questioning everything and everyone, in particular those who claimed to have knowledge, Socrates
apparently offended the leaders of his time. Brought to trial, he was found guilty as charged, and
sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. His friends and students bribed the prison guard and prepared
a ship to escape, but he refused to leave and took a poisonous herb. The dramatic court scene and his
final speech in the prison are depicted by Plato in his Apology. Socrates’ attitude when facing his own
death brought about by unjust charges, as recorded by Plato, is remembered in human history as the
martyrdom of a just man.

Philosophy
Portrait of Socrates, Roman marble, Louvre Museum

Socratic Method

One of his contributions to Western thought is his dialogical method of inquiry, known as the Socratic
Method, which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as
the Good and Justice, concepts used constantly without any real definition.

In this method, a series of questions are posed to help a person or group to determine their
underlying beliefs* and the extent of their knowledge. The Socratic Method is a negative method
of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating
those which lead to contradictions. It was designed to force one to examine their beliefs and the validity
of such beliefs.

Philosophical theories and views are supported by one’s convictions or beliefs at a deeper level. Socrates
tried to awaken the soul of his partner in dialogue, rather than trying to give them knowledge, so that
they would be led to self-realization about their own beliefs and their validity.

This method is supported by Socrates’ theory of knowledge. From Socrates’ perspective, true knowledge
is inherently inscribed in the soul of every individual. Knowing the truth is therefore a matter of realizing
or bringing into explicit awareness what one implicitly understands without consciously knowing it. This
insight was developed by his student Plato as a theory of recollection. Plato formulated knowing the
truth as recollection. One can find similar insight in Augustine’s concepts of “inner truth” and the
“teacher within.”

Socrates described his method of dialogue as the art of midwifery. The midwife serves to help a pregnant
mother deliver her baby. The baby is born from the mother. The role of midwife is to assist the mother
so that she can smoothly and safely deliver the baby. Socrates understood his role as a helper to lead a
partner in dialogue to self-realize the truth within his or her soul. Truth exists within the partner as a
baby exists inside a mother’s womb. The Socratic Method consists in a series of inquiries paired with
replies through which a partner is led to the point where he or she sees the truth within.

Just as delivery is a painful and difficult process, seeing the truth is difficult and the partner in dialogue
sometimes goes through uncomfortable experiences. In the scenes of Socrates’ dialogues, Plato
describes the discomfort and anger of the partner in dialogue.

There are a number of obstacles that prevent one from attaining true knowledge. The greatest obstacle
is one’s conviction that he or she already has knowledge, even if he or she does not. From Socrates’
perspective, people often mistakenly believe that they have knowledge, when in fact they hold only
opinions. For Socrates, true knowledge is unchanging and eternal truth inscribed within one’s soul. Such
truth belongs to the eternal spiritual world or the world of immortals in Socrates’ terminology. Opinions,
on the other hand, are changeable and offer only temporal views, ideas, and mere beliefs.

Knowing the truth or possessing true knowledge is not the same thing as having some additional
information. Realization of the eternal nature of truth or true knowledge is a process of becoming aware
of the eternal nature of the human soul. This realization opens up one’s mind to a whole different world
of eternity. One is opened up to the spiritual dimension. It is a turn of consciousness from the materially
dominated world to the spiritual realm.

This turn of awareness also involves embracing a different concept of reality. For Socrates, the world of
true knowledge or eternal truth is the real world. What is sensible or what one can perceive with the five
senses is temporal, changing, and less real than the world of true knowledge or eternal truth. This line of
thought was fully developed by his student, Plato.

Socratic Method involves a turn of consciousness or one’s self-awareness. In this sense, what he means
by method is comparable to that of existentialism and Zen Buddhism.

Knowledge

Socrates believed that his wisdom sprung from an awareness of his own ignorance. He never claimed to
be actually wise, only to understand the path one must take to become wise. On the one hand, he drew
a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the other,
Plato's Symposium and Republic describe a method for ascending to wisdom.

The world of true knowledge or eternal truth is, for Socrates, vastly superior to the world of everyday
reality. Socrates seems aware of its inexhaustible openness, vastness, and potentiality. One cannot really
grasp this world at all through conceptual language. Socrates was aware of the reality of this world and
he claimed that he only knew the path or gate to it but not the world itself. To express this point
differently, truth is, in a sense, both transcendent of and, at the same time, immanent to the soul.
Socrates attempted to grasp this insight and express it in his own language.

Virtue

Socrates was convinced that the best way for people to live was to focus on cultivating the soul through
living a virtuous life rather than through the pursuit of material wealth. The idea that humans possessed
certain virtues formed a common thread in Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most
important qualities for a person to have, foremost of which were the philosophical or intellectual virtues.

Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to truly be good and not just act with "right opinion"
one must come to know the unchanging Good in itself. In the Republic, he describes the "divided line," a
continuum of ignorance to knowledge with the Good on top of it all; only at the top of this line do we
find true good and the knowledge of such.

For Socrates, the foundation of virtues consists in their immutable and eternal nature, which belongs to
a divine realm. The truthfulness of truth is established in itself and truth self-exists for eternity. It
transcends human interpretations. Socrates challenged the Sophists, professional rhetoricians who
promoted moral relativism, skepticism, and secular, materialistic life styles. Protagoras, one of the major
Sophists, argued that good and evil is a matter of interpretation. “Man is the measure of all things,” is a
phrase attributed to him. Some sophists held Machiavellian views of value and argued that good and evil
were determined by a winner. Sophists generally promoted a view of value based upon power, wealth,
and honor. Socrates seriously challenged them and Plato’s dialogues depicted the scenes of their
arguments.

Politics

It is often argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world that only the wise man can
understand," making the philosopher the only type of person suitable to govern others. According to
Plato's account, Socrates was in no way subtle about his particular beliefs on government. He openly
objected to the democracy that ran Athens during his adult life. It was not only Athenian democracy:
Socrates objected to any form of government that did not conform to his ideal of a perfect republic led
by philosophers, and Athenian government was far from that. During the last years of Socrates' life,
Athens was in continual flux due to political upheaval. Democracy was at last overthrown by a junta
known as the Thirty Tyrants, led by Plato's relative, Critias, who had been a student of Socrates. The
Tyrants ruled for nearly a year before the democracy was reinstated, at which point it declared an
amnesty for all recent events. Four years later, it acted to silence the voice of Socrates.

This argument is often challenged, and what, exactly, Socrates believed is one of the most enduring
philosophical debates. The strongest argument of those who claim that Socrates did not actually believe
in the idea of philosopher kings is Socrates' constant refusal to enter into politics or participate in
government of any sort; he often stated that he could not look into other matters or tell people how to
live when he did not yet understand himself. The philosopher is a lover of wisdom, and not actually wise.
Socrates' acceptance of his death sentence after his conviction by the Boule can also support this view.

It is often claimed that the anti-democratic leanings attributed to Socrates are better attributed to Plato,
who was never able to overcome his disgust at what was done to his teacher. In any case, it is clear that
Socrates thought that the rule of the Thirty Tyrants was at least as objectionable as democracy; when
called before them to assist in the arrest of a fellow Athenian, Socrates refused and narrowly escaped
death before the Tyrants were overthrown. Judging by his actions, he considered their rule less
legitimate than that of the democratic senate that sentenced him to death.

Mysticism

When reading the dialogues of Plato, Socrates often seems to manifest a mystical side,
discussing reincarnation and the mystery religions. Although this interest is generally attributed to Plato,
the distinctions between the views of Plato and Socrates remain problematic; in addition, there seem to
be some corollaries in the works of Xenophon. In the culmination of the philosophical path as discussed
in Plato's Symposium and Republic, one comes to the sight of the form of the Good in an experience akin
to mystical revelation; only then can one become wise. In the Symposium, Socrates credits his speech on
the philosophic path to the priestess Diotima. In the Meno, Socrates refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries,
telling Meno he would understand the answers better if only he could stay for the initiations next week.

Perhaps the most interesting facet of this is Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his "daemon," a
voice who spoke to Socrates only and always when Socrates is about to make a mistake. It was
this daemon that prevented Socrates from entering into politics. In the Phaedrus, we are told Socrates
considered this to be a form of "divine madness," the sort of insanity that is a gift from the gods and
gives us poetry, mysticism, love, and even philosophy itself. Alternately, the daemon is often taken to be
what we would call "intuition"; however, the Greek word was clearly used to signify a spirit or entity akin
to what we would call a guardian angel.

