The hour of departure has arrived,
and we go our methods –
I to die, and also you to reside.
Which is healthier God solely is aware of.
~ Plato, The Apology of Socrates
No one is aware of why the Athenians selected to place Socrates to demise.
Certainly, getting any form of repair on the life and demise of Socrates is tough. The person didn’t consider in writing issues down, fearing, apparently, {that a} reliance on written letters would boring the thoughts and induce forgetfulness. Neither did the Greeks but see the worth in recording issues for the long run, even when Herodotus – typically known as the daddy of historical past – started writing his Histories through the lifetime of Socrates.
All we all know of him is thus the little that comes from the phrases of others. Plato, his scholar, solid Socrates as a personality in lots of his texts. So did Xenophon, although each he and Plato have been mates of the nice thinker and hardly essentially the most unbiased of sources. Plato, particularly, later used the character of Socrates as a mouthpiece for his personal concepts, and fashionable readers usually battle to separate the ideas of the character from these of the actual man.
Nonetheless, some issues concerning the trial and execution of Socrates appear moderately clear. It befell within the yr 399 BC, shortly after a interval of turmoil and tyranny within the historical metropolis of Athens. Socrates, by then a person of about seventy years, was by some means implicated in that tyranny, or no less than carefully related to the tyrants themselves.
The trial itself rested on two accusations. First, that he had morally corrupted the youth of Athens, presumably via his teachings on philosophy. And second, that he had dedicated acts of impiety towards the Gods of Athens by denying their existence and by introducing new divinities.
These, no less than, have been the official expenses. And perhaps there was one thing to the claims of impiety, since Socrates apparently believed he was accompanied by some form of private spirit, a daimonion, who spoke to him and gave him steering. The Athenians have been open to new Gods – in any case, they already had fairly a number of – however maybe they weren’t comfy with this new form of god hooked up to a single individual.
Virtually actually, nonetheless, there was extra to it. The fees towards Socrates have usually been described as imprecise, and even when he was responsible of them, they hardly appear critical sufficient to warrant the demise penalty. We would consider Socrates antagonised the jurors in his trial, an concept backed up by Plato’s personal file of the occasions.
However others suppose there have been political causes behind the trial and penalty. Some speculate he was handled as a sacrifice or a scapegoat, a determine that via his execution may restore peace and unity to a troubled metropolis. Or maybe he had merely irritated the elite of Athens via his incessant questioning and want to show ignorance. Possibly they sought revenge for this humiliation, and the trial supplied a chance to take it.
In the long run, Socrates didn’t problem their verdict. As soon as the order for execution got here he adopted it, and regardless of being supplied the chance to flee Athens he selected as a substitute to remain. Maybe he accepted his function as a sacrifice, or just needed to remain true to his lifelong perception in obeying the orders of authority. No matter it was, when the poison brew of hemlock prescribed for his demise arrived, he cheerfully raised his cup and drank the lethal combination.
