SOCRATES

against
ATHENS
 Also by James A. Colaiaco

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Apostle of Militant Nonviolence

James Fitzjames Stephen and the Crisis of Victorian Thought
SOCRATES
against
ATHENS
Philosophy
on Trial

JAMES A. COLAIACO

Routledge
New York and London
Published in 2001 by
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To Nancy, my kindred spirit
 Acknowledgments

A
NYO N E WHO STUDIESthe trial of Socrates is indebted to the
many scholars who have contributed to our knowledge of
ancient Greek philosophy and culture. We are engaged in a col-
lective effort to understand one of the greatest eras of human history. I
wish to thank my colleague, Ron Rainey, who read an early draft of my
work and offered valuable advice and encouragement. I am also grate-
ful to Paul Eckstein, John Ross, Michael Shenefelt, and Phil Washburn
for their readings and suggestions. I wish to thank Dean Steve Curry and
the General Studies Program of New York University for providing me
with a semester to begin work on this book. The resources of the Bobst
Library of New York University, especially the Interlibrary Loan staff,
were of immense assistance. I thank my family, including my father,
Alfred Colaiaco, and Josephine Ruggeri and Maria Ruggeri, for their
abiding support. The memory of my mother, Helen Colaiaco, continues
to sustain me. I am grateful to Gayatri Patnaik, formerly an editor at
Routledge, for perceiving the value of my project. My greatest debt is to
my wife, Nancy Ruggeri Colaiaco, who read each draft of the book,
offering many suggestions for its improvement. During the past few Vll
viii Acknowledgments

years, we have engaged in a dialogue about Socrates and ancient Athens.

I am deeply grateful for her insight, encouragement, and love. Such a
partner, in mind as well as spirit, is a true blessing. Needless to say, while
my book has benefited from the readings and assistance of others, I
alone bear responsibility for its contents.

James A. Colaiaco
Baldwin, New York
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1. INTRODUCTION: A TRAGIC CONFRONTATION I

2. SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE TRIAL I3

Preliminaries
Historicity of the Apology

3. SOCRATES AND RHETORIC 23

Athens-City of Speech
Socrates' Opening Remarks: Dismantling Forensic Rhetoric

4. SOCRATES CONFRONTS HIS OLD ACCUSERS 37

Socrates and Aristophanes' Clouds
Socrates Denies He Is a Teacher of Natural Science
Socrates Denies He Is a Sophist

IX
x Contents

5. SOCRATES' RADICAL PHILOSOPHIC MISSION 55

The Delphic Oracle
Socrates Examines the Politicians, Poets, and Craftsmen
The Mask of Ignorance
Solving the Riddle of the Oracle

6. THE ATHENIAN POLIS IDEAL 75

The Funeral Oration of Pericles: Apotheosis of the Polis
Homeric Shame Culture
Democracy Appropriates Homer
The Polis and the Individual

7. SOCRATES CONFRONTS HIS PRESENT ACCUSERS: 1°5

THE INTERROGATION OF MELETUS
Corrupting the Young
The Polis as Teacher
Athenian Polis Religion
Socrates and Impiety

8. SOCRATES BRINGS THE PHILOSOPHIC MISSION IF

INTO THE COURT
Death Bears No Sting
Caring for One's Soul
Stepping Up the Offensive
The Gadfly

9. THE POLITICS OF AN UNPOLITICAL MAN IF

A Private Rather Than a Public Station
Socrates' Divine Voice
Defender ofJustice

10. THE TRIAL CONCLUDES: SOCRATES CONDEMNED 167

The Corruption Charge Revisited
Rejecting an Appeal for Sympathy
Proposing a Counterpenalty
Truth Fails to Persuade
 Contents Xl

Parting Words to Enemies

Parting Words to Friends

11. SOCRATES AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: THE CRITO 187

Socrates and Antigone
Socrates Dismisses the Shame Culture
Justice and the Soul
Socrates Argues for the Laws
The Skillful Ironist
Fulfilling the Will of a Benevolent God

12. CONCLUSION: A CONFLICT UNRESOLVED 21 5

Notes 228

Selected Bibliography 243

Index 257
 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: A TRAGIC
CONFRONTATION

Ever since Socrates' trial, that is, ever since the polis tried the
philosopher, there has been a conflict between politics and phi-
losophy that I'm attempting to understand.
-Hannah Arendt'

I
N 399 B.C., THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER SOCRATES was tried in his
native city of Athens and condemned by a majority of citizen-
jurors. He was sentenced to death for allegedly disbelieving in the
gods of the state, introducing new gods, and corrupting the young.
Having engaged in a mission to reform the Athenians, fostering the pur-
suit of virtue and the improvement of the soul, Socrates threatened val-
ues and beliefs regarded as essential to the unity and stability of the
city--called the polis by the ancient Greeks.' Athens, the world's first
democracy, renowned for its freedom of speech, silenced the philosopher
as a dangerous subversive. Socrates' indictment brought a climax to the
tragic confrontation between politics and philosophy that had been
building in Athens for years. Socrates represents individual conscience,
freedom of expression, and the moral claim that one's duty to obey God I
2 SOCRATES AGAINST ATHENS

is superior to one's duty to obey the state. Unless the individual is free
to exercise moral autonomy, the state easily degenerates into a tyranny.
Athens, on the other hand, represents the state seeking to protect itself
from a dissenting philosopher who undermined traditional communal
values.' If individuals are free to follow the dictates of conscience in con-
flict with accepted social norms and laws, order might dissolve into
anarchy. Occurring in the wake of the Peloponnesian War, in which
Athens suffered a crushing defeat by Sparta, the trial of Socrates sum-
moned many Athenians to reexamine values regarded as fundamental to
the city. Socrates' philosophic mission challenged his fellow citizens to
tolerate a critical mind who, ironically, could only have been produced
in democratic Athens.
In the Apology, Plato has transmitted to us a re-creation of the trial
of Socrates.' In contrast to the Apology, which shows Socrates as a dis-
senter and civil disobedient, Plato's Crito shows him as an obedient cit-
izen, refusing to escape the death sentence in order to uphold the laws
of the state. In fact, the Crito features a Socrates who appears to under-
mine his radical stance in the Apology. Given the conflicting images of
the philosopher, radical dissenter and obedient citizen, the question
arises, who is the real Socrates? According to the conventional view, he
was the victim of a democratic tyranny. But only in the modern era has
democracy been associated with liberalism. Ancient Athenian democ-
racy, despite its value of freedom, had no conception of individual rights
and was frequently oppressive. Democracies depend upon the will of the
majority for their survival. Yet the majority is not always right or just.
Even in modern democracies, as the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville
and John Stuart Mill remind us, freedom can be endangered by a
tyranny of the majority, in which the individual is subjected to oppres-
sion by law and public opinion. Individuals who have taken a stand
against the state have often done so on the basis of conscience and belief
in a superordinate moral law. In the nineteenth century, Henry David
Thoreau protested the extension of slavery in the United States by dis-
obeying the law to express his moral convictions.
A similar conscientious stand is found in one of the most famous
passages in the Apology, in which Socrates asserts categorically that he
would disobey the state rather than abandon what he regarded as the
 Introduction 3

higher moral law of God. In the midst of his trial, Socrates hypothesizes
that the jury might offer to acquit him if he agrees to end his philosophic
mission. It was his life as a philosopher and moral critic that had led to
his conflict with Athens. If he were to receive an offer of a conditional
acquittal, Socrates proclaims, he would reply: "Men of Athens, I honour
and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life
and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of phi-
losophy."" Such a response, essentially a threat of civil disobedience,
undoubtedly angered many jurors. Indeed, a more bold challenge to
state authority, occurring within a court that was understood to repre-
sent the sovereign citizenry, would be difficult to find in ancient Greek
history. Socrates, having already claimed a mission from God, to whom
he professed to owe obedience above all, had established a basis upon
which to justify resistance to state authority.
In the mid-nineteenth-century, John Stuart Mill, in his famous essay
On Liberty, lauded Socrates as a saint of rationalism and viewed him as
a martyr for the cause of philosophy. According to Mill, a liberal in
defense of individual freedom, Athens had "condemned the man who
probably of all then born had deserved least of mankind to be put to
death as a criminal." For Mill, a society unwilling to tolerate a high
degree of freedom of thought and discussion sacrifices the values essen-
tial for the richest development of both the individual and the commu-
nity. Yet, Mill conceded, we have every reason to believe that the
Athenian court had "honestly found him [Socrates] guilty.?"
Among the most famous depictions of the philosopher is a painting
by Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, first exhibited in Paris
in 1787 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The scene depicted is from the last days of Socrates, as portrayed in
Plato's Phaedo. We see Socrates sitting up on a bed surrounded by
devoted followers, reaching for the cup of poison hemlock that would
end his life. He is pointing upward with his other hand, as if to empha-
size an idea in the philosophical discussion on the immortality of the
soul that, according to Plato, had occupied him and his companions dur-
ing his last days. The conflict between the philosopher and the state may
be perceived in the majesty of the figure of Socrates, the painting's cen-
ter, pointing up, maintaining his conviction that his commitment to his
4 SOCRATES AGAINST ATHENS

philosophic mission ranks above his duty to obey the state. The paint-
ing also depicts a consistent Socrates: By accepting the death penalty, he
remains faithful to Athens while adhering to his principles.
Produced in Paris just before the French Revolution, David's paint-
ing has been interpreted by many as a depiction of Socrates the cham-
pion of free thought crushed by tyranny. Nevertheless, the painting can
be perceived as a celebration of Socrates symbolizing the ideal patriotic
citizen who sacrifices his life for the state. According to this ideal, the
individual must be willing to place civic duty above personal interest.
David's Socrates serenely prepares to depart stoically from this life.
Although regarded throughout history as an example of an individual
who defied the state, Socrates could not be denigrated for disrespecting
the laws of Athens. Th is paradoxical image, disobedient yet respectful of
law and order, has inspired centuries-old disagreements about the
philosopher's significance and his relationship with Athens. The inter-
pretation of David 's painting as a glorification of patriotic self-sacrifice
is articulated in the Crito. In this dialogue, Socrates' friend Crito
attempts to convince the philosopher, awaiting execution, to defy the
verdict of the Athenian court and flee Athens . Socrates agreed that the
death sentence imposed upon him was unjust. But the philosopher's
devotion to Athens and the rule of law made escape unconscionable for
him. Having been unjustly condemned, Socrates nevertheless willingly
surrendered his life to the city he loved.
Several modern interpreters have viewed the trial of Socrates as the
result of a tragic collision between two defensible positions. According
to G. W. F. Hegel, the essence of tragedy is a conflict not so much
between characters as between viewpoints, each rational and justifiable,
yet lacking a more comprehensive vision that would have encompassed
the good in the opposing side. As A. C. Bradley summarized Hegel's
view: "The competing forces are both in themselves rightful, and so far
the claim of each is equally justified; but the right of each is pushed into
a wrong, because it ignores the right of the other, and demands that
absolute sway which belongs to neither alone, but to the whole of which
each is but a part.!" According to this interpretation, each side, while
justified in itself, becomes wrong in its inflexible one-sidedness. H. D. F.
Kitto sees merit in the positions of both the philosopher and his city:
 Introduction