The Socratic Dialogues

The Socratic dialogues are a series of dialogues written by Plato and Xenophon in the form of discussions
between Socrates and other persons of his time, or as discussions between Socrates' followers over his
concepts. Plato's Phaedo is an example of this latter category. While Plato's Apology is a speech (with
Socrates as speaker), it is nonetheless generally counted as one of the Socratic dialogues.

Plato's dialogues only contain the direct words of each of the speakers, while Xenophon's dialogues are
written down as a continuous story, containing, along with the narration of the circumstances of the
dialogue, the quotes of the speakers.

Plato generally does not place his own ideas in the mouth of a specific speaker; he lets ideas emerge via
the Socratic Method, under the guidance of Socrates. Most of the dialogues present Socrates applying
this method to some extent, but nowhere as completely as in the Euthyphro. In this dialogue, Socrates
and Euthyphro go through several iterations of refining the answer to Socrates' question: "What is
piety?"

In Plato's dialogues, learning appears as a process of remembering. The soul, before its incarnation in the
body, was in the realm of ideas. There, it saw things the way they truly are, rather than the pale shadows
or copies we experience on earth. By a process of questioning, the soul can be brought to remember the
ideas in their pure form, thus bringing wisdom.

Especially for Plato's writings referring to Socrates, it is not always clear which ideas brought forward by
Socrates (or his friends) actually belonged to Socrates and which of these may have been new additions
or elaborations by Plato—this is known as the Socratic Problem. Generally, the early works of Plato are
considered to be close to the spirit of Socrates, whereas the later works, including Phaedo, are
considered to be possibly products of Plato's elaborations.

Other Views

Some hold that Socrates was a fictional character, invented by Plato and plagiarized by Xenophon and
Aristophanes to articulate points of view which were considered too revolutionary for the author to
admit to holding. However, this theory has little merit, especially when it is considered that Aristophanes
wrote about Socrates (in a negative light) long before Socrates died and Plato began to write his
dialogues.

Quotations

The following quotations are attributed to Socrates in Plato's and Xenophon's writings:

 ”The unexamined life is not worth living.”' (Apology, 38. In Greek, ho de anexetastos bios ou
biôtos anthorôpôi.)

 ”For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for
your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of
the soul.” (Apology, by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett.)

 ”You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest that happiness consists of luxury and extravagance; I
hold a different creed. To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an attribute of Godhead”
(Memorabilia, by Xenophon. Translated by H.G. Dakyns.)

 ”False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” (Phaedo, 91)

 ”So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think,
but on your behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by
condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to
say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its
size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have
fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one
 of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come
to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be
offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily
kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should
send you another.” (Apology)

 ”Is the pious holy because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is
holy?” (Eurythpro)

 ”It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows
something which des does know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it
seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent.” (“Apology” in The Collected Dialogues of
Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns)

 ”Is not what we call death a freeing and separating of soul from body? Certainly, he
said.” (Phaedo)

 ”The soul is most like that which is divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and ever
self-consistent and invariable, whereas body is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform,
unintelligible, dissoluble, and never self-consistent.” (Phaedo)

 “But no soul which has not practiced philosophy, and is not absolutely pure when it leaves the
body, may attain to the divine nature; that is only for the lover of wisdom.” (Phaedo)

 And I say that there will only be a perfect city when philosophers have become kings. (Republic)

 “Socrates - New World Encyclopedia.” [Link],

[Link]/entry/Socrates.
 (“Socrates - New World Encyclopedia”)

Plato, The Apology of Socrates

Socrates
[17a] How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I
know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was—such was the effect of them; and
yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth [alēthēs]. But many as their falsehoods were, there was one
of them which quite amazed me—I mean when they told you to be upon your guard, and not to let
yourselves be deceived [17b] by the force of my eloquence. They ought to have been ashamed of saying
this, because they were sure to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and displayed my deficiency;
they certainly did appear to be most shameless in saying this, unless by the force of eloquence they
mean the force of truth [alēthēs]; for then I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a
way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have hardly uttered a word, or not more than a word, of
truth [alēthēs]; but you shall hear from me the whole truth [alēthēs]: not, however, delivered after their
manner, in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases.

No indeed! [17c] but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am
certain that this is right, and that at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men of
Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator—let no one expect this of me. And I must beg of you to
grant me one favor, which is this—if you hear me using the same words in my defense which I have been
in the habit of using, and which most of you may have heard in the agora, and at the tables of the
money-changers, or anywhere else, [17d] I would ask you not to be surprised at this, and not to
interrupt me. For I am more than seventy years of age, and this is the first time that I have ever appeared
in a court of law, and I am quite a stranger to the ways of the place; and therefore I would have you
regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native
tongue, [18a] and after the fashion of his country—that I think is not an unfair request. Never mind the
manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the justice [dikē] of my cause, and give heed to
that: let the jury decide with their virtue [aretē] and the speaker speak truly [alēthēs].

And first, it’s only right [full of dikē] that I reply to the older charges and to my first accusers, and then I
will go to the later ones. [18b] For I have had many accusers, who accused me of old, and their false
[non-alēthēs] charges have continued during many years; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus
and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are these, who
began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods [non-alēthēs],
telling of one Socrates, a wise [sophos] man, who speculated about the sky above, and searched into the
earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. [18c] These are the accusers whom I
dread; for they are the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are too apt to fancy that speculators of
this sort do not believe in the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date,
and they made them in days when you were impressible—in childhood, or perhaps in youth—and the
cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And, hardest of all, [18d] their names I
do not know and cannot tell; unless in the chance of a comic poet. But the main body of these
slanderers who from envy and malice have wrought upon you—and there are some of them who are
convinced themselves, and impart their convictions to others—all these, I say, are most difficult to deal
with; for I cannot have them up here, and examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows
in my own defense, and examine when there is no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with
me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds—one recent, [18e] the other ancient; and I
hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long
before the others, and much oftener.

Well, then, I will make my defense, and I will endeavor [19a] in the short time which is allowed to do
away with this evil opinion of me which you have held for such a long time; and I hope I may succeed, if
this be well for you and me, and that my words may find favor with you. But I know that to accomplish
this is not easy—I quite see the nature of the task. Let the event be as the god wills: in obedience to the
law [nomos] I make my defense.
I will begin at the beginning, and ask what the accusation is [19b] which has given rise to this slander of
me, and which has encouraged Meletus to proceed against me. What do the slanderers say? They shall
be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit. “Socrates does nothing that is just [dikē];
he is a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in the sky, and he makes the worse
appear the better cause; [19c] and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.” That is the nature of
the accusation, and that is what you have seen yourselves in the comedy of Aristophanes; who has
introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he can walk in the air, and talking
a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend to know either much or little—not that
I mean to say anything disparaging of [literally: show no tīmē toward] anyone who is wise [sophos] about
natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if Meletus could lay that to my charge. But the simple truth is,
O Athenians, that I have nothing to do with these studies. [19d] Very many of those here present are
witnesses to the truth of this, and to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your
neighbors whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in many upon matters of
this sort. … You hear their answer. And from what they say of this you will be able to judge of the truth of
the rest.

As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money; [19e] that is no more true
[alēthēs] than the other. Although, if a man is able to teach, I honor him for being paid. There is Gorgias
of Leontini, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to
persuade the young men to leave their own citizens [of the polis], by whom they might be taught for
nothing, [20a] and come to them, whom they not only pay, but are thankful [full of kharis] if they may
be allowed to pay them. There is actually a Parian wise man [sophos] residing in Athens, of whom I have
heard; and I came to hear of him in this way: I met a man who has spent a world of money on the
Sophists, Kallias the son of Hipponikos, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him: “Kallias,” I said, “if
your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in [20b] finding someone to put over
them; we should hire a trainer of horses or a farmer probably who would improve and perfect [lit: make
them more agathoi] them in their own proper virtue and excellence [aretē]; but as they are human
beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them? Is there anyone who understands human and
political virtue [aretē]? You must have thought about this as you have sons; is there anyone?” “There is,”
he said. “Who is he?” said I, “and of what country? and what does he charge?” “Evenus the Parian,” he
replied; “he is the man, and his charge is five coins.” Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he truly
[alēthēs] [20c] has this knack, and teaches at such a modest charge. Had I the same, I should have been
very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind.