"Nothing can be more sublime than the bearing of Socrates during and
after his trial, and this sublimity must not be sentimentalized by the rep-
resenting of Socrates as the victim of an ignorant mob. His death was
almost a Hegelian tragedy, a conflict in which both sides were right.?"
In the words of Romano Guardini: "The truth, which must be empha-
sized again and again, is that here an epoch-a declining one, it is true,
but still full of values--eonfronts a man who, great as he is and called
to be a bringer of new things, disrupts by his spirit all that has hitherto
held sway. In the incompatibility of these two opposing sets of values
and forces lies the real tragedy of the situation.:" Those who see merit
in both sides usually hold that Socrates, although morally superior, was
legally guilty. As J. B. Bury, one of the foremost modern historians of
ancient Greece, declared: "Socrates was not condemned unjustly-
according to the law. And that is the intensity of the tragedy. There have
been no better men than Socrates; and yet his accusers were perfectly
right.... The execution of Socrates was the protest of the spirit of the
old order against the growth of individualism." 10
While most people today sympathize with Socrates, the courageous
individual abiding by his moral principles, the fear among many
Athenians is understandable, for the philosopher posed a profound
threat to the city. Athens deserved its reputation as a city that cherished
freedom; whereas people throughout the rest of the world were mere
subjects, virtually the property of rulers, a significant number of the
Athenian population were citizens, taking part in determining the laws
that governed the community. While the Persian and Egyptian empires
were ruled by the few for the benefit of the few, Athens set the standard
of a direct, participatory democracy. As its great leader Pericles pro-
claimed, Athens was the school for all of Greece, a role model for those
who sought cultural and political excellence. The conflict between
Socrates and Athens was not between absolute good and evil. To see
Socrates as an example of a perfectly innocent individual crushed by a
tyrannical state is to reduce the trial to a mere morality play. The
Athenians, on the whole, were neither unintelligent nor malevolent.
Once the historical and cultural context is understood, the Athenian
position becomes more substantial. At the same time, Socrates' moral
superiority grows larger when viewed from the vantage point of modern
6 SOCRATES AGAINST ATHENS

liberalism. In defense of Athens, history has shown that even the best
societies sometimes betray their principles. In fact, placed in a similar sit-
uation, with one's fundamental values and beliefs under assault in a time
of crisis, many people today would probably vote to condemn Socrates.
The confrontation between Socrates and Athens is similar to that
dramatized in Sophocles' Antigone, one of the greatest masterpieces of
Greek literature. The tragedies of the historical Socrates and the mythi-
cal Antigone arose out of their being caught between two contradictory
paths of duty---one's obligation to conscience versus one's obligation to
the state. Like Antigone, Socrates could not fulfill one duty without vio-
lating the other. He had to choose. The conflict dramatized by
Sophocles' Antigone resonated deeply with the Athenians. Socrates
probably saw the play, and it undoubtedly exerted a powerful effect
upon the Athenians, including Plato . Citizens brought what they had
learned about difficult civic issues from the theater into their delibera-
tions in the Assembly and their judgments in the courts. II Having to par-
ticipate often and in different forums-evaluating dramas in the theater,
weighing decisions in the Assembly, and judging the arguments of liti-
gants in the lawcourts-the Athenian citizenry was among the most
informed and proficient in history.
While Greek tragedy is said to have died with Sophocles and
Euripides, a study of Plato's Apology reveals that the trial of Socrates is
a dramatic agon, or contest. In fact, in Athens the trial was called an
agon res dikes, a contest of right." The courtroom became a theater, the
scene of a contest between Socrates and the city, between philosophy
and politics. Athenian drama was not merely a public performance
attended by those interested in spectacles; theater occupied an integral
place in the life of the polis and was attended by virtually all citizens as
part of their civic duty," Like the spectators in the theater, the Athenian
jurors represented the collective citizenry, participating in an institution
that reinforced their identity as a group. As William Arrowsmith
explains, the Athenians created a "theater of ideas" that became "the
supreme instrument of cultural instruction, a democratic paideia com-
plete in itself. "14 Christian Meier argues that tragedy and politics were
intimately related in Athens." Tragedy not only validated traditional val-
ues, reinforcing group cohesion, but also exposed and questioned con-
 Introduction 7

flicts and inherent contradictions in Athenian society. Jean-Pierre

Vernant observes that Greek tragedy explored the inherent tension
between the polis, represented by the anonymous chorus of citizens, and
the exceptional individual, represented by the tragic hero. While in ear-
lier history, the exceptional character stood out as the Homeric hero of
the Greek epics, during the fifth century B.C., when Athens sought to
subordinate the individual to the community, the exploits of the indi-
vidualistic hero were regarded as a potential threat to the unity of the
polis. Only by taming the heroic individual could the community sur-
vive. The Homeric hero had become a problem."
In 399 B.C., therefore, Athens, the city that gave birth to tragedy as
a literary genre, became the scene of a real-life tragedy involving a con-
flict between an exceptional individual, Socrates the philosopher-hero,
and the state. As with drama, the trial of Socrates took place in the civic
center of Athens and included a public performance before a large audi-
ence of citizens who served as judges." The dramatic aspects of Socrates'
trial were recognizable to his contemporaries. Life in the Athenian polis
was profoundly theatrical." Indeed, the culture of classical Athens has
been characterized as a "performance culture."!9 Athenians saw them-
selves as performing on a stage, as it were, competing for individual
honor, fame, wealth, and power in a number of public forums. Hence,
politics, law, religion, athletics, music, and poetry "shared with the the-
atre an essentially public and performative nature, so much so that one
form of cultural expression merged easily with another. "20 The agones,
or conflicts, of the Athenian lawcourts exerted a significant influence
upon Greek drama, where characters are often featured presenting
opposing speeches." At the same time, the theater also affected behavior
in the democratic Assembly and the lawcourts, where individual speak-
ers, as if on stage, sought to persuade large audiences by arousing emo-
tions and projecting the appropriate character,"
The trial of Socrates transformed the life of Plato, who was twenty-
eight years old at the time. It turned him away from politics, which he
saw as conducive to disorder, what the Greeks called stasis, in favor of
philosophy. In the Republic, Plato designed a city that would never be
subject to the kind of confrontation that led to the death of Socrates.
Nevertheless, Plato, the product of a city with a vivid sense of dramatic
8 SOCRATES AGAINST ATHENS

conflict, could not fail to grasp the drama inherent in Socrates' trial. To
Plato, the conflict between Socrates and Athens reflected the profound
antagonism between philosophy and politics, between a morality of
inflexible goodness and a state willing to subordinate justice to power
and self-interest. With the trial of Socrates, Plato and the Athenians par-
ticipated in a drama perhaps more disturbing than any they had wit-
nessed in the theater, one that reflected the profound tensions present in
the city after a devastating defeat in war. Socrates was challenged to
demonstrate to the Athenians that philosophy was valuable and consis-
tent with the welfare of the community. At the same time, the Athenians
were challenged to comprehend the moral benefits of philosophy, a chal-
lenge made more difficult because it occurred in a time of political cri-
sis, where the center had not held and things had fallen apart.
Unlike the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the tragic
confrontation between Socrates and Athens took place not in the safe
confines of the theater, couched in the symbolic language of ancient
myth and set in a foreign city, but in an Athenian lawcourt in which cit-
izens pondered issues that directly affected their fate. Plato was uniquely
gifted to re-create this court battle. According to one tradition, related
by Diogenes Laertius, in his youth Plato had composed dithyrambs, lyric
poems , and tragedies and was about to compete for a prize in tragedy
when, upon hearing Socrates speak in front of the theater of Dionysus,
he consigned his works to the flames and took up philosophy." True or
not, the story underscores Plato's dramatic gifts, which found expression
in his many dialogues. In reading the Apology, one is drawn into the
text. Although not a dialogue in the conventional sense, it engages the
reader just as much as Plato's other works. One partakes vicariously in
the conflict between the philosopher and his city. The reader is both a
juror, evaluating the charges against Socrates, and part of the audience
upon whom the philosopher exercises his mission. Readers become
active agents, challenged, like the Athenians, to reexamine their own
lives and values."
Like the Apology, the Crito compels the reader to be active, espe-
cially because, at least on the surface, it presents a picture of Socrates
much more consonant with the Athenian values that he challenged and
undermined throughout his philosophic life and at his trial. As we shall
 Introduction 9

argue, the Crito may be read in a way that preserves the integrity of the
radical Socrates presented in the Apology.
The purpose of this book is to provide an interdisciplinary exami-
nation of the conflict between Socrates and Athens, focusing upon the
Apology and the Crito. As a companion study to these works, this book,
designed for general readers, not only analyzes the arguments and teach-
ings of Socrates but also provides the historical, political, and cultural
context essential for an understanding of his trial." This book also inter-
prets the Apology and the Crito according to the unifying theme of a
tragic conflict between philosophy and politics: philosophy, not in the
academic sense, but as a way of life; philosophy, not as doctrine, but as
critical thinking; philosophy, not as a flight from reality, but deeply
engaged with issues vital to the state. Politics, in Athens of the fifth cen-
tury B.C., was essentially power politics, in which the just state, like the
just person, was regarded as one who helped friends and harmed ene-
mies. This politics led to the Peloponnesian War, in which two mighty
empires, Athens and Sparta, fought over mastery of the Greek world.
But the war sounded the death knell for the ancient Greek city. In con-
trast, Socrates had a vision of a politics infused with ethics, with the
state placing the pursuit of virtue above the pursuit of power, wealth,
and glory.
The work of the historian Thucydides will serve as an important
source for Athenian values during the age of Socrates. The genius of
Thucydides managed to capture the tragic nature of the conflict between
Athens and Sparta. Like Plato, he could not escape the influence of
Greek drama as he sought a lens through which to view the moral col-
lapse of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. The lasting influence of
the ancient Greek conception of the hero, as found in Homer, will also
constitute important background. We shall see, moreover, that the
Apology offers a new conception of the hero, that of Socrates the
philosopher-hero, a person of profound moral integrity, committed to
the pursuit of the truth and the perfection of his sou!' Whenever instruc-
tive, ideas from other dialogues of Plato will be incorporated into our
analysis, not so much as a record of the teachings of the historical
Socrates, but as a retrospective commentary on the life and teachings of
the master by his greatest student.
10 SOCRATES AGAINST ATHENS

The literary qualities of the Apology and the Crito will also be exam-
ined. Plato's dialogues are dramas in which opposing viewpoints come
into conflict. What the revered turn of the nineteenth-century scholar
Friedrich Schleiermacher declared about the works of Plato is evident in
the Apology and the Crito: The content, or philosophical arguments, and
the form, the literary qualities, are inseparable." For readers to grasp bet-
ter the character of Socrates, his words will be amply quoted, using the
eloquent translations of Benjamin Jowett. Over the centuries, most read-
ers have responded to the Apology and the Crito from the perspective of
Socrates. The position of the Athenians has served merely as a contrast
to highlight the heroic stature of the philosopher. But to read these texts
solely from the point of view of Socrates is not only to undervalue the
Athenian position but also to oversimplify an intricate conflict. In fact,
the confrontation between Socrates and Athens raises a fundamental
problem of political philosophy-the reconciliation of individual moral
autonomy with the legitimate authority of the state. Instead of a facile
one-sided interpretation of the trial, either as a philosopher suppressed by
a tyrannical democracy or a dangerous dissenter justly silenced in the
interest of social order, we will show that there are compelling arguments
for both sides. The unique character of Socrates and the collective char-
acter of the Athenians will be explored in their complexity. For Socrates
was more than a series of arguments and propositions, and Athens was
more than a city resistant to philosophy.
Needless to say, this book does not pretend to resolve the so-called
"Socratic problem," the identity of the historical Socrates as distin-
guished from the picture we have received from Plato and other early
interpreters. Like all portraits, ours is an attempt to see Socrates through
a creative lens. Our interpretation is grounded in Plato's Apology and
Crito, which scholars believe to be reliable sources for the character and
ideas of the philosopher. The Apology and the Crito are dialogical
works, open to multiple interpretations. A dialogical reading requires
that one be sensitive to the various voices that coexist in these poly-
phonic texts. Our goal is to explore the different voices that emerge in
the conflict between Socrates and Athens, illustrating that neither pro-
tagonist is one-dimensional. The collision between this philosopher-hero
and Athens raises the fundamental question of whether philosophy and
 Introduction I I

politics are compatible. Yet, if Socrates the philosopher stood at odds

with his city, challenging its values and beliefs, he was equally devoted
to the city's welfare. Although prepared to defy any state command that
he abandon philosophy or commit an act of injustice, the Apology and
the Crito demonstrate Socrates' respect for the rule of law. Not only did
he come to the defense of the Athenian constitution, but he also accepted
the verdict of the court that condemned him to death.
While Athens saw Socrates and philosophy as subversive of the tra-
ditional order, the city also valued freedom of speech and provided a
home for some of the greatest critical minds in history. Athens also
established a legal system that allowed a defendant such as Socrates an
opportunity to present his case, indeed to review his life's mission,
before a jury of five hundred fellow citizens who embodied the interests
of the city. While our sympathies lie with Socrates and the moral revo-
lution he brought to the Western world, his position, held with provoca-
tive inflexibility, is vulnerable to attack. At the same time, the Athenian
position, while not completely correct from a modern perspective, is
legally defensible and intelligible when the historical and cultural con-
text is presented.
 Chapter 2