I dare say, Athenians, that someone among you will reply, “Why is this, Socrates, and what is the origin of
these accusations of you: for there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All
this great fame and talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us,
then, [20d] why this is, as we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.” Now I regard this as a fair [dikaios]
challenge, and I will endeavor to explain to you the origin of my ‘name’ and of this evil fame. Please to
attend then. And although some of you may think I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth
[alēthēs]. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom [sophiā] which I
possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom [sophiā], I reply, such wisdom [sophiā] as is attainable by
man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise [sophos]; [20e] whereas the persons of
whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom [sophiā], which I may fail to describe, because I have it
not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men
of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word
which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit, and will tell you about
my wisdom [sophiā]—whether I have any, and of what sort—and that witness shall be the god of Delphi.
You must have known Chaerephon; [21a] he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he
shared in the exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very
impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle [manteuesthai] to tell him
whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether there
was anyone wiser [more sophos] than I, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man
wiser [more sophos.] Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth
of this story.

[21b] Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I
heard the answer, I said to myself, “What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle
[ainigma]? For I know that I have no wisdom [sophiā], small or great. What can he mean when he says
that I am the wisest [most sophos] of men? And yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be against his
nature [= themis does not allow it].” After a long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the
question. I reflected that if I could only find a man more sophos than myself, [21c] then I might go to the
god with a refutation of the oracle [manteion] in my hand. I should say to him, “Here is a man who is
more sophos than I am; but you said that I was the most sophos.” Accordingly I went to one who had the
reputation of being wise [sophos] and observed to him—his name I need not mention; he was a
politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with
him, I could not help thinking that he was not really sophos, although he was thought sophos by many,
and more sophos still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself sophos,
but was not really sophos; [21d] and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared
by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although
I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good [agathos], I am better off
than he is—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this
latter particular, then, I seem to be slightly more sophos than him. Then I went to another, who had still
higher philosophical pretensions [dealing with sophiā], [21e] and my conclusion was exactly the same. I
made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.

After this I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I
lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me—the word of the god, I thought, ought to be
considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of
the oracle. [22a] And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth
[alēthēs]—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the
most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better. I must perform for you the tale of
my wandering [planē], just as if I had been laboring [poneîn] to achieve labors [ponoi] that I endured for
this purpose: that the [god’s] oracular wording [manteiā] should become impossible to refute. When I
left the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, [22b] and all sorts. And there, I said to
myself, you will be detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly,
I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning
of them—thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to
speak the true [alēthēs], but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have
talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by
wisdom [sophiā] [22c] do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like
diviners [theo-mantis plural] or soothsayers who also say many fine [kala] things, but do not understand
the meaning of them. And the poets appeared to me to be much in the same case [literally have the
same pathos, experience]; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed
themselves to be the most sophos of men in other things in which they were not sophos. So I departed,
conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.

At last I went to the artisans, [22d] for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was
sure that they knew many fine [kala] things; and in this I was not mistaken, for they did know many
things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were more sophos than I was. But I observed
that even the good artisans fell into the same error [hamartia] as the poets; because they were good
workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them
overshadowed their sophiā— [22e] therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like
to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made
answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was.

[23a] This investigation has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and
has given occasion also to many calumnies, and I am called sophos, for my hearers always imagine that I
myself possess the sophiā which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that the god
only is sophos; and in this oracle he means to say that the sophiā of men is little or nothing; he is not
speaking of Socrates, [23b] he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the
most sophos, who, like Socrates, knows that his sophiā is in truth [alēthēs] worth nothing. And so I go my
way, obedient to the god, and make inquisition into the sophiā of anyone, whether citizen or stranger,
who appears to be sophos; and if he is not sophos, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is
not wise; and this occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of
interest or to any concern of my own, [23c] but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the
god.

There is another thing—young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of
their own accord; they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me [= do
a mimēsis of me], and examine others themselves; there are plenty of persons, as they soon enough
discover, who think that they know something, but really know little or nothing: and then those who are
examined by them instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me: [23d] they say that
Socrates is someone who is most polluted, he corrupts young men—and then if somebody asks them,
Why, what evil does he practice or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they may
not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers
about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse
appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been
detected—which is the truth: [23e] and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are all
in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate
calumnies. And this is the reason why my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon
me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the
craftsmen; [24a] Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said at the beginning, I cannot expect to
get rid of this mass of calumny all in a moment. And this, O men of Athens, is the truth [alēthēs]; I have
concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet I know that this plainness of speech makes them
hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth [alēthēs]?—this is the
occasion and reason of their slander of me, [24b] as you will find out either in this or in any future
inquiry.

I have said enough in my defense against the first class of my accusers; I turn to the second class, who
are headed by Meletus, that good [agathos] and patriotic man, as he calls himself. And now I will try to
defend myself against them: these new accusers must also have their affidavit read. What do they say?
Something of this sort: that Socrates commits wrong [a-dika] deeds, and corrupts the young
men, [24c] and he does not believe in the gods that the state [polis] believes in, but believes in other
things having to do with daimones of his own. That is the sort of charge; and now let us examine the
particular counts. He says that I do no justice [dikē], but corrupt the youth; but I say, O men of Athens,
that Meletus does no justice [dikē], and the evil is that he makes a joke of a serious matter, and is too
ready at bringing other men to trial [agōn] from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he
really never had the smallest interest. And the truth of this I will endeavor to prove.

Come here, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. [24d] You think a great deal about the
improvement of youth [= how youth can be made more agathos]?

Meletus
Yes, I do.

Socrates
Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you must know, as you have taken the pains to discover
their corrupter, and are citing and accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their
improver is. Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather
disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter?
Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver is.

Meletus
The laws [nomoi].

Socrates
[24e] But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person is, who, in the first place,
knows the laws [nomoi].
Meletus
The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.

Socrates
What do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able to instruct and improve youth?

Meletus
Certainly they are.

Socrates
What, all of them, or some only and not others?

Meletus
All of them.

Socrates
By the goddess Hera, that is good news! There are plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the
audience—do they improve them?

Meletus
[25a] Yes, they do.

Socrates
And the councilors?

Meletus
Yes, the councilors improve them.

Socrates
But perhaps the members of the citizen assembly corrupt them—or do they too improve them?

Meletus
They improve them.

Socrates
Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their
corrupter? Is that what you affirm?

Meletus
That is what I strongly affirm.

Socrates
I am very unfortunate if that is true. But suppose I ask you a question: Would you say that this also holds
true in the case of horses? [25b] Does one man do them harm and all the world good? Is not the exact
opposite of this true? One man is able to do them good, or at least not many—the trainer of horses, that
is to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true,
Meletus, of horses, or any other animals? Yes, certainly; whether you and Anytus say yes or no, that is no
matter. Happy [with good daimōn] indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter
only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. [25c] And you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown
that you never had a thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about
matters spoken of in this very indictment.

And now, Meletus, I must ask you another question: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or
among good ones? Answer, friend, I say; for that is a question which may be easily answered. Do not the
good [agathoi] do their neighbors good [agathon], and the bad do them evil?

Meletus
Certainly.

Socrates
[25d] And is there anyone who would rather be injured than benefited by those who live with him?
Answer, my good friend; the law [nomos] requires you to answer—does anyone like to be injured?

Meletus
Certainly not.

Socrates
And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them
intentionally or unintentionally?

Meletus
Intentionally, I say.

Socrates
But you have just admitted that the good [agathoi] do their neighbors good [agathon], and the evil do
them evil. [25e] Now is that a truth which your superior wisdom [greater sophiā] has recognized thus
early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom
I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him, and yet I corrupt him, and
intentionally, too—that is what you are saying, and of that you will never persuade me or any other
human being. But either I do not corrupt them, [26a] or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either
view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law [nomos] has no cognizance of
unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I
had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally—no doubt I should;
whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you indicted me in this court, where the law
[nomos] demands not instruction, but punishment.

I have shown, Athenians, as I was saying, [26b] that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the
matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you
mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state
[polis] acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies [daimones] in their stead.
These are the lessons which corrupt the youth, as you say.

Meletus
Yes, that I say emphatically.

Socrates
Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms,
what you mean! [26c] for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach others to
acknowledge some gods, and therefore do believe in gods and am not an entire atheist—this you do not
lay to my charge; but only that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that
they are different gods. Or, do you mean to say that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?

Meletus
I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.

Socrates
[26d] That is an extraordinary statement, Meletus. Why do you say that? Do you mean that I do not
believe in the divinity of the sun or moon, which is the common creed of all men?

Meletus
I assure you, judges, that he does not believe in them; for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon
earth.

Socrates
Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras; and you have but a bad opinion of the
judges, if you fancy them ignorant to such a degree as not to know that those doctrines are found in the
books of Anaxagoras of Klazomenai, who is full of them. And these are the doctrines which the youth are
said to learn of Socrates, when there are not infrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre (price of
admission one drachma at the most); [26e] and they might cheaply purchase them, and laugh at
Socrates if he pretends to father such eccentricities. And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not
believe in any god?

Meletus
I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

Socrates
You are a liar, Meletus, not believed even by yourself. For I cannot help thinking, O men of Athens, that
Meletus is full of insolence [hubris] and impudent, and that he has written this indictment in a spirit of
mere wantonness and youthful bravado. [27a] Has he not compounded a riddle [ainigma], thinking to
try me? He said to himself: “I shall see whether this sophos Socrates will discover my ingenious
contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them.” For he certainly does
appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said that Socrates is guilty of not
believing in the gods, and yet of believing in them—but this surely is an exercise in playfulness.
I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining what I conceive to be his inconsistency; and
do you, Meletus, answer. [27b] And I must remind you that you are not to interrupt me if I speak in my
accustomed manner.

Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human things, and not of human beings? … I wish,
men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always trying to get up an interruption. Did ever any
man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in reed-playing, and not in reed-players? No, my
friend; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for yourself. There is no man who
ever did. But now please answer the next question: [27c] Can a man believe in things having to do
with daimones, and not in the daimones themselves?

Meletus
He cannot.

Socrates
I am glad that I have extracted that answer, by the assistance of the court; nevertheless you swear in the
indictment that I teach and believe in things related to daimones—things new or old, no matter—at any
rate, I believe in things related to daimones, as you say and swear in the affidavit. But if I believe in things
related to daimones, I must believe in daimones or gods themselves—is not that true? Yes, that is true,
for I may assume that your silence gives assent to that. Now what are daimones? [27d] Don’t we think
that they are either gods or the children of gods?

Meletus
Yes, that is true.

Socrates
But this is just the ingenious riddle [ainigma] of which I was speaking: the daimones are gods, and you
say first that I do not believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is, if I believe
in daimones. For if the daimones are the illegitimate children of gods, whether by the Nymphs or by any
other mothers, as is thought, that, as all men will allow, necessarily implies the existence of their
parents. [27e] You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such
nonsense, Meletus, could only have been devised by you as a way to charge me. You have put this into
the indictment because you had nothing real [alēthēs] of which to accuse me. But no one who has a
particle of understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same man can believe in things having
to do with daimones and gods, and yet not believe that there are daimones themselves [28a] and gods
and heroes [hērōes].

I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus. Any elaborate defense is unnecessary; but as I
was saying before, I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am
destroyed; of that I am certain—not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world,
which has been the death of many good [agathos] men, and will probably be the death of many
more; [28b] there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Perhaps someone might say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of pursuing such a goal in life, which is
likely to cause you to die right now? To him I would reply—and I would be replying justly [dikaiōs]: You,
my good man, are not saying it well, if you think it is necessary for a man to calculate the risks of living or
dying; there is little use in doing that. Rather, he should only consider whether in doing anything he is
doing things that are just [dikaia] or unjust [adika], acting the part of a good [agathos] man or of a bad
[kakos] one. Worthless men, |28c according to your view, would be the demigods [hēmi-theoi] who
fulfilled their lives by dying at Troy, especially the son of Thetis [= Achilles], who so despised the danger
of risk, preferring it to waiting for disgrace. His mother, goddess that she was, had said to him, when he
was showing his eagerness to slay Hector, something like this, I think: My child, if you avenge the slaying
of your comrade [hetairos] Patroklos and kill Hector, you will die yourself. “Right away your fate
[potmos]”—she says—“is ready for you after Hector”. And he [= Achilles], hearing this, utterly despised
danger and death, |28d and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live like a worthless [kakos] man,
and not to avenge his friend. “Right away may I die next,” he says, “and impose justice [dikē] on the one
who committed injustice [adikeîn], rather than stay behind here by the curved ships, a laughing stock
and a heavy load for Earth to bear.” Do you think that he had any thought of death and danger? For
wherever a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed
by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of
anything, but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying [alēthēs].

Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, [28e] if I who, when I was ordered by the
generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where
they placed me, like any other man, facing death; if, I say, now, when, as I conceive and imagine, the god
orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, [29a] I were to
desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly
[with dikē] be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle
[manteion] because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying that I was sophos when I was
not sophos. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of sophiā , and not real sophiā, being the
appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear
apprehend to be the greatest evil [kakos], may not be the greatest good [agathos].

[29b] Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the
point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself
more sophos than other men—that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I
know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether god or man, is evil [kakos] and
dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.

[29c] And therefore if you let me go now, and reject the counsels of Anytus, who said that if I were not
put to death I ought not to have been prosecuted, and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly
ruined by listening to my words—if you say to me, “Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will
let you off, but upon one condition, that are to inquire and speculate in this way any more, [29d] and
that if you are caught doing this again you shall die;”—if this was the condition on which you let me go, I
should reply: “Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey the god rather than you,” and while I
have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone
whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: “O my friend, why do you who are a citizen
of the great and mighty and sophos polis of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of
money and [29e] honor [tīmē] and reputation, and so little about sophiā and truth [alēthēs] and the
greatest improvement of the soul [psūkhē], which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed
of this?” And if the person with whom I am arguing says: “Yes, but I do care;” I do not depart or let him
go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue [aretē],
but only says that he has, [30a] I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.
And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien [xenos], but especially to
the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren.

For this is the command of the god, as I would have you know; and I believe that to this day no greater
good [agathos] has ever happened in the state than my service to the god. For I do nothing but go about
persuading you all, old and young alike, [30b] not to take thought for your persons and your properties,
but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul [psūkhē]. I tell you that virtue
[aretē] is not given by money, but that from virtue [aretē] come money and every other good [agathon]
of man, public [= in the dēmos] as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which
corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is
speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids,
and either acquit me or not; [30c] but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even
if I have to die many times.

Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an agreement between us that you should hear
me out. And I think that what I am going to say will do you good: for I have something more to say, at
which you may be inclined to cry out; but I beg that you will not do this. I would have you know that, if
you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Meletus and Anytus
will not injure me: they cannot; for it is not in the nature of things [themis] [30d] that a bad man should
injure a better than himself. I do not deny that he may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or
deprive him of civil rights [literally: rob his tīmē]; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is
doing him a great injury: but in that I do not agree with him; for the evil of doing as Anytus is doing—of
unjustly [without dikē] taking away another man’s life—is greater far. And now, Athenians, I am not going
to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the god, or lightly
reject his boon by condemning me.

[30e] For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure
of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the god; and the state is like a great and noble steed
who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly
which the god has given the state and [31a] all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you,
arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And as you will not easily find another like me, I would
advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are
caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anytus advises, which you
easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless the god in his care of you
gives you another gadfly.
And that I am given to you by the god is proved by this: [31b] that if I had been like other men, I should
not have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years,
and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to
regard virtue [aretē]; this I say, would not be like human nature. And had I gained anything, or if my
exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that: but now, as you will perceive,
not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say [31c] that I have ever exacted or sought pay of
anyone; they have no witness of that. And I have a witness of the truth [alēthēs] of what I say; my
poverty is a sufficient witness.

Someone may wonder why I go about in private, giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of
others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you the reason [aitiā]
for this. You have often heard me speak [31d] of something related to the gods and to the daimones, a
voice, which comes to me, and is the thing that Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This thing I have had
ever since I was a child: it is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I
am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of being
engaged in matters of the state. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had
engaged in these matters, I would have perished long ago and done no good either to you [31e] or to
myself. And do not be offended at my telling you the truth [alēthēs]: for the truth is that no man who
goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of
unrighteousness and wrong in the state, will save [sōzein] his life; [32a] he who will really fight for the
right, if he would be safe [sōzein] even for a little while, must have a private life and not a public one [=
one concerned with the dēmos].