SETTING THE STAGE FOR

THE TRIAL

PRELIMINARIES

T
HE YEAR IS 399 B.C. Athens had suffered a humiliating
defeat by Sparta five years earlier, concluding the long,
devastating Peloponnesian War. The Athenian defeat led
to the overthrow of its once revered democracy, while a cruel
regime of Thirty Tyrants, supported by a Spartan garrison,
assumed dictatorial power for nine months, executing some
fifteen hundred Athenian citizens and causing thousands more
to flee. When an army of democrats expelled the Tyrants and
restored democracy in 403 B.C., they enacted a reconciliation
treaty that included an amnesty clause hailed in antiquity as a
model of reason and toleration. But Athens had lost its once
invincible dominance in the Greek world. Its great empire and
the mighty fleet that had ruled the Aegean were lost, its
fortifying Long Walls demolished, its economy crippled, its
population desolated. The glory that was Athens during the
Age of Pericles was no more.
The scene: one of the jury-courts (dikastēria) of Athens,
derived from the People’s Court, known as Ēhe Eliaia, or
Heliaia, located in the agora, the civic center of Athens.1 Each
court represented the Assembly of citizens acting in their
judicial capacity. The case of Socrates would be decided by
five hundred jurors, citizens over the age of thirty, known as
dikasts, chosen by lot. The jurors—ordinary citizens, mostly
farmers—probably reflected the social composition of
Athens.2 Because Socrates was well known, the trial drew
many spectators.3 Issues related to traditional religion and the
education of the young, of concern to all Athenians, were the
focus of the trial. Within the court, the spectators were
separated from the jurors and litigants by barriers or railings.4
As the Apology makes clear, several nonjuror friends of
Socrates, including Plato and Crito, attended and followed the
proceedings closely. Socrates, along with his three accusers,
sat before the jury. The city was drawn into a tragic
confrontation now regarded as among the most important in
history.
Socrates was born in 469 B.C., the son of Sophroniscus, of
the deme (village) of Alopeke, and Phaenarete, a midwife.
According to tradition, his father had been a sculptor or
stonecutter, and Socrates may have also learned the trade. He
grew to maturity during the glorious Age of Pericles, saw the
birth of the Athenian empire, and distinguished himself by
serving as a hoplite, an armed infantryman, during the
Peloponnesian War, which lasted, with interruptions, from 431
to 404 B.C. During his youth, Aeschylus’ trilogy, the Oresteia,
had been produced at Athens. Socrates saw the building of the
defensive Long Walls from Athens to the Piraeus. Around 450
B.C., the great Sophist Protagoras of Abdera made his first of
several visits to Athens, marking an important phase in the
development of the Greek Enlightenment. In 447 B.C., Socrates
observed the beginning of construction on the Parthenon, the
sublime marble Doric temple of Athena that dominated the
Acropolis, as part of Pericles’ grand building program. Within
the Parthenon stood the magnificent gold and ivory statue of
Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin), by Phidias. Socrates
would also see the completion of the Propylaea, the sacred
entrance gate to the Acropolis; the temple of Athena Nike
(Victory); and the temple known as the Erechtheum, with its
beautiful Porch of the Maidens (Caryadids), facing the
Parthenon. The philosopher was most likely present at the
theater of Dionysus for performances of many plays by
Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Euripides. Socrates also
witnessed the growth of Athenian democracy, along with the
oligarchic revolutions, first in 411 B.C., and finally in 404 B.C.,
after the siege and defeat of Athens. In 403 B.C., democracy
having been restored after a civil war, Socrates continued the
philosophic activity that had engaged him for years,
stimulating his fellow Athenians to examine their lives and
care for their souls. He attracted a following among the young
men of Athens, who enjoyed observing as he practiced
philosophy in the agora and other public places of the city,
challenging the alleged wisdom and moral complacency of
many leading citizens. But in 399 B.C., the atmosphere in
Athens changed. Having earned a reputation for tolerating free
inquiry, a basic democratic value, the Athenians were about to
make a historic exception. Socrates, almost seventy years old,
found himself on trial for his life, charged with conduct and
views that endangered the welfare of the polis.
As we open the Apology, the prosecution has just completed
its speeches against Socrates. The proceedings began with the
clerk of the court reading the official indictment, a writ of
impiety, before the jury and crowd of spectators. The writ,
preserved in the biography of Socrates by Diogenes Laertius,
who probably lived in the first half of the third century A.D.,
asserted: “This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus…
against Socrates: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the
gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new
deities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty
demanded is death.”5
While Meletus, a poet, was the nominal leader of the
prosecution, he was joined by Anytus, a prominent Athenian
politician and probably the moving force behind the
indictment, and by Lycon, an orator. According to Athenian
legal procedure, in which there were no public prosecutors,
any citizen had the right to initiate a legal action against
another. In this instance, Meletus would have issued an oral
summons to Socrates, in the presence of witnesses, to appear
before the appropriate legal magistrate, the King Archon,
whose office was in a colonnaded building called the Stoa
Basileios, or the Royal Stoa. The King Archon had jurisdiction
over cases involving alleged offenses against the state religion.
During an initial appearance of the prosecutor and the
defendant before the magistrate, Meletus, perhaps
accompanied by Anytus and Lycon, would have lodged a
formal complaint, which was posted as a public announcement
at the Royal Stoa.
The magistrate then scheduled a preliminary hearing, or
anakrisis, an important part of the legal proceeding, to
determine whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant a
trial. We know on the authority of Plato’s Euthyphro that
Socrates appeared at the Royal Stoa for such a hearing. It
began with a reading of the charge, followed by a formal
statement from the defendant. The disputants then swore an
oath that the charge or denial was true. This was followed by
an important phase in which the magistrate interrogated
Meletus and Socrates, who also had an opportunity to question
each other. Finally, the magistrate finding merit in the
prosecution’s claim, formal charges were drawn up, Socrates’
plea of innocence was recorded, and a date was set for the
trial.6 Since the alleged offenses were regarded as crimes
committed against the city itself, rather than against a private
party, the case was considered a public prosecution. Socrates
would be the first person in recorded Athenian history to be
executed for impiety and corrupting the young.
What Socrates said at his trial has been transmitted to
posterity through the mind of Plato. Socrates wrote nothing.
His influence was exerted solely through oral discourse,
through which his personality and convictions were revealed.
It is fitting that Plato memorialized Socrates by composing a
series of dialogues that feature the philosopher doing what he
did best—engaging in intelligent conversation. But, unlike
most of Plato’s works, the Apology is essentially a monologue.
Nevertheless, from another perspective, the defense speech of
Socrates can be read both as a dialogue between the
philosopher and Athens, and as an implied dialogue between
Socrates and the reader.7 Indeed, we have indicated that his
speech continues to challenge readers, as it did the original
jurors and spectators, to participate in a dialogical
consideration of profound issues affecting the relationship
between philosophy—the pursuit of wisdom and virtue—and
politics. Some readers are provoked and angered, marveling at
the audacity of the defendant; others, stimulated to examine
their lives, may embark upon the pursuit of wisdom. The
Apology consists of three speeches—first and foremost, a
defense, or apologia proper, in which Socrates deals initially
with certain “old accusers” and then addresses the principal
charges in the formal indictment; second, Socrates’ proposal
for an alternative penalty, submitted after his conviction; and
finally, parting words to the jury, delivered after imposition of
the death sentence, in which the philosopher contemplates
death and what might await him in the afterlife.
The trial of Socrates was conducted in one juridical day,
which was divided into three periods, governed by a terracotta
waterclock (klepsydra), a large container that allowed water to
flow out at a fixed rate. Each side, the prosecution and the
defendant, was given equal time. The five hundred jurors, or
dikasts, chosen for Socrates’ trial sat on wooden benches as
they listened to the prosecution and the accused present their
cases. At dawn, after a herald read aloud the sworn charges
against Socrates, along with his sworn denial, the trial began.
The first three hours were devoted to the speeches of the
prosecution. Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon each in turn mounted
an elevated platform, like a stage, and argued their case.
Although the prosecution speeches have not survived, readers
can infer some of their arguments from references made by
Socrates.8 The next three hours were devoted to Socrates’
defense speech, after which the jurors voted by a secret ballot.
The final segment, made necessary by the jury’s vote for
conviction, comprised Socrates’ speech proposing an
alternative penalty to the prosecution’s call for the death
sentence. The total time allotted for a public trial, including
selection of the jurors by lot, the reading of the charge, the
speeches of the accusers and the defendant, voting, and
determining the punishment, was about nine and a half hours.9
One magistrate, in Socrates’ case, the King Archon, presided
over the court; one juror was assigned to control the
waterclock, four to count the votes, and five to distribute
payment to the jurors after the day’s business had been
completed.10