I can give you as proofs of this, not words only, but deeds, which you value more [give more tīmē to]
than words. Let me tell you a passage of my own life, which will prove to you that I should never have
yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that if I had not yielded I should have died at once. I will
tell you a story—tasteless, perhaps, and commonplace, but nevertheless true [alēthēs]. [32b] The only
office of state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of councilor; the tribe Antiochis, which is my
tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after
the battle of Arginousai; and you proposed to try them all together, which was illegal [against
the nomos], as you all thought afterwards; but at the time I was the only one of the Prytaneis who was
opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against you; and when the orators threatened to impeach
and arrest me, and have me taken away, and you called and shouted, [32c] I made up my mind that I
would run the risk, having law [nomos] and justice [dikē] with me, rather than take part in your injustice
because I feared imprisonment and death.

This happened in the days of the democracy. But when the oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they
sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and bade us bring Leon of Salamis, as they wanted to
execute him. This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were always giving with the view
of implicating as many as possible in their crimes; [32d] and then I showed, not in words only, but in
deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my only
fear was the fear of doing an unrighteous [non-dikaios] or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that
oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong; and when we came out of the rotunda the other
four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home. For which I might have lost my life, had
not the power of the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. [32e] And to this many will witness.

Now do you really imagine that I could have survived all these years, if I had led a public life, supposing
that like a good [agathos] man I had always supported the right and had made justice [dikē], as I ought,
the first thing? [33a] No, indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other. But I have been always the
same in all my actions, public as well as private, and never have I yielded any base compliance to those
who are slanderously termed my disciples or to any other. For the truth is that I have no regular
disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young
or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, [33b] and not with those who do
not pay; but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and
whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be my responsibility [aitiā], as I never
taught him anything. And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private
which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth [non-alēthēs].

But I shall be asked, Why do people delight in continually conversing with you? [33c] I have told you
already, Athenians, the whole truth [alēthēs] about this: they like to hear the cross-examination of the
pretenders to wisdom [sophiā]; there is amusement in this. And this is a duty which the god has imposed
upon me, as I am assured by oracles [manteia], visions, and in every sort of way in which the will of
divine power was ever signified to anyone. This is true [alēthēs], O Athenians; or, if not true, would be
soon refuted. [33d] For if I am really corrupting the youth, and have corrupted some of them already,
those of them who have grown up and have become sensible that I gave them bad [kakos] advice in the
days of their youth should come forward as accusers and take their revenge [= exact tīmē]; and if they do
not like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or other kinsmen, should say
what evil their families suffered at my hands. Now is their time. Many of them I see in the court. There is
Crito, who is of the same age [33e] and of the same deme with myself; and there is Critobulus his son,
whom I also see. Then again there is Lysanias of Sphettos, who is the father of Aeschines—he is present;
and also there is Antiphon of Cephisus, who is the father of Epigenes; and there are the brothers of
several who have associated with me.

There is Nicostratus the son of Theodotides, and the brother of Theodotus (now Theodotus himself is
dead, and therefore he, at any rate, will not seek to stop him); and there is Paralus the son of
Demodokos, who had a brother Theages; [34a] and Adeimantus the son of Ariston, whose brother Plato
is present; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus, whom I also see. I might mention a
great many others, any of whom Meletus should have produced as witnesses in the course of his speech;
and let him still produce them, if he has forgotten—I will make way for him. And let him say, if he has any
testimony of the sort that he can produce. Nay, Athenians, the very opposite is the truth. For all these
are ready to witness on behalf of the corrupter, of the destroyer of their kindred, as Meletus and Anytus
call me; [34b] not the corrupted youth only—there might have been a motive for that—but their
uncorrupted elder relatives. Why should they too support me with their testimony? Why, indeed, except
for the sake of truth and justice [dikaios], and because they know that I am speaking the truth [alēthēs],
and that Meletus is lying.
Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is nearly all the defense that I have to offer. Yet a word
more. [34c] Perhaps there may be someone who is offended at me, when he calls to mind how he
himself, on a similar or even a less serious occasion [agōn], had recourse to prayers and supplications
with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together
with a posse of his relations and friends; whereas I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none
of these things. Perhaps this may come into his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote in anger
because he is displeased at this. [34d] Now if there be such a person among you, which I am far from
affirming, I may fairly reply to him: My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and
blood, and not of wood or stone, as Homer says; and I have a family, yes, and sons. O Athenians, three in
number, one of whom is growing up, and the two others are still young; and yet I will not bring any of
them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not? [34e] Not from any self-will or
disregard of you [= not showing tīmē]. Whether I am or am not afraid of death is another question, of
which I will not now speak. But my reason simply is that I feel such conduct to be discreditable to myself,
and you, and the whole state. One who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, whether
deserved or not, ought not to debase himself.

[35a] At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men. And if those
among you who are said to be superior in wisdom [sophiā] and courage, and any other virtue, demean
themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct! I have seen men of reputation, when they have
been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner: they seemed to fancy that they were going to
suffer something dreadful if they died, and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them to live;
and I think that they were a dishonor to the state, [35b] and that any stranger coming in would say of
them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honor [tīmē] and
command, are no better than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us
who are of reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them; you ought rather to show
that you are more inclined to condemn, not the man who is quiet, but the man who gets up a doleful
scene, and makes the city ridiculous.

But, setting aside the question of dishonor, [35c] there seems to be something wrong in petitioning a
judge, and thus procuring an acquittal instead of informing and convincing him. For his duty is, not to
make a present of justice [dikaios], but to give judgment [krinein]; and he has sworn that he will judge
according to the laws [nomos], and not according to his own good pleasure; and neither he nor we
should get into the habit of perjuring ourselves—there can be no piety in that. Do not then require me to
do what I consider dishonorable [without dikē] and impious and wrong, [35d] especially now, when I am
being tried for impiety on the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and
entreaty, I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods,
and convict myself, in my own defense, of not believing in them. But that is not the case; for I do believe
that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And
to you and to the god I commit my cause, to be determined by you as is best [aristos] for you and me.

Socrates’ Proposal for his Sentence1

[35e] There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, [36a] at the vote of
condemnation. I expected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought
that the majority against me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the
other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say that I have escaped Meletus. And I may say
more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, [36b] he would not have had a fifth part of the
votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a thousand drachmae, as is
evident.

And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly
that which is my due. And what is that which I ought to pay or to endure [paskhein]? What shall be done
to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the
many care about—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and
magistracies, and plots, and parties. [36c] Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to follow in this
way and be saved [sōzein], I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could
do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man
among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private
interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the
order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one?

[36d] Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a
kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who
desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the
Prytaneion,2 O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the
prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by
many. [36e] For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness
[with good daimōn], and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty justly [dikaiōs], [37a] I
say that maintenance in the Prytaneion is the just return.

Perhaps you may think that I am braving you in saying this, as in what I said before about the tears and
prayers. But that is not the case. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally
wronged anyone, although I cannot convince you of that—for we have had a short conversation only;
but if there were a law [nomos] at Athens, such as there is in other cities, [37b] that a capital cause
should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you; but now the time is
too short. I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged
another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil [kakos], or
propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus
proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good [agathos] or an evil [kakos], why should I
propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil? Shall I say imprisonment?

[37c] And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year—of the Eleven? Or
shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should
have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and I cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be
the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that
when you, who are my own citizens, [37d] cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found
them so grievous and odious that you would want to have done with them, others are likely to endure
me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering
from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that into
whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me; and if I drive them away,
their elders will drive me out at their desire: [37e] and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will
drive me out for their sakes.

Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign
city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer
to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I
cannot hold my tongue, [38a] you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest
good of man is daily to converse about virtue [aretē], and all that concerning which you hear me
examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living—that you are still
less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade
you. Moreover, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any punishment [kakos]. [38b] Had I money I
might have proposed to give you what I had, and have been none the worse. But you see that I have
none, and can only ask you to proportion the fine to my means. However, I think that I could afford a
coin, and therefore I propose that penalty; Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid
me say thirty coins, and they will be the sureties. Well then, say thirty coins, let that be the penalty; for
that they will be ample security to you.