HISTORICITY OF THE APOLOGY

Scholars have long debated the historical accuracy of the
Apology. While most agree that the work was composed
within a decade after the trial, the more difficult question is the
extent to which it reflects what was actually said by the
historical Socrates. In addition to Plato’s rendition, Xenophon
—at the beginning of his own Apology of Socrates—informs
us that there were “other” defenses of the philosopher
produced during the ancient period.11 But these have not
survived. According to one tradition, the Greek orator Lysias
drafted a defense speech for Socrates, complete with
statements to conciliate the jury, which the philosopher
summarily rejected, alleging that it was “more forensic than
philosophical.”12 Unlike the conventional lawcourt speech,
elaborately prepared, that of Socrates was extemporaneous and
reflected his deepest convictions, his life of passionate
commitment. Soren Kierkegaard said of Socrates that he was a
“person in whom a point of view is a life, an existentiality, a
presence.”13 Xenophon relates that when a certain
Hermogenes warned Socrates before his trial that he ought to
prepare a defense, he replied: “Don’t you think that I have
been preparing for it all my life?” When Hermogenes asked
how this was so, the philosopher replied that he had been
“constantly occupied in the consideration of right and wrong,
and in doing what was right and avoiding what was wrong,
which he regarded as the best preparation for a defense.”14
Among the later “defenses” of Socrates, we know of two,
one by Theodectes, an orator and friend of Aristotle, the other
by Demetrius Phalereus, a disciple of Theophrastus.15 On the
other hand, shortly after the death of Socrates, the rhetorician
Polycrates composed a speech for the prosecution, alleged to
be the speech of Anytus. This speech of Polycrates is probably
the one referred to by Xenophon in his Memorabilia, where he
attempts to defend Socrates against an “accuser.” Despite the
various “defenses” of the philosopher, most scholars agree that
Plato’s Apology is the most reliable source for the trial of
Socrates. While Xenophon’s testimony may be useful in
supplementing our knowledge of Socrates, he was not present
at the trial and received his information secondhand. In fact,
Xenophon’s Apology, allegedly an account of Socrates’ trial, is
largely dependent upon Plato’s Apology. Moreover, Xenophon
was not a philosopher but a military person and, unlike Plato,
lacked a profound appreciation of Socrates’ philosophic
mission. The Socrates who appears in Xenophon’s
Memorabilia is a model of conventional piety, more a
dispenser of moral platitudes than the person credited with
founding moral philosophy and reorienting human thought.
According to Kierkegaard, “by cutting away all that was
dangerous in Socrates,” Xenophon “reduced him to utter
absurdity.”16 The Socrates of Xenophon would not have been
indicted and convicted by the Athenians in 399 B.C.
Plato, in contrast, presents Socrates as the dissenting
philosopher who provoked his fellow citizens to condemn and
execute him. Unlike Xenophon, Plato was present at the trial
—indeed, he mentions himself twice in the Apology—and
possessed the powers of intellect, memory, and sensitive
understanding necessary to render a reasonably accurate
picture of the last days of the philosopher.17 The Apology of
Socrates, the complete title, is the only work of Plato that
includes the name of Socrates. If it is pure fiction, it seems that
Plato, in seeking to vindicate his mentor, would have had him
address the official charges more fully and effectively than he
does. We can also assume that the speech of Socrates, his only
recorded address to a large number of Athenians, made an
indelible impression upon the young Plato’s mind. He would
have remembered the main points of Socrates’ argument,
possibly transcribing some of the more powerful statements
for later re-creation. Moreover, since other friends of Socrates
were also present at the trial, Plato could have relied upon
their recollections to supplement his own.
At the same time, Plato may have amplified certain aspects
of the speech he heard in a way consistent with the principles
that guided Socrates throughout his philosophic life. One
cannot deny that the Apology is, in part, Plato’s eulogy for his
revered teacher. Just as ancient speakers revised their speeches
after oral delivery prior to publication, Plato most likely
embellished Socrates’ words, rather than producing a verbatim
transcript.18 He would have especially wanted to emphasize
Socrates’ defense of philosophy. Some have compared Plato to
the historian Thucydides who, cognizant that some might
question the authenticity of the many speeches included
throughout his History of the Peloponnesian War, addressed
the issue forthrightly: “As to the speeches which were made
either before or during the war, it was hard for me, and for
others who reported them to me, to recollect the exact words. I
have therefore put into the mouth of each speaker the
sentiments proper to the occasion, expressed as I thought he
would be likely to express them, while at the same time I
endeavoured, as nearly as I could, to give the general purport
of what was actually said.”19 In this manner, Plato carefully
adhered to the ideas Socrates expressed at his trial; at the same
time, Plato, a consummate artist, would have attempted to
speak for Socrates whenever his memory, or the memories of
the many who had been present at the trial and who could have
shared their impressions with him, proved deficient. And
while Thucydides concedes that he was not present for many
of the speeches recorded in his History, Plato assures us that
he did have direct access to the facts, for he was present at
Socrates’ trial, thus bestowing an even greater degree of
credibility upon the Apology.20
Although bearing the stamp of Plato’s art, therefore, the
scholarly consensus is that the Apology represents
substantially the speech of the historical Socrates. As A. E.
Taylor argues: “We clearly have no right to assume that the
process of revision and polishing involves any falsification of
fundamental facts. That what we possess is in substance a
record of what Socrates actually said is sufficiently proved by
the single consideration that, though we cannot date the
circulation of the Apology exactly, we can at least be sure that
it must have been given to the world within a few years of the
actual trial, and would thus be read by numbers of persons,
including both devoted admirers of the philosopher and hostile
critics (and presumably even some judges who had sat upon
the case), who would at once detect any falsification of such
recent facts.”21 Along similar lines, John Burnet contends:
“Plato’s aim is obviously to defend the memory of Socrates by
setting forth his character and activity in their true light; and,
as most of those present must have been still living when the
Apology was published, he would have defeated his own end if
he had given a fictitious account of the attitude of Socrates and
of the main lines of his defense.”22 Werner Jaeger, in his
magisterial Paideia, a comprehensive study of the ideals of
ancient Greek culture, concludes that the Apology, although
not the actual speech delivered by Socrates, is nonetheless
“amazingly true to Socrates’ real life and character.”23
More recent scholarship supports the substantial
authenticity of the Apology. Gregory Vlastos argues: “When
Plato was writing the Apology, he knew that hundreds of those
who might read the speech he puts into the mouth of Socrates
had heard the historic original. And since his purpose in
writing it was to clear his master’s name and to indict his
judges, it would have been most inept to make Socrates talk
out of character. How could Plato be saying to his fellow
citizens, ‘This is the man you murdered. Look at him. Listen
to him,’ and point to a figment of his own imagining?”24 W. K.
C. Guthrie declares that the Apology is “the most certainly
Socratic of all Plato’s works.”25 Finally, Charles H. Kahn
regards the Apology as a “quasi-historical document.…Even
admitting the large part played here by Plato’s literary
elaboration, there are external constraints that make his
Apology the most reliable of all testimonies concerning
Socrates. Insofar, then, as we can know anything with
reasonable probability concerning Socrates’ own conception
of philosophy, we must find this in the Apology.” As Kahn
maintains, echoing his scholarly predecessors, one must
consider the fundamental difference between the Apology and
the rest of Plato’s work. The Apology, unlike Plato’s dialogues,
which feature private conversations, is historical in that it
represents a public event that actually took place in the
presence of hundreds of witnesses whose potential criticisms
would have checked any temptation Plato might have had to
indulge in egregious flights of fancy. “It is likely, then,” Kahn
concludes, “that in the Apology Plato has given us a true
picture of the man as he saw him.”26
Plato’s portrait of his martyred teacher depicts a
controversial Socrates who must have elicited opposing
reactions from Athenians. For some, Socrates was a hero who
exemplified the life of the mind, but for many others, probably
the majority, he became a lightning rod, drawing upon himself
their negative projections, symbolizing their worst fears of
political and moral instability in the wake of the
Peloponnesian War. The conventional view that Socrates was a
scapegoat bears some truth. Without the written testimony of
Plato, his greatest defender, and to a lesser extent the writings
of Xenophon, the character of Socrates would have been
associated with infamy. The challenge Plato faced in writing
the Apology was to portray the historical Socrates and, above
all, to capture the essence of his philosophic mission. For
Socrates’ death to be meaningful, his philosophic legacy had
to endure.
 Chapter 3

SOCRATES AND
RHETORIC

ATHENS—CITY OF SPEECH

I
N DEMOCRATIC ATHENS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY B.C., the
Spoken word, logos, was indispensable to the life of the
community. While many Athenians were literate, the
primary means of expression was oral. Votes were recorded
and laws were written, but they were generated by speech.
Moreover, all literature was composed to be heard and, when
reading to themselves, Athenians usually read aloud.1 The
ability to speak persuasively was necessary for aspiring
politicians to attain power and influence in the Assembly,
where citizens debated and voted on important matters of
public policy, and in the lawcourts, where litigants had to
plead cases before large juries. Eloquence became invaluable
as a weapon or a shield. Without expertise in oratory, one’s
views would not prevail, and, if accused of a crime, one would
be unable to escape condemnation. The Athenian legal system
had no professional lawyers or judges, and litigants had to
plead their own cases. While some had recourse to paid speech
writers, litigants had to deliver the speeches written for them.
Hence, the Athenian lawcourts became the scenes of what
amounted to rhetorical contests. Winning a suit or swaying the
democratic Assembly could pave the way to political success,
while judicial or political defeat could spell loss of prestige,
property, and even one’s life.
The prominence of speech in Athens reflected the essence
of civic life. To live in a polis meant deciding issues not by
force, but by persuasion. According to Jean-Pierre Vernant,
with the advent of the polis, “speech became the political tool
par excellence, the key to authority in the state, the means of
commanding and dominating others…. The art of politics
became essentially the management of language.”2 As Roland
Barthes observes, language is a power, and rhetoric enabled
the Athenian ruling classes to “gain ownership of speech.”3
The Athenians even erected a temple to Peitho, the goddess of
persuasion—dubbed by Aeschylus “the charmer to whom
nothing is denied”—and offered her annual sacrifices.4 The
spoken word was inextricably bound with Greek culture from
archaic times. Speeches usually preceded any important
undertaking. Opposing set-speeches dominate the Homeric
epics, Greek drama, and the historical works of Herodotus and
Thucydides. The conflict expressed by these speeches was
referred to as an agōn. Speeches were often arranged so that
different sides of an issue—such as whether or not Achilles
should return to battle to help the Greeks in their war with the
Trojans, whether or not Antigone should defy the order of
Creon and bury her brother, or whether or not the Athenians
should undertake an expedition to invade Sicily—could be
expressed in rational terms. Homeric heroes had to be
proficient in public discourse; the young Achilles was taught
to be not only a man of action, skilled with arms, but also a
master of words.5 Throughout the Iliad, Achilles boasts of his
rhetorical prowess, duly acknowledged by his associates. And
Odysseus proclaims that the people regard the expert speaker
as a god.6 Solon, Themistocles, and Pericles, the great
Athenian leaders of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., were
outstanding orators. The most famous speech of ancient
Greece is the Funeral Oration of Pericles, re-created by
Thucydides, in which the Athenian leader sets forth the city’s
democratic ideal. During the Peloponnesian War, oratory
became even more important as decisions affecting the
survival of the city were regularly debated.
With oratory essential to political power, the Athenian
ruling class saw the need to attain greater knowledge and
speaking skills through further education. This demand was
met by a brilliant group of itinerant teachers known as the
Sophists.7 During the second half of the fifth century B.C.,
Athens became the center of the sophistic movement. The
Greek word “Sophist,” derived from the noun “sophia,”
meaning wisdom, was originally applied to poets, such as
Homer and Hesiod, musicians, sages, and seers, those believed
to possess special knowledge and insight. Herodotus called
Pythagoras and Solon Sophists; Isocrates called the famous
Seven Sages of Greece Sophists. In the age of Socrates,
“Sophist” came to designate a professional teacher who
claimed not only wisdom but also the ability to teach it to
others. The Sophists taught either in private seminars or in
public lectures and commanded substantial fees for their
services. True polymaths, they offered instruction in a variety
of subjects, including grammar, literature, history, political
philosophy, geography, and astronomy. But their special
expertise was rhetoric, the art of persuasive public speech. No
longer based almost exclusively on natural talent, eloquence
became a subject of deliberate study in Athens. The Sophists,
therefore, became central figures in a political education
designed to serve the interests of the Athenian polis.
The beginnings of rhetoric as a formal subject have been
traced to Corax and his student Tisias, formulators of the art in
Sicily during the second quarter of the fifth century B.C.
Inspired by these pioneers, teachers such as Protagoras,
Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus, and Antiphon perfected the art of
debate, composing skillful speeches calculated to win
arguments, regardless of the truth. Scores of wealthy young
citizens in Athens turned to the Sophists to learn the art of
public discourse. Athenians became fascinated with rhetoric
and the power of the spoken word. The Sophists did not claim
to teach objective truth, which they denied, or to improve
moral character, but to prepare young men for political
success. Truth became less important than winning a legal case
or persuading the Assembly to adopt one’s proposal. In Plato’s
Protagoras, a young man named Hippocrates defined a
Sophist as one who “presides over the art which makes men
eloquent.” In the same dialogue, Protagoras is represented as
saying that he acknowledges himself to be a “Sophist and
instructor of mankind…. Young man, if you associate with me,
on the very first day you will return home a better man than
you came, and better on the second day than on the first, and
better every day than on the day you were before.” Protagoras
boasted that he could teach a young man “prudence in affairs
private as well as public; he will learn to order his own house
in the best manner, and he will be able to speak and act for the
best in the affairs of the state.”8 The prospect of attaining goals
like these led young Athenians to believe that an education at
the foot of a Sophist was indispensable.