(The jury votes to condemn Socrates to death.)

Socrates’ Comments on his Sentence

[38c] Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for [= from the cause of, aitiā] the evil name
which you will get from the detractors of the city [polis], who will say that you killed Socrates,
a sophos man; for they will call me wise even although I am not sophos when they want to reproach you.
If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far
advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death. [38d] I am speaking now only to those
of you who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: You think that I was
convicted through deficiency of words—I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone,
nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was
not of words—certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as
you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, [38e] and saying and doing
many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of
me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now
repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak
in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping
death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees
before his pursuers, [39a] he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping
death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in
avoiding unrighteousness; [39b] for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the
slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is
unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty
of death, and they, too, go their ways condemned by the truth [alēthēs] to suffer the penalty of villainy
and wrong [non-dikē]; and I must abide by my award—let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these
things may be regarded as fated, and I think that they are well.

[39c] And now, O men who have condemned me, I want to prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and
that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my
murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will
surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an
account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more
accusers of you than there are now; [39d] accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are
younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that
by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of
escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest [kalos] way is not to be crushing
others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter [manteuesthai] before my
departure, to the judges who have condemned me.

[39e] Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has
happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then
awhile, for we may as well talk [diamuthologeîn = speak through mūthos] with one another while there
is time. [40a] You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has
happened to me. O my judges—for you I may truly call judges—I should like to tell you of a wonderful
circumstance. In the past, the oracular [mantikē] art of the superhuman thing [to daimonion] within me
was in the habit of opposing me, each and every time, even about minor things, if I was going to do
anything not correctly [orthōs]. But now that these things, as you can see, have happened to me—things
that anyone would consider, by general consensus, to be the worst possible things to happen to
someone— |40b the signal [to sēmeion] of the god [theos] has not opposed me, either as I was leaving my
house and going out in the morning, or when I was coming up to this place of judgment, or as I was
speaking. No, it has not opposed me about anything I was going to say, though on other occasions when
I was speaking, it [= the signal] has often stopped me, even when I was in the middle of saying
something. But now in nothing I either said or did concerning this matter has it opposed me. So, what do
I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. Perhaps this is a proof that what has happened to me
is something good [agathon], |40c and it cannot be that we are thinking straight [orthōs] if we think that
death is something bad [kakon]. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, since the signal [to
sēmeion] that I am used to would surely have opposed me if I had been heading toward something not
good [agathon].

Let us think about it this way: there is plenty of reason to hope that death is something good [agathon]. I
say this because death is one of two things: either it is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness
for the person who has died, or, according to the sayings [legomena], there is some kind of a change
[meta-bolē] that happens—a relocation [met-oikēsis] for the soul [psūkhē] from this place [topos] to
another place [topos]. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, |40d but a sleep like the sleep
of someone who sees nothing even in a dream, death will be a wondrous gain [kerdos]. For if a person
were to select the night in which he slept without seeing anything even in a dream, and if he were to
compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and
nights he had passed in the course of his life in a better and more pleasant way than this one, I think that
any person—I will not say a private individual [idiōtēs], but even the great king— |40e will not find many
such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is a gain
[kerdos]; for the sum total of time is then only a single night. But if death is the journey [apo-dēmiā] to
another place [topos], and, if the sayings [legomena] are true [alēthē], that all the dead are over there
[ekeî], then what good [agathon], O jurors, [dikastai], can be greater than this? |41a If, when someone
arrives in the world of Hādēs, he is freed from those who call themselves jurors [dikastai] here, and finds
the true [alētheîs] judges [dikastai] who are said to give judgment [dikazein] over there [ekeî]—Minos
and Rhadamanthus and Aiakos and Triptolemos, and other demigods [hēmi-theoi] who were righteous
[dikaioi] in their own life—that would not be a bad journey [apo-dēmiā], now would it? To make contact
with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer—who of you would not welcome such a great
opportunity? Why, if these things are true [alēthē], let me die again and again. |41b I, too, would have a
wondrous activity [diatribē] there, once I make contact with Palamedes, and with Ajax the son of
Telamon, and with other ancient men who have suffered death through an unjust [a-dikos] judgment
[krisis]. And there will be no small pleasure, I think, in comparing my own experiences [pathos plural]
with theirs. Further—and this is the greatest thing of all—I will be able to continue questioning those
who are over there [ekeî], just as I question those who are over here [entautha], and investigating who
among them is wise [sophos] and who among them thinks he is wise [sophos] but is not. Who would not
welcome the great opportunity, O jurors [dikastai], of being able to question the leader of the great
Trojan expedition; |41c or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or one could mention countless other men—and
women too! What unmitigated happiness [eudaimoniā] would there be in having dialogues
[dialegesthai] with them over there [ekeî] and just being in their company and asking them questions!
And I say it absolutely: those who are over there [ekeî] do not put someone to death for this; certainly
not. I say that because those who are over there [ekeî] are happier [eu-daimonesteroi] than those who
are over here [entautha]. And they are already immortal [athanatoi] for the rest of time, if in fact the
sayings [legomena] are true [alēthē].

But even you, O jurors [dikastai], should have good hopes when you face death, and you should have in
mind [dia-noeîsthai] this one thing as true [alēthes]: |41d that nothing bad [kakon] can happen to a good
[agathos] person, either in life or when he comes to its completion [teleutân]. The events involving this
person are not neglected by the gods [theoi]. Nor is it by chance that the events involving me have
happened. Rather, this one thing is clear to me, that to be already dead and to be in a state where I am
already released from events involving me was better for me. And it is for this reason that the signal
[sēmeion] in no way diverted me from my path. Further, it is for this reason that I am not at all angry
with those who accused me or with those who condemned me. Granted, it was not with this in mind
that they accused me and condemned me, since they thought they were doing me harm, |41e and for
this they deserve to be blamed. In any case, I ask them for only one thing. When my sons are grown up, I
would ask you men to punish them [= my sons] and give them pain, as I have given you pain—if they
seem to care about material things or the like, instead of striving for merit [aretē]. Or, if they seem to be
something but are not at all that thing—then go ahead and insult them, as I am now insulting you, for
not caring about things they ought to care about, and for thinking they are something when they are
really worth nothing. And if |42a you do this, then the things I have experienced because of what you
have done to me will be just [dikaia]—and the same goes for my sons.

But let me interrupt. You see, the hour [hōrā] of departure has already arrived. So, now, we all go our
ways—I to die, and you to live. And the question is, which one of us on either side is going toward
something that is better? It is not clear, except to the god.

Notes

[ back ] 1. The jury casts a vote, and finds Socrates guilty. According to Athenian law, votes of conviction
and votes of punishment were separate matters, with argument after each phase. Socrates’ opponents
pressed for the death penalty—they presumed that Socrates, after his conviction, would offer a more
lenient (and acceptable) counterproposal, such as a fine or exile. Socrates’ famous response (below)
stuns his opponents and the jury.

[ back ] 2. The Prytaneion was a public building used to feed and maintain famous citizens / athletes.

2019-12-12

Jowett, Benjamin. “Plato, the Apology of Socrates.” The Center for Hellenic Studies, 2
Nov. 2020, [Link]/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-socrates-sb/.
(Jowett)

Some 2,400 years ago, in 399 BCE, Athens put Socrates on trial. The charge was
impiety, and the trial took place in the People’s Court. Socrates, already 70
years old, had long been a prominent philosopher and a notorious public
intellectual. Meletus, the prosecutor, alleged that Socrates had broken Athenian
law by failing to observe the state gods, by introducing new gods, and by
corrupting the youth.

Meletus, as prosecutor, and Socrates, as defendant, delivered timed speeches

before a jury of 501 of their fellow citizens. Meletus’ prosecution speech is lost.
Two versions of Socrates’ defence speech, one recorded by Plato and the other
by a clever polymath named Xenophon, are preserved. A majority of jurors
(about 280) voted Socrates guilty, and he was executed by hemlock poisoning.

There is no dispute about the basic facts of the trial of Socrates. It is less
obvious why Athenians found Socrates guilty, and what it might mean today.
People who believe in both democracy and the rule of law ought to be very
interested in this trial. If the takeaway is either that democracy, as direct self-
government by the people, is fatally prone to repress dissent, or that those who
dissent against democracy must be regarded as oligarchic traitors, then we are
left with a grim choice between democracy and intellectual freedom.