SOCRATES’ OPENING REMARKS:

DISMANTLING FORENSIC RHETORIC
“How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I
cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I
was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly
uttered a word of truth.”9 With these words, constituting his
exordium, Socrates begins his defense with disarming irony.
After praising the speeches of the prosecution for almost
making him forget his own identity, he warns the jury that
what they have heard is untrue! Persuasive speech, then, is not
necessarily true speech. This introduces two major themes of
the Apology, speech and the identity of Socrates. The
prosecution sought to depict the philosopher as an impious
teacher whose speech corrupted the morals of the young.
Moreover, the prosecution warned the jury to be careful lest
they be deceived by Socrates’ “eloquence,” implying that he
was an excellent speaker, with all the ingenious and
calculating strategies associated with sophistry. With stinging
irony, Socrates declares that he rejects the prosecution’s
characterization of him as an “eloquent” speaker, unless—and
here he draws a critical distinction—they mean that he speaks
the eloquence of truth. “For if such is their meaning,” Socrates
affirms, “I admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a
way from theirs!”10 He is appealing to the jury to distinguish
between the eloquence of falsehood and the eloquence of
truth.11
What Socrates confronts in his opening remarks to the court
is what Paul Friedlander characterized as “the pathological
effect of rhetoric.”12 In the fifth century B.C., Gorgias, the
celebrated Sophist and masterful teacher of rhetoric, composed
the Praise of Helen, a virtuoso display speech designed to
illustrate the overwhelming influence of words upon a listener
when delivered by an effective speaker. Gorgias argues that we
can easily exonerate Helen for having fled with Paris to Troy,
since she was “carried off by speech just as if constrained by
force. Her mind was swept away by persuasion, and
persuasion has the same power as necessity…. The power of
speech has the same effect on the condition of the mind as the
application of drugs to the state of bodies…. Some [speeches]
drug and bewitch the mind with a kind of evil persuasion.”
The aim of speech, according to Gorgias, is not truth, but
persuasion; the power of speech derives from its ability to
exploit the emotional and intellectual weaknesses of an
audience. The effectiveness of speech can also be seen in
public debate, “where one side of the argument pleases a large
crowd and persuades by being written with art even though not
spoken with truth.”13 Gorgias contended that speech has a
magical effect, exerting its influence not upon the reason, but
upon the emotions, manipulating the psyches of listeners. It
was this power of words to persuade, regardless of truth, that
Socrates referred to in his opening remarks to the jury.
Socrates was challenged to defend his innocence by refuting
the identity imposed upon him by his accusers. His character
and life as a philosopher were under scrutiny. For years he had
fulfilled what he regarded as a God-given mission to stimulate
his fellow Athenians to abandon their lives of unawareness
and pursue wisdom and virtue. Now he was under indictment,
charged with undermining the city’s fundamental values. But
the identity of Socrates was not the only issue. Indeed, his
speech would raise the question of the identity of Athens,
represented by the prosecution, the jury, and the multitude of
spectators. As we have noted, because the defendant was a
well-known philosopher, one can imagine that many
Athenians, even those who were unable to witness the
proceedings, were interested in the outcome. Many were no
doubt surprised that Socrates had decided to appear for a trial,
for he apparently had an opportunity to flee into exile.14 In the
aftermath of the demoralizing loss to Sparta in the
Peloponnesian War, the overthrow of Athenian democracy,
and its restoration after nearly a year of tyrannical rule under
the infamous Thirty, the city was struggling to establish itself
once again in the forefront of the Greek world. What values
and beliefs did the city seek to uphold? Would the city abide
by its reputation as a center of free speech and tolerance?
Would the citizens of Athens heed the philosopher’s warning
and reexamine their lives and tend to their souls? Could a
philosopher be tolerated whose mission appeared to be at odds
with the welfare of the city? Such questions became prominent
amid the continuing factional conflict that plagued Athens for
several years after the defeat by Sparta.15 Indeed, both
Socrates and Athens were on trial that fateful day in 399 B.C.
Socrates’ initial mocking praise of the prosecution’s
speeches, distinguishing between mere persuasiveness and
truth, is an example of his famous irony. By accusing the
prosecution of delivering eloquent speeches designed to distort
the truth about him, he introduces the issue of the morality of
conventional forensic rhetoric. For Socrates was not, by
Athenian standards, a “rhetorical man,” but a person whose
moral convictions prevented him from adopting the insincere
forensic strategies that might have secured him an acquittal.
Richard Lanham draws an instructive contrast between the
rhetorical man, homo rhetoricus, a type represented by the
Sophists, and the serious man, homo seriosus, exemplified by
persons like Socrates, “pledged to a single set of values and
the cosmic orchestration they adumbrate.” The “serious man”
and the “rhetorical man” offer two different ways of viewing
the world. While the “serious man” proceeds from a central
self or soul and views language as a means to convey essential
truth, the rhetorical man is an actor, with merely a social self,
who views language as a means to enhance himself in his
different social roles by persuasion, irrespective of truth.16
By the last quarter of the fifth century B.C., the term
“Sophist” had become one of reproach for many Athenians.
From the outset, the attitude toward the Sophists had been
ambivalent.17 While many wealthy young Athenians learned
rhetorical techniques essential for success in democratic
politics, the ethical relativism and religious skepticism taught
by the Sophists aroused the fear and resentment of
conservative Athenians concerned about the undermining of
traditional moral values.18 As we shall see, the Sophists’
notion that laws, morals, and political institutions were created
by humans and were relative rather than products of the gods
fixed in nature seemed to threaten the foundations of Athenian
life. The fears of many found expression in Aristophanes’
Clouds, a comic assault upon the new learning. This play,
Socrates will argue, contributed largely to his indictment.
Many also feared that the impious views taught by the
Sophists might induce the gods to withdraw their benefits and
protection from Athens. As the Sophists continued to instruct
young men in the art of rhetoric, especially how to argue
skillfully both sides of any question, conservative Athenians
protested that the Sophists endangered truth and justice. Of
course, many ambitious citizens, having learned the art of
public speaking from the Sophists, were willing to ignore the
more menacing aspects of their teaching. As long as the city
was prospering, both at home and in the war with Sparta, the
Athenians maintained their celebrated tolerance and freedom
of speech.
But by the close of the fifth century B.C. conditions had
changed dramatically. The devastating Athenian defeat in 404
B.C. accentuated the hostility toward the Sophists and what
they represented, even though most were dead by the end of
the war.19 Not only were their teachings blamed for the moral
corruption of the city, but the rhetorical techniques they
promoted also came under fire for having served a power
politics that failed. Throughout the Peloponnesian War,
Athenian politicians, their speaking skills honed by Sophists,
found that they could manipulate reality for any audience. Had
not the Athenians been persuaded by unscrupulous politicians
to embark upon the disastrous invasion of Sicily? Had not the
Athenians been persuaded to commit genocide against other
Greek cities, the crushing of the island of Melos being the
most infamous example? Ignoring the reality that those
Sophists who may have contributed to the moral collapse of
Athens could not have succeeded without a population
receptive to their teachings, many Athenians refused to take
responsibility for their own failings. Those who opposed the
Sophists’ teachings could now claim that they had been right
all along and that efforts must be undertaken to fortify the
morals of the city.
Understanding the hostility toward the Sophists sheds light
upon the opening of the Apology. When Socrates praises the
prosecution’s speeches as persuasive, but not true, he is
associating his accusers with sophistic rhetoric. Unlike his
accusers, he is committed to speaking the truth. At the same
time, when Socrates alludes to the prosecution’s instruction
that the jury must beware of his “eloquence,” he is adverting
to their attempt to exploit the negative public view of the
Sophists by confounding him with them. By the time of his
trial, even though sophistical arguments continued to pervade
the lawcourts, characterizing one’s opponent’s speech as
“sophistic” could still be a useful ploy for a litigant. Socrates,
therefore, approached his defense convinced that he must,
from the outset, establish his moral superiority by introducing
a distinction between sophistic rhetoric—the mode he alleged
characterized the prosecution—and the truth, which he invited
the jury to hear from him. To separate himself further from the
prosecution, he informs the jury that this is his first time in a
court; hence he is a “stranger” to its language. We assume that
he meant not that he had never observed a trial, but that he had
never been a party to a legal case.20 Having to defend himself
in court was an unfamiliar challenge for Socrates. The master
of the dialectical method of question-and-answer, directed to
exposing the culpable ignorance of his interlocutors, was now
compelled by law to deliver a formal monologue to persuade a
large audience of his innocence. Unaccustomed as he is to the
speech of the lawcourts, Socrates implores the jury not to be
surprised or interrupt him while he uses the same informal,
conversational speech that they had long heard him use in the
agora and other public places in the city. Listening to this,
perhaps many jurors suspected that Socrates might attempt to
make the court a forum to continue the radical critique of
Athenian values that had marked his philosophic mission. He
declares that he will not speak in the manner of the
prosecution, an “oration duly ornamented with words and
phrases” designed to impress and manipulate his audience. It
would hardly be appropriate, he adds, for a man seventy years
old to resort to trying, like a “juvenile orator,” presumably a
student of forensic rhetoric, to impress the court with the usual
rhetorical techniques. The jury, he insists, must judge him not
by the manner of his speech, but by its truth. “Let the speaker
speak truly and the judge decide justly.”21
Despite Socrates’ earnest disclaimer, readers, and no doubt
the original jury, have noted that his speech is itself a masterly
example of rhetoric. Indeed, in Athens, the city of speech, one
could hardly avoid rhetorical techniques.22 Socrates’ defense
bears the careful structure of judicial speech, and he employs,
especially in his exordium, several conventional rhetorical
devices that can be found in the defense speeches of the Greek
orators. The stock disclaimers found in the openings of
standard judicial speeches were intended to ingratiate an
audience by setting a humble tone and establishing that the
speaker intends to present the truth. Socrates’ plea that he
lacks rhetorical ability, the claim that he is unfamiliar with the
lawcourts, the distinction between his own true speech and his
opponents’ falsity, the declaration that he will use everyday
language, and the remark about his advanced age were devices
intended to gain the good will of the jury. Yet if Socrates
applies standard forensic practices in the Apology, he does so,
as John Burnet argued, to parody them: “We have the usual
topoi indeed, but they are all made to lead up to the genuinely
Socratic paradox that the function of a good orator is to tell the
truth.”23 Socrates uses the devices of forensic rhetoric, but not
with the intention of persuading his audience, regardless of the
truth. In fact, he simultaneously conforms to and subverts the
conventional rhetorical topoi.24 The highest art is that which
conceals art. With a brilliant tour de force, he maintains much
of the standard form of a defense speech but significantly
alters the substance along ethical lines. Socrates opposed,
therefore, not rhetoric itself, but the unethical use of rhetorical
techniques by some Sophists. Yet his kind of speech differed
so much from that of these teachers that, in the later works of
Plato, Socrates is seen calling for a new kind of rhetoric, one
aiming not to deceive but to tell the truth, not to flatter or
delight but to improve an audience morally—even at the risk
of his own life.
 In an important sense, therefore, Socrates’ claim of lack of
rhetorical ability and unfamiliarity with the lawcourts was
true. In Plato’s Gorgias, Callicles predicted that if Socrates
were ever wrongfully accused in a court of law, he would not
have a word to say in his defense; moreover, if his accuser
demanded the death penalty, Socrates would die.25 Perhaps
Plato could not help expressing his regret that his beloved