But that is the wrong way to view Socrates’ trial. Rather, the question it answers
concerns civic obligation and commitment. The People’s Court convicted
Socrates because he refused to accept that a norm of personal responsibility for
the effects of public speech applied to his philosophical project. Socrates
accepted the guilty verdict as binding, and drank the hemlock, because he
acknowledged the authority of the court and the laws under which he was tried.
And he did so even though he believed that the jury had made a fundamental
mistake in interpreting the law.

Join over 250,000+ newsletter subscribers

Our content is 100 per cent free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Daily: A daily dose of essays, guides and videos from Aeon+Psyche

Weekly: A week’s worth of big ideas from Aeon

Sign up

I’m already subscribed

Privacy Policy

The conventional wisdom maintains that the impiety charge against Socrates
was a smokescreen, that politics motivated his trial. Just four years earlier, a
democratic uprising had overthrown a junta that ruled Athens for several
tumultuous months. Meletus’ prosecution speech at the trial likely urged the
citizens of Athens to focus on Socrates’ long association with members of this
vicious and anti-democratic junta.

In his influential interpretation The Trial of Socrates (1988), the US journalist-

turned-classicist I F Stone saw this trial as an embattled democracy defending
itself. In Stone’s view, Socrates had helped to justify the junta’s savage
programme of oligarchic misrule and was a traitor. More commonly, Socrates is
seen as a victim of an opportunistic prosecutor and a wilfully ignorant citizenry.
In truth, politics is indispensable to understanding the trial of Socrates, but in a
slightly more sophisticated way. Seeing Socrates as the paradigm of the
autonomous individual, as a simple martyr to free speech, is wrong. Athenian
political culture and, specifically, the civic commitments required of Athenian
citizens are essential to understanding the trial. Socrates’ own commitments to
his city influenced the trial’s course, and those commitments were core parts of
Athenian political culture, shaping the relationship between public speech and
responsibility. Indeed, the actions of Socrates, Meletus and the jury must be
understood in the context of the Athenians’ emphasis on the role of the
responsible citizen in the democratic state, on their ideal of civic responsibility.
Thus it is a story, in many ways, of civic engagement, in some respects far
removed from the politics of recognition that characterise contemporary US
debates.

In his retelling of the trial, the late Roman-era writer Maximus of Tyre claimed
that Socrates refused to respond to Meletus’ charges, maintaining a dignified
silence throughout. Indeed, dissidents who seek to deny the validity of a given
political system have periodically adopted a principled refusal to participate in a
court proceeding or legal system. But, Socrates did acknowledge the authority
of the court. He actively participated in his own defence – though it was, in
many ways, an idiosyncratic one.

Having thus accepted the Laws’ fruits, on what grounds could Socrates now turn
around and deny their legitimacy?

The point is that Socrates did not dispute the legitimacy of the trial, he did not
take a stand outside a corrupt political system; rather, he participated as a
citizen. As a citizen, his civic obligation required him to answer charges that he
had acted in ways that harmed that community. Plato’s version of the defence
speech makes clear that Socrates sought to vindicate himself, to show that he
had not harmed the community. Indeed, Socrates represented himself as a civic
benefactor, who ought to be rewarded. His record of contributions to the civic
life of Athens, he believed, merited the honour of free meals at the state hearth.

Plato’s many dialogues establish the commitments of Socrates the citizen, and
paint a vivid portrait of Athenian political culture. In the dialogue Crito, Socrates
explains that despite his conviction, it was not ethically permissible for him to
escape from the prison. In Crito, Plato gives readers a ‘dialogue within a
dialogue’, in which the personified Laws of Athens speak to another,
counterfactual Socrates. This counterfactual Socrates intends to avoid
punishment by escaping from prison and fleeing to some distant land.

The Laws of Athens in Plato’s dialogue are not only the formal, written rules of
the Athenian state, but also its civic norms. They ask the counterfactually
disobedient Socrates what he found lacking in them, and when he had
discovered that lack. The Laws point out to Socrates that it was through them
(the laws concerning marriage) that he came into the world. The Laws point out
that, through the norms concerning parents’ responsibility for their children,
they nurtured him. Finally, through them he received his education. Socrates
acknowledges all of this. He willingly accepted those goods, and he
acknowledged them as good. Having thus accepted the Laws’ fruits, on what
grounds could Socrates now turn around and deny their legitimacy?

The Laws of Athens further point out that Socrates could have left Athens for
some other place within the wide Greek world. He would have been free to go.
But since he had chosen to stay, he had, the Laws point out, again recognised
their rightness. The trial itself, the Laws reminded Socrates, had been conducted
in a procedurally correct manner – according to the very rules that Socrates had
affirmed by this continued presence.

The Laws concede that the jurors might have erred in their verdict – Socrates’
argument for his innocence might have been better than Meletus’ for his guilt.
But that was a human error. It was not the fault of the Laws. The possibility of
error on the part of the citizen-jurors who would be his judges was part of the
package deal that Socrates had taken up in the course of his upbringing and
education, and that he had affirmed by his continued presence in the civic
community of Athens. He should know that the Athenian citizens, when gathered
as legislators or as judges, were fallible mortals. They could not always get it
right.

Indeed, Socrates knew well that assembled citizens could get things very wrong.
Seven years before the trial, he had spent a year as an appointed member of
the 500-member citizen Council that set the agenda and led the meetings of the
legislative citizen assembly. Socrates sat on the Council when it fielded a historic
proposal. The proposal was to try a group of Athenian generals en masse, for
having criminally failed in their duty towards crews of Athenian warships sunk in
a sea battle. Socrates regarded the motion to condemn the generals as a group,
rather than remanding them for individual trials, as procedurally improper. He
thought it violated norms offering every accused Athenian his own day in court.
Socrates opposed bringing the proposal to a vote, but the other members of the
committee overruled him. He thought that the group trial was a fundamental
mistake, but he had made his point: the Laws remained authoritative when
citizens responsible for carrying them out erred, or even chose to ignore them.

Throughout his trial, Socrates recognised his civic obligations. When he

defended himself in court against Meletus’ charges, rather than staying silent,
Socrates was acknowledging the right of the court to judge him. When he
remained in prison and drank the hemlock, rather than collaborating in Crito’s
escape plan, he conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen of the state of
Athens. Socrates was, of course, much more than just a citizen of Athens. He
spent much of his adult life pursuing what he saw as a divine mission to discover
the truth about matters of fundamental and universal importance: justice,
courage, wisdom, moderation, love and knowledge. He dedicated his life and
considerable talents to investigating, overall, one question: what makes for a
good life? He sought to show anyone willing to converse with him why it was
right to choose the well-examined life over a life seeking the empty, commonly
valued ‘goods’ of fame, wealth and power.

For what people today call ‘the wisdom of crowds’, Socrates had nothing but
scorn. Athenian democrats who argued that the many, the group, were
collectively more likely to get important matters right than any individual expert
earned his antipathy. Whether or not anyone actually was expert in the art of
politics, Socrates certainly supposed that there could be such an expert, and
that the Athenians were deluded in thinking themselves collectively wise.

Socrates’ analogy sees him as a gadfly while the people of Athens are a
beautiful, lazy horse that might be jolted awake by the gadfly’s sting

How did Socrates both scorn the idea of collective wisdom and yet maintain
obedience to Athens’ laws, even when he disagreed with how they were
interpreted? The rudimentary answer lay in the foundation that Athens (as
opposed to, for example, Sparta) provided in its laws and political culture.
Athens mandated liberty of public speech and tolerance for a wide range of
private behaviour. Moreover, Athenian laws on morally fraught matters,
including piety, tended to be more procedure than substance. Thus, the law
forbidding impiety did not define piety. It left it open to the jury to decide
whether a given action or course of behaviour fell outside the bounds of the
community’s standard. It rather provided a specific process for the community
to make that decision. This substantive ambiguity benefitted Socrates as it
allowed him to pursue his distinctive way of life without violating the letter of
the law.