mentor had not resorted to various devices that might have
won him an acquittal while maintaining his integrity. But
Socrates’ moral principles prevented him from engaging in the
usual forensic practices in which the accused would undertake
to secure a victory by whatever rhetorical means necessary.
Hence, Socrates’ opening disclaimers are not to be dismissed
lightly. In view of the prejudices of the jury, he had no choice
but to attempt to conciliate his audience, which he perceived to
be hostile, and to allay their suspicions about his allegedly
deceptive speech. Socrates believed it essential to disassociate
himself from the Sophists and their unscrupulous rhetoric.
Having sharply distinguished his rhetorical intentions from
those of the prosecution, perhaps the jury would be prepared to
hear an unconventional speech from the accused. For Socrates
would conduct his defense as he had conducted his life. He
would challenge his auditors to rise to his moral level.
At the same time, Socrates was famous for his irony,
making him an especially elusive figure for the jury. Indeed,
irony pervades the Apology and surrounds the character of
Socrates himself. According to Quintilian, using Socrates as a
prime example, “a whole life may be filled with irony.”26 The
man who claimed not to teach was indicted for his teachings;
the man who professed to lack the art of speech delivered a
masterful speech; the man who rejected writing had his words
recorded for posterity; the man who sought to differentiate
himself from the Sophists was condemned as a Sophist; the
man who founded ethical philosophy was condemned for
having a corrupting influence; the man who claimed to be on a
mission from God was accused of impiety; and the man on
trial, who had devoted his life to the moral welfare of Athens,
placed the city itself on trial for immorality. Although the
Greek word “apologia” literally means a speech in defense,
one cannot help noting the irony in the English title, the
Apology, connoting an act of contrition. Socrates’ speech is the
antithesis of contrition; he believes that he has done nothing
for which he need “apologize.” In fact, a close reading of the
Apology reveals that his speech is more an offense than a
defense. But even for Plato’s contemporaries, Socrates’ speech
conveyed a powerful irony; jurors naturally expected a
“defense” to be a defense, not an offense against the city.
Northrop Frye concluded that the Apology is “one of the
greatest masterpieces of tragic irony in literature.”27
Needless to say, if Socrates fails in his opening words to the
jury to clarify the distinction between sophistic persuasion and
the truth, his case will be virtually doomed from the start. For
if “persuaded,” many jurors might conclude that Socrates has
not told the “truth,” but has instead argued like a typical
Sophist. As Socrates’ speech progresses, it will become
increasingly clear that he is introducing a different kind of
rhetoric, what Plato termed philosophical rhetoric.
Nevertheless, Socrates’ ironic adoption of the conventional
rhetorical devices complicated the issue for many jurors.
Would they be able to discriminate between rhetoric aimed
merely to win an argument and rhetoric aimed to reveal the
truth? Plato later sought to dramatize the contrast between
forensic and philosophical rhetoric. In Plato’s Phaedrus,
Socrates asserts that a good speech presupposes that the
speaker possesses knowledge of the truth about his subject;
Phaedrus demurs: “Socrates, I have heard that he who would
be an orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only with
that which is likely to be approved by the many who sit in
judgment; nor with the truly good or honourable, but only with
opinion about them, and that from opinion comes persuasion,
and not from the truth.”28 Throughout the remainder of the
dialogue, Socrates argues for a philosophical rhetoric of truth.
The rhetorician should not be a panderer, but a philosopher
who possesses knowledge of moral virtue and seeks to instill it
in others.
In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates refuses to grant that
conventional rhetoric is a genuine art based on knowledge.
Instead, he argues, rhetoric masquerades as an art but is, in
reality, like cosmetics or cookery, a mere knack developed by
practice, aiming at pleasing audiences rather than improving
souls. An orator need not have real knowledge, merely the
knack of convincing an audience that he does. An orator
panders to his listeners, telling them what they want to hear
and gratifying their baser instincts. Such an orator either
denies or does not know the truth. Just as cookery can make
bad food appear tasteful, rhetoric can make a bad argument
appear sound. The rhetorician has the ability to persuade,
ignoring knowledge of justice and injustice. Under cross-
examination, Gorgias concedes that “the rhetorician does not
instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just
or unjust, but he creates belief about them.” Socrates later
contrasts forensic rhetoric, associated with Gorgias and the
Sophists, with his ideal philosophical rhetoric, one that “aims
at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens,
and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or
unwelcome to the audience…. And will not the true
rhetorician who is honest and understands his art have his eye
fixed upon” temperance and justice, “in all the words which he
addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in
what he gives and what he takes away? Will not his aim be to
implant justice in the souls of his citizens and take away
injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance,
to implant every virtue and take away every vice?”29
Plato’s Socrates argues in the Gorgias that his moral speech
was not practiced even by the famous Athenian democratic
statesmen Themistocles or Cimon, Miltiades or Pericles. In
fact, Socrates charges that “in the Athenian State no one has
ever shown himself to be a good statesman.” These leaders, he
alleges, did not improve the people morally with their words,
“for they have filled the cities full of harbours and docks and
walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room for
justice and temperance.”30 The Athenians had concentrated on
power, wealth, and empire, at the expense of their souls.
Socrates thus dismisses the leaders regarded as most
responsible for the greatness of Athens after their stunning
defeat of the Persians. Miltiades had been the Athenian
general in the miraculous victory at Marathon in 490 B.C. Ten
years later, Themistocles was responsible for Athens’ victory
against the Persians in the battle of Salamis. Cimon, the son of
Miltiades, helped organize the Athenian-dominated Delian
League of Greek city-states and was instrumental in totally
destroying the Persian fleet in the 460s B.C. Victory over the
Persians prepared the way for the growth of the Athenian
empire and the glorious Age of Pericles.
But Plato’s Socrates was not impressed by these popular
political heroes, and his accusations may have reflected the
thinking of the historical Socrates. The only thing that
distinguished these statesmen from their successors, Socrates
declared in the Gorgias, was a superior ability to satisfy the
appetites of the populace. To hail them as great statesmen,
therefore, is tantamount to confusing the pastry chef, who aims
to please, with the physician, who aims to heal. Socrates
boldly proclaims that, in carrying out his philosophic mission
he is one of the few now living who studies and practices true
statesmanship, since his discourse is aimed not toward the
pleasure of the populace, but toward their moral edification.31
Yet, as Socrates explains in Plato’s Republic, the philosopher,
who is in fact the true navigator of the ship of state, is
regarded by the populace as a mere word-spinner and a “star-
gazer, a good-for-nothing.”32 The Socrates of the Gorgias is
made to anticipate the ultimate outcome of his critical activity:
“Seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any
view of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not
to what is most pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and
graces which you recommend, I shall have nothing to say in
the justice court.”33 But Socrates does have something to say
in the Apology. He delivers an eloquent defense at his trial,
intended not to please but to offer a radical critique of
Athenian culture.
Socrates’ criticism of conventional rhetoric was derived
from experience and reflection upon the values of the Athens
of his day. He knew that skillful argumentation in the courts
had often enabled criminals to win acquittal and innocent men
to be condemned. In the modern advocacy system, this truism
is acknowledged with the explanation that each defendant is
entitled to a fair trial with the best defense available. But the
goal of each side, the prosecution as well as the defense, is to
win the argument by convincing the jury. On the other hand,
Socrates’ absolute commitment to tell the truth, which he
reiterated throughout his trial, conflicted with the basic rules
of the Athenian legal system. In fact, he is represented in
Plato’s Gorgias as holding that a person guilty of a crime
should confess and accept the appropriate penalty, even death,
rather than attempt to persuade a jury of his innocence.34
Moreover, Socrates must have observed that many decisions
implemented by the Athenians were not only immoral, such as
the genocide against Melos in 416 B.C., but also detrimental to
the welfare of Athens, such as the fateful Sicilian expedition,
in which an Athenian armada, dispatched to conquer the
Greeks in Sicily in 415 B.C., ended in utter disaster.35
Nevertheless, these decisions were arrived at because citizens
had been manipulated by unscrupulous politicians skilled in
the art of persuasion. In the eyes of Socrates, making speech
an instrument for unethical power politics had contributed to
the Athenian ethical crisis.
Socrates’ defense may be better understood in light of
Aristotle’s Rhetoric, a theoretical study based upon analysis of
scores of brilliant examples of speech in classical Greece.
Aristotle was intimately familiar with Plato’s Apology, and the
speech of Socrates undoubtedly contributed to his learning
about the art of rhetoric.36 Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the
faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in
reference to any subject whatever.”37 Like the Sophists, he
saw “persuasion” as the essence of rhetoric. Yet unlike
Socrates and Plato, Aristotle saw rhetoric as morally neutral.
“What makes the sophist is not the faculty [of rhetoric] but the
moral purpose.”38 According to Aristotle, there are three
genres of rhetoric.39 The first is epideictic or ceremonial
rhetoric, designed to praise or blame, celebrating what is noble
and condemning what is ignoble, in a ceremonial context. The
goal is to sanction and strengthen some value already agreed
upon by the audience. The Funeral Oration of Pericles and the
Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln, in addition to the
display speeches of the Sophists, are prominent examples.
Next is deliberative or political rhetoric, directed to exhort or
dissuade those, such as the members of the Athenian
Assembly, who must decide upon a future course of action. It
may be delivered to a large body, such as the debate in the
Athenian Assembly, re-created by Thucydides, between Cleon
and Diodotus over the fate of Mytilene, or to a single
individual, such as the famous embassy to Achilles in Book IX
of the Iliad. Finally, there is forensic or judicial rhetoric, which
is directed primarily to jurors in a lawcourt and deals with
accusation and defense, establishing either guilt or innocence.
In judicial rhetoric, there is either accusation or defense
(apologia). Outside the lawcourt, John Henry Newman’s
Apologia Pro Vita Sua, a nineteenth-century religious classic,
and Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s Letter from Birmingham Jail, a
manifesto of the civil rights movement during the 1960s, are
prominent examples. Among the most famous ancient
examples occurring in a lawcourt is Plato’s Apology.
To evaluate Socrates’ speech as forensic rhetoric, we may
apply the criteria of the three modes of persuasion later
articulated by Aristotle.40 He maintains that a speech can
persuade an audience by three means: use of argument or
reason (logos), appeal to the audience’s emotions (pathos), and
evincing a favorable character or personality (ē thos). By
traditional rhetorical standards, therefore, which Athenian
juries expected litigants to fulfill, for Socrates to be persuasive
his speech had to employ successful logical arguments, project
a positive character, and arouse sympathetic emotions.
Because of the importance of making cogent logical
arguments, Aristotle insisted that dialectic is a counterpart to
rhetoric. At the same time, achieving intellectual conviction
among one’s audience is often insufficient alone. Effective use
of the modes of ēthos and pathos requires that the speaker also
be cognizant of the character of his audience. Because
Athenian juries were so large—they could number five
hundred or more— crowd psychology played a greater role
than in modern trials. To be persuasive, a speaker had to know
what the audience honored, what they valued, what they
condemned, and what they feared. The difficulty Socrates
faced throughout his defense was that, given his philosophic
mission, he opposed what most Athenians honored, valued,
and condemned. And, in a time of civil crisis, his provocative
critical stand augmented rather than alleviated what his fellow
citizens feared.
 Chapter 4