Socrates knew that urging others to abandon ordinary pursuits in favour of

philosophy made him unpopular. According to Plato, in his defence speech,
Socrates likens his dialogical testing of the opinions of others to the agonising
sting of a gadfly: the value of the sting is that it shocks its victim out of the
slumberous condition of quotidian existence into a moment of moral clarity. In
the best individual case, on Socrates’ terms, that moment initiated a lifetime’s
pursuit of genuine human goods. But, as Socrates’ extended gadfly metaphor
shows, individual conversion to philosophy was not all that he hoped for.
Socrates pairs his analogy of himself as a gadfly to one in which the people of
Athens are a beautiful, lazy horse that might be jolted awake by the gadfly’s
sting. By his defence speech, as well as by explicit statements from other
sources, including other of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates reveals that he
understood his life of philosophy as political as well as moral. He aimed at
nothing less than converting Athens as a civic community into a just society.

Socrates probably recognised that full-scale civic conversion was an improbable

goal. He thought that pursuing the most direct form of political engagement –
proposing specific legislation or advocating a general direction for public policy
in the citizen assembly – was impossible for him. Nevertheless, he understood
his commitment to philosophy as a mission of civic betterment. Athenian
political culture expected that a good citizen would exercise any special talents
or resources for the good of the community, not merely for himself or his friends
and family. Poets would compose publicly performed tragedies or comedies.
Skilled singers and dancers would perform in state-sponsored choruses. The
courageous would fight on the front lines. The rich would contribute generously
to public works. In the words of Pericles (in the Funeral Oration attributed to him
in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War): ‘We regard the citizen who
takes no part in these public duties not as unambitious but as useless.’
Contributing to public life was part, maybe the highest part, of what it meant to
fully be a man.

Socrates was not rich, nor was he a fine singer or dancer. His talent lay in his
recognition and devotion to the value of the examined life. He pursued moral
dialogue – in the public space of the city square, where he could regularly be
found hanging out by the money-changers’ tables. This act constituted the
fulfilling of his civic duty. One moral conversation at a time, he put his unique
excellence in the service of his community.

Those stung by a gadfly do not usually respond in gratitude. Most might feel
instead a murderous impulse to end the accursed creature’s existence. For
decades before his trial, Socrates had carried out his stinging duties on a daily
basis. He did this, invariably, within the city of Athens, save for when abroad on
military duty. Despite the provocation of Socrates’ constant demands that they
abandon the pleasures of ordinary life in favour of philosophy, and despite his
scorn for democratic ideology, it was not until the trial of 399 BCE that
Athenians finally slapped him down. The obvious question is, what had
changed? After decades, what happened to provoke Socrates’ prosecution,
conviction and execution?

The Athenian conception of free speech had not changed. Athenians’

commitment to the principle of free speech, including that every citizen had an
equal right to speak his mind, remained resolute. But Athenians also conceived
of speech as a form of action, with the potential for profound consequences.
Citizens had a responsibility for the public consequences of their public actions.
An Athenian who spoke in public, in the Council, in the assembly, or even in the
public square could expect to be held accountable for the consequences of his
speech. If, for example, he advocated a policy and it brought good, he could
expect praise and honours. If the results of his policy proved harmful to the
community’s welfare, he might be blamed and punished accordingly.

Socrates’ public speech was of a different order: he did not advocate specific
policies and he spoke in the streets, not in the assembly. But it was civic speech,
in the sense that it was carried out in public. It addressed matters of public
importance, and aimed to change society. Initially, the effects of Socrates’
philosophising were not obvious. But following the fall of the anti-democratic
junta, led by associates of Socrates, the Athenians thought they had a pretty
good sense of the consequences of his speech. Still, they did not slap him: an
amnesty agreement in 403 BCE, in the wake of the democratic restoration,
forbade legal prosecution for actions taken by private citizens during the short
junta era. This agreement, it seemed, covered Socrates’ prior speech, however
damaging.

But another thing that had not changed by 399 BCE was Socrates’ conception of
his duty: he kept on with his project of public stinging through public
conversations. Ongoing actions that endangered the newly restored democracy
were not covered by the amnesty. According to the Athenian view of civic
responsibility, Socrates must accept the consequences of his public speech.
Given that his lofty talk of philosophy and denigration of democratic wisdom
had, it seemed, contributed to a tyrannical government, he ought, as a good
citizen, to desist. Socrates had a different understanding of his obligations. He
remained convinced that calling upon people to better know themselves could
result only in good. The wicked actions of his former associates must have had
other causes, ones independent of his mission of philosophising about the
examined life.

Socrates did not deliver an ordinary defence speech. Rather than appeal to the
jurors’ sympathies, he challenged them

By 399 BCE, however, four years after the end of the tyranny, and with Socrates
doing the same things in public that had seemingly inspired the junta’s leaders,
the Athenians regarded his speech very differently. In the eyes of the majority of
his fellow citizens, Socrates was no longer an eccentric with potential for
contributing to public life. He was now either a malevolent public enemy, or
deluded and dangerously unable to recognise that his speech predictably
produced seriously bad outcomes. And so the way was left open for Meletus to
launch his prosecution.
The trial of Socrates was not a show trial. The jury’s vote was close, and Plato’s
version of his speech gives reason to suspect that, if Socrates had delivered a
different, more ordinary defence speech, playing to the jurors’ sympathies, he
could have changed enough votes to win his case. But, both Plato’s and
Xenophon’s reports make it clear that Socrates did not deliver an ordinary
defence speech. Rather than appeal to the jurors’ sympathies, he challenged
them. With unsettling metaphors and logical demonstrations, he made it clear
that he opposed democracy and would never abandon his mission of public
philosophising. Xenophon implies that Socrates chose that sort of speech as a
method of jury-assisted suicide: he was, according to Xenophon, tired of life and
allowed the Athenians to end it for him. But Plato’s version is, I think much more
convincing.

Plato thought that Socrates remained, to the end, motivated by his deep sense
of civic commitment. He couldn’t keep silent, nor could he offer a pandering
defence that would undercut the value of a life spent helping others see their
own good, by radically changing their priorities. In this view, Socrates remained
obligated to public life to the very end. His defence speech was a final, very
public, attempt to awaken his fellow Athenians. Socrates’ ‘defence’ was a last,
best sting. Along with his refusal to break the law by fleeing his mandated
punishment, it was also a final act of civic duty. We can unpack that duty as
courage, respect and engagement.

Socrates’ defence speech was an act of profound civic courage, the same sort of
courage that led Athenian soldiers to die in defence of their country. It was an
act of civic respect that recognised the jurors as adults who might benefit from a
logical argument. And, for all its seeming intellectual arrogance, it was an act of
civic solidarity – an assertion that Socrates the philosopher was also Socrates
the Athenian citizen who owed an account of his actions to his fellow citizens.
Far from a simple drama pitting democracy against intellectual freedom, the trial
of Socrates is a deep drama of civic engagement, tragic in its outcome, but at
the same time revealing that democracy makes space for acts of profound
heroism.

Today, in the 21st century, free speech is deeply entangled with issues of
personal and group identity. In our moment, there is real value in reflecting on
the centrality of civic duty in the trial of Socrates, a foundational moment in the
history of free thought and democratic action. What will we have lost when the
idea of civic duty, as exemplified by the relationship between Socrates and his
democratic city, no longer gains purchase on our own thought and actions?

“The Civic Drama of Socrates Trial | Aeon Essays.” Aeon, [Link]/essays/the-civic-

drama-of-socrates-trial.
(“The Civic Drama of Socrates Trial | Aeon Essays”)

WORKS CITED:

First Person Philosophy. “The Apology by Plato: The Trial of Socrates / Summary of Charges and Defense.” YouTube,
31 Jan. 2021, [Link]/watch?v=_eQDOo5up-E.
(First Person Philosophy)

Jowett, Benjamin. “Plato, the Apology of Socrates.” The Center for Hellenic Studies, 2 Nov. 2020,
[Link]/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-socrates-sb/.
(Jowett)

“Socrates - New World Encyclopedia.” [Link],

[Link]/entry/Socrates.
(“Socrates - New World Encyclopedia”)

“The Civic Drama of Socrates Trial | Aeon Essays.” Aeon, [Link]/essays/the-civic-drama-of-socrates-trial.

(“The Civic Drama of Socrates Trial | Aeon Essays”)

“What Is Philosophy? The Basics of Philosophy.” [Link], 2019,

[Link]/general_whatis.html.
(“What Is Philosophy? The Basics of Philosophy”)