SOCRATES CONFRONTS
HIS OLD ACCUSERS

SOCRATES AND ARISTOPHANES’

CLOUDS

S
TANDING BEFORE THE JURY and numerous spectators,
Socrates endeavored to project his true character through
his speech, even if it led to his condemnation. For years,
he had been on a course that brought him into conflict with
Athens, a conflict that had now reached a climax. His
philosophical challenge threatened to subvert the ethical
preconceptions of Athenian communal life. While he sought to
instill a desire for greater wisdom and virtue among his fellow
citizens, many continued to prefer political power and material
comforts. At a time when, soon after the Peloponnesian War,
Athenian democracy was seeking stability, Socrates the gadfly,
the penetrating critic of unexamined opinion, would be too
much for many citizens to bear. They wanted their values and
beliefs endorsed, not challenged.
Having attempted to undermine the prosecution’s case at the
outset by distinguishing between their “false” and his “true”
speech, Socrates has a surprise for the jury. Before beginning a
formal defense, he insists, he must deal first with certain “old
accusers.” Because unstated, the charges made by these
accusers are “far more dangerous” than those of the written
indictment. Socrates’ intention is to prod the consciences of
the jury by alleging that many of them, captivated by long-
standing falsehoods, were not in a position to judge him fairly.
He wants the jurors to judge him not by what others had said,
but by the arguments he would make in his defense. But, he
alleges, for a generation many made accusations against him
that “took possession of your minds with their falsehoods,
telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the
heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made
the worse appear the better cause.” By “wise man,” Socrates
was referring to the common misidentification of himself as a
Sophist. The accusers also intended to associate him with
natural philosophers who pried into the forbidden celestial
realm of Zeus and the Olympic gods and the underworld of the
chthonic gods, such as Hades and Persephone. The old
accusations are “dangerous” because “their hearers are apt to
fancy that such enquirers do not believe in the existence of the
gods.” Thus, from the very beginning, Socrates assumes that
the official indictment’s impiety charge refers to atheism.
Unfortunately, he concludes, the old accusers remain
anonymous, except perhaps in the case of a “comic poet”—
whom he will soon identify as the playwright Aristophanes—
making it impossible to summon them for crossexamination.
Hence, Socrates has no choice but to “fight with shadows” in
his defense, arguing against opponents who will not answer.1
He concludes his opening remarks by declaring that, although
the prejudices against him will present a difficult obstacle, in
deference to Athenian law he will nevertheless conduct his
defense, trusting the result to “God.”2
Socrates begins his speech, therefore, with his old accusers.
Addressing an Athenian court for the first time in his life, he
will seize the initiative and define the issues that he believes
the jury must consider. In question, with the charges old as
well as the new, was his character. While Aristotle would
contend that the character reflected by a judicial speech was
most important, he concedes that the general impression of a
speaker’s character and authority prior to a trial also had a
powerful influence upon a jury. That Socrates was aware of
this explains the substantial time he devoted to exposing the
prejudices against him. To project a character acceptable to the
jury, one that could be trusted, he had to present an image of a
good citizen, loyal and pious. As Roland Barthes maintains, a
speaker is defined by speech: “I must signify what I want to be
for the Other…. Ethos is, strictly speaking, a connotation: the
orator gives a piece of information and at the same time says: I
am this, I am not that.”3
To define himself, Socrates first concentrates upon what he
is not. If he could disabuse the jurors of their prejudices, he
could then convey the real Socrates. He gathers the slanders of
the old accusers—restating them somewhat differently—into
the form of a tangible legal indictment that can be addressed:
“Socrates is an evildoer, and a curious person, who searches
into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the
worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid
doctrines to others.”4 Significantly, the “wise man” of the
initial summary of the accusations has been replaced by
“evildoer,” and the allegation that he is a teacher has been
added.5 Not only is he popularly regarded as holding atheistic
views, but, even worse, he also corrupts the young by
propagating these views. Socrates then reverts to his prior
allusion to the comic poet Aristophanes, the chief perpetrator
of the old accusations. Although other comic poets, such as
Cratinus, Eupolis, and Ameipsias, had also ridiculed Socrates,
he obviously believed that Aristophanes’ misrepresentations
had done the gravest damage. In the Clouds, a comedy first
presented at the Great Dionysia in the spring of 423 B.C., when
Socrates was forty-six years old, Aristophanes depicted him
both as a Sophist, a teacher of rhetoric who undermined
respect for the truth, and a cosmologist who advocated
impious views about things beneath the earth and in the
heavens.6 Indeed, at one point in the play, Socrates is referred
to as a Melian, linking him to Diagoras of Melos, the infamous
atheist who was reportedly condemned to death and fled
Athens after mocking the Eleusinian mysteries, integral to a
religious festival in honor of the goddesses Demeter and her
daughter Persephone, held annually at Eleusis, a few miles
from Athens.7 The fact that Socrates had recently
demonstrated his courage and service to the city by
participating in the Athenian retreat from Delium did nothing
to deter Aristophanes, who needed a popular figure to be the
victim of his comic barbs. The eccentric Socrates seemed an
ideal subject. Indeed, his visage seems to have resembled a
comic mask. But Aristophanes did not merely exploit the
appearance of the philosopher; he also created a character
whose views and teachings were antithetical to basic Athenian
values. According to Socrates, he never recovered from the
damage that the Clouds inflicted upon his reputation. He
believed that the current indictment, accusing him of impiety
and corrupting the young, stemmed directly from the charges
contained in Aristophanes’ play.
Drawing upon sporadic references to the philosopher’s
physical appearance in the Platonic dialogues, many have
noted that Socrates stood in stark contrast to the Greek ideal of
physical beauty. “It is significant,” declared the acerbic
Friedrich Nietzsche, “that Socrates was the first great Hellene
to be ugly.”8 Short in stature, with bulging eyes, a flat nose,
walking barefoot with an idiosyncratic gait, and always
wearing the same old cloak, he could be an easy target for
ridicule. His behavior was also deemed eccentric; a
respectable citizen was not supposed to neglect his material
welfare or avoid Athenian politics, preferring instead to devote
himself to discussing apparently unanswerable questions. In
appearance, this hero of philosophy and knowledge was no
Achilles. In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades is hard-pressed to
find someone to whom he might compare Socrates. For he was
not a great military warrior like Achilles or the Spartan
Brasidas; nor was he like Nestor the Greek or Antenor the
Trojan, reputed to be great orators. Thus, concludes
Alcibiades, Socrates cannot be compared to any man, but only
to Silenus or to a satyr, those less than human creatures who
accompanied Dionysus. Nevertheless, Alcibiades felt
compelled to remark: “When I opened him and looked within
at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images
of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment
whatever Socrates commanded.”9 Whether or not the
historical Alcibiades uttered these words, they undoubtedly
reflect the sentiments of Plato. Despite the favorable
impression Socrates made upon some contemporaries, he
believed that the negative depiction of his character by
Aristophanes had to be refuted.
Although Aristophanes regarded the Clouds as his best
work, it failed to win first prize at the Great Dionysia,
inducing him to undertake a revision of the play, which is the
only extant version. The main character, an aged Attic farmer
named Strepsiades, is beset by creditors because of the
inordinate taste of his son, Pheidippides, for expensive clothes,
chariot-racing, and horse-racing. Upon hearing of a school, the
“Thinkery,” headed by Socrates, purporting to teach young
men, for a fee, the tricks of forensic rhetoric, Strepsiades
enrolls his son in the hope that he will learn to apply speaking
skills to defeat creditors in court, thus enabling his father to
escape debt. When Pheidippides balks at his father’s scheme,
Strepsiades decides to attend the school himself. When he first
meets Socrates, the teacher is seen suspended in a basket, from
which he studies the heavens while his students inquire into
the underworld. This is the comic scene alluded to by Socrates
in the Apology, referring to the depiction of a certain
“Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in air, and
talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do
not pretend to know either much or little.”10 Within the
“Thinkery,” in addition to studying things under the earth and
the stars above, students engage in such edifying activities as
measuring the length of a flea’s jump and ascertaining how a
gnat’s hum is produced. Aristophanes’ Socrates, a master
Sophist and corrupter of youth, quickly relieves Strepsiades of
the belief in the traditional gods, dethroning Zeus and putting
new deities, including the Clouds, in his place. When
Strepsiades is soon expelled from the school for being an inept
student, he manages to convince Pheidippides to attend
instead. Thus the son enters the school, and the father requests
Socrates to teach him the ability to “make an utter mockery of
the truth.”11 Father and son are then treated to a contest
between abstract characters named Right and Wrong, or Just
and Unjust Argument, whereupon Right is easily vanquished.
Handed over as a student of Wrong, Pheidippides makes rapid
progress, easily disposing of his father’s creditors with his
arsenal of sophistical arguments. But the corrupted
Pheidippides eventually beats his father, knocking him to the
ground after a quarrel, a grave offense according to the ancient
Greeks. The son thereupon justifies his act with the sophistry
that as fathers beat their children out of care, when fathers in
turn become children again, they are fittingly beaten by their
children. Taking a cue from the Sophists, Pheidippides even
has the audacity to claim that the law against beating one’s
father is not natural, but merely a man-made convention,
easily altered whenever expedient. After the depraved
Pheidippides threatens to beat his mother, the play concludes
with the outraged Strepsiades, finally realizing the dire
consequences of his son’s immoral education, burning the
school of Socrates to the ground. The Thinkery school of
atheism and deceitful rhetoric is consumed in a righteous
conflagration, as a gagging Socrates escapes with a bevy of
students following. Not only had Socrates corrupted the
young, but he had also committed the worst kind of impiety.
As Strepsiades and the play’s chorus leader cry out: “Why did
you blaspheme the gods? What made you spy upon the Moon
in heaven? Thrash them, beat them, flog them for their crimes,
but most of all because they dared outrage the gods of
heaven!”12
Aristophanes’ Clouds is a dramatic presentation of the
developing conflict in Athens between civic virtue and
philosophy. Socrates is represented as exerting a destructive
influence upon the life of the polis, attacking not only the gods
that protect the city and its laws but also the sacred family
relationship between fathers and sons essential to civic life. In
effect, Aristophanes’ Socrates was guilty of treason. Instead of
the truth, he taught the art of making the weaker argument the
stronger; in place of the traditional cult gods, he substituted
either natural laws or gods of his own making. Aristophanes,
in sympathy with those threatened by the new learning,
refused to see any difference between the philosopher Socrates
and the Sophists. Among conservatives, the designation
“Sophist,” we have noted, had become one of disrepute once
the radical implications of their teachings were understood.
Although the Sophists and Socrates did share some
similarities, they differed substantially in their mission, way of
life, attitude toward truth, and basic philosophy. Like the
Sophists, Socrates focused on human questions, challenged
traditional beliefs, and attracted a large following among
Athenian youth. Yet the Sophists charged a fee for their
services; Socrates did not—hence his poverty. The Sophists
claimed wisdom; Socrates did not—hence his well-known
profession of “ignorance.” The Sophists celebrated and taught
rhetoric; Socrates did not—hence his avoidance of those
forums, the Assembly and the lawcourts, in which addressing
large bodies of citizens was necessary. While the Sophists
offered a pragmatic education, designed to train politicians to
assume positions of leadership within the polis, Socrates
sought primarily to direct his young associates to pursue virtue
and the perfection of their souls. To perfect the soul is to make
the soul good, argued Socrates, and a good soul is the source
of happiness. While some Sophists preached what many
regarded as dangerous moral relativism, denying the existence
of objective truth, Socrates devoted his life to combating
skepticism, seeking definitions of virtues, based upon
universal reason, that would provide an unshakable basis for
morality.13 As Werner Jaeger concluded, Socrates was the
“Solon of the moral world.”14 Finally, while the Sophists
wrote and taught from instruction manuals, Socrates wrote
nothing and refused to use books in his teaching. As he is
made to say in the Phaedrus, writing is static, endlessly
repeating the same words forever; hence it does not have
“life.” In contrast, living speech is inscribed “in the soul of the
learner.”15 Instead of the lecture hall, his forum was the street
corner. Instead of the textbook, his method was to initiate an
interchange of ideas, with the interlocutors and himself taking
the discussion wherever it led.
Nevertheless, the substantial differences between Socrates
and the Sophists were apparently unrecognized or ignored by
Aristophanes and most of the Athenian public, for whom
Socrates posed no less a danger to traditional values than did
the Sophists. Indeed, those Athenians who witnessed Socrates
repeatedly defeating the Sophists probably regarded him as the
supreme Sophist. Moreover, his method of challenging
conventional definitions of virtues, refuting the views of others
while professing his own ignorance, was perceived by many as
sophistic skepticism. His questioning of traditional values
without offering a positive doctrine to take their place seemed
merely destructive. But had Socrates taught doctrine, he would
have emphasized conclusions rather than the process of critical
thinking. Nevertheless, nineteenth-century historian George
Grote alleged that if, in the middle of the Peloponnesian War,
any Athenian had been asked to identify the preeminent
Sophist in Athens, Socrates would have been among the first
named.16 Indeed, Aristophanes would not have introduced a
Socrates into his play that was unrecognizable to his audience.
The picture of Socrates found in the Clouds, although a
caricature, was nonetheless the popular one. Like any
intellectual, Socrates seemed to pose a threat to the average
Athenian. And the Socrates they saw in the Clouds reflected
everything that many, fearing the overthrow of traditional
values, opposed: deceptive rhetoric, moral relativism,
dangerous scientific inquiry, and atheism.
While the effect of the Clouds was relatively innocuous
when first produced in 423 B.C., its portrayal of Socrates as a
dangerous stargazer and Sophist, now emblazoned upon the
memories of Athenians, would, in a later, more precarious
political climate, endanger the philosopher’s life. Initially,
Socrates could afford to ignore the play’s distortions. Athens
was in its glorious heyday, and most Athenians were willing to
live by their reputation as people who valued free expression,
even for the philosopher Socrates. For many years, therefore,
Socrates engaged openly in the relentless pursuit of his
philosophic mission. But in 399 B.C., after the Peloponnesian
War, the conditions in Athens changed dramatically. For over a
generation, the Athenians had lived with growing insecurity.
They had experienced almost continuous war. Their
democracy had been overthrown by two brief oligarchic
revolutions, the first in 411 B.C., the second in 404 B.C. The
latter revolution, occurring after the devastating loss to Sparta,
led to the establishment of a tyrannical government that was
overthrown only after a civil war. The Athenians had also
suffered a plague at the beginning of the conflict with Sparta
and had later undertaken a disastrous invasion of Sicily, which
depleted their population. By 404 B.C., they had lost not only
the Peloponnesian War, characterized by Thucydides as the
greatest in history, but also their prosperous empire. With the
city gripped by a moral and religious crisis, menaced by
enemies within and without, many citizens could no longer
tolerate a philosopher who subjected every value and belief to
critical scrutiny.17 In this dangerous atmosphere, the lasting
impression of Socrates created by the Clouds would ironically
contribute to a tragedy. A quarter-century after the production
of the Clouds, the old charges of atheism and corrupting the
young returned to haunt Socrates. As Alphonse Lamartine, the
nineteenth-century poet and statesman, lamented, albeit
somewhat excessively, Aristophanes was “the first murderer of
Socrates.”18

SOCRATES DENIES HE IS A TEACHER

OF NATURAL SCIENCE
Defending himself against the allegation made in
Aristophanes’ Clouds, Socrates rejects the notion that he is a
teacher of natural science, insisting that while he does not
disparage such knowledge, he has “nothing to do with physical
speculations.”19 Inquiry into the secrets of nature was
interpreted as a challenge to the accepted cosmology. The
ancient Greeks attributed natural phenomena to divine agency.
Insisting that the questions of natural science had never
become the subject of his philosophical discussions, Socrates
invited the members of the jury to testify if any had ever heard
him converse on such matters. No one came forth. He does not
see a need to inform the jury that, although he professed no
real knowledge of science, which he believed necessary to
teach it, when he was young, probably in his thirties, he did
develop a strong interest in the subject. As he is made to say in
the “autobiographical” section of Plato’s Phaedo, he had
originally hoped that natural science would reveal the causes
of things coming into existence and ceasing to be. Upon
hearing someone relate that the natural philosopher
Anaxagoras postulated that Mind, or Nous, is the organizing
principle of the universe, bringing order to chaos, Socrates
hoped to learn ultimately how this Mind directs all things
toward the good. Now, he thought, it might be possible to
explain the universe in rational terms. Anaxagoras is credited
with bringing natural science to Athens from Ionia. According
to one tradition, Socrates became a student of Archelaus, a
disciple of Anaxagoras, and traveled with him to Samos in 440
B.C. Nevertheless, after examining carefully the conclusions of
Anaxagoras, Socrates became disillusioned, for he found
nothing but materialistic speculation. Renouncing the search
for ultimate causes in nature, he turned his attention to the
human realm. Archelaus may have also pointed Socrates
toward ethical studies, since, according to Diogenes Laertius,
Archelaus was not only the last of the physicists but also the
first moralist, discussing laws, goodness, and justice.20
Realizing that knowledge of cosmic final causes is beyond
human capacity, Socrates’ declaration of “respect” for this
discipline in the Apology is mere irony. “At last,” he declares
in the Phaedo, “I concluded myself to be utterly and
absolutely incapable of these enquiries.” Hence, he abandoned
the pursuit of science for ethical and political questions,
embarking upon what he termed his second voyage.21 Socrates
thus joined the Sophists in spearheading an intellectual
revolution in Greece, directing speculation away from the
cosmos to humanity. If humans could not ascertain the origin
and reason for the universe, they could at least learn how to
live their lives more wisely and ethically. Socrates’ role in this
revolution in thinking was noted by the ancients. In Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, Socrates is credited with initiating a
preoccupation with human, ethical matters, in search of
precise definitions of general concepts arrived at through
induction. Aristotle observed in another work that
philosophers in Socrates’ time relinquished inquiry into
nature, devoting themselves instead to “political science and to
the virtues which benefit mankind.”22 In the same vein, Cicero
proclaimed Socrates as “the first to call philosophy down from
the heavens and set her in the cities of men and bring her also
into their homes and compel her to ask questions about life
and morality and things good and evil.”23 In the nineteenth
century, Friedrich Nietzsche, although known for his
ambivalence about Socrates, nevertheless hailed him as the
first practical philosopher: “Thinking serves life, whereas with
all earlier philosophers life served thinking and knowing.”24
Although the Sophists also contributed to humanizing ancient
Greek philosophy, the preeminence of Socrates is
unquestioned. And whereas the Sophists taught a naturalistic
philosophy, with humans the sole determinants of value,
Socrates, as depicted by Plato, sought to direct his fellow
Athenians toward transcendent values. Thus, Socrates next
turns his attention to drawing a distinction between himself
and the Sophists.

SOCRATES DENIES HE IS A SOPHIST

Having disassociated himself from the natural scientists,
Socrates alleges that the old accusers also sought to confound
him with the Sophists, thus originating another misconception.
In the unsettled period after the Peloponnesian War, as we
have seen, many Athenians blamed the moral collapse of the
city upon the Sophists. Yet Socrates denies categorically any
connection between himself and these self-proclaimed
teachers of wisdom. He was not a professional teacher in the
conventional Athenian sense. He claimed no special expertise;
not did he head a school or engage in formal expositions.
Moreover, unlike the Sophists, he did not enter into a business
relationship with his interlocutors by charging them a fee.25
Professing to lack real knowledge, he could not take fees from
youths who nevertheless had followed his example, learning
how to think for themselves. Charging a fee for one’s services
would not seem to be a subject of suspicion; even the poets
were paid. Yet the Sophists aroused public resentment,
especially from traditionalists, who regarded them as
opportunistic intellectual mercenaries; receiving payment for
teaching implied that wisdom and virtue were commodities
that could be sold to the highest bidder. As Xenophon’s
Socrates declares: “Those who offer wisdom to all comers for
money are known as sophists, prostitutors of wisdom.”26
Nevertheless, since the Sophists taught practical political skills
—how to speak, reason, and make decisions—thus fulfilling a
definite need for citizens in democratic Athens, they felt
justified in charging considerable fees for their services.27
In dealing with his alleged identification with the Sophists,
Socrates indulges in some stinging irony and sarcasm,
demonstrating his rhetorical skill. He confesses that the ability
to educate people and charge a fee is a fine thing, but he takes
no part in such activity. Referring to three Sophists who were
still alive in 399 B.C.—Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos,
and Hippias of Elis—he mocks their pretentious claim to teach
human excellence with the following barb: They “go the round
of the cities, and are able to persuade the young men to leave
their own citizens by whom they might be taught for nothing,
and come to them whom they not only pay but are thankful if
they may be allowed to pay them.”28 The depth of Socrates’
critique of the Sophists in this part of his defense becomes
evident. In distancing himself from these teachers, he
indirectly reminds the jury that the Sophists were perceived by
many as a peril to the city. Sought after by those who wanted
the rhetorical tools for political success, they had been scorned
by the conservative majority. Socrates skillfully insinuates that
the Sophists, who as foreigners were denied the privileges of
Athenian citizenship, nevertheless exerted an inordinate
influence upon the young, inducing them to seek a formal
education outside the traditional sources— the family, along
with relatives and older friends—in exchange for Athenian
money. As Protagoras is made to say in the Platonic dialogue
that bears his name, the Sophists elicited much resentment
because of their power to attract Athenian youth, detaching
them from the influence of the household.29 Socrates,
therefore, sought to remind the Athenians that the Sophists
were the real corrupters of the city’s youth.
In fifth-century B.C. Athens, the art of citizenship became a
subject of professional study. Politics, instead of remaining the
preserve of an aristocratic elite, who passed on the necessary
learning informally from generation to generation, was now a
subject that could be taught to anyone who had the money to
pay. From one generation to the next, the educational
processes that socialized the young into the city’s values
through poetry, music, and gymnastics were passed on orally.
Having arrogated the educational function of the aristocratic
families, the Sophists also undermined the traditional
aristocratic notion that aretē, or excellence, in managing one’s
own affairs and those of the city was innate or hereditary. Until
the fifth century, the view prevailed that only aristocratic birth
qualified one for political leadership. But the Sophists
demonstrated that, with the proper education, one’s natural
abilities, regardless of one’s class, could be perfected. Thus,
the Sophists were perceived by aristocrats and traditionalists
as a threat to the established order, not only because they
induced young men to challenge cherished religious and moral
values but also because they provided systematic instruction
that enabled more citizens to become active in politics.30
Knowing that many young men engaged Socrates in
discussions and attempted to follow his example in dialectic,
many jurors probably regarded his denial that he was a teacher
as an argument befitting a Sophist. How could a person with a
moral mission—one entailing the exhortation of others to
pursue self-knowledge and perfect their souls— not be a
teacher? Would not Socrates claim to be the gadfly of Athens?
Did he not encourage others to recognize reason as the only
authority? And did not his conversations attract a large
following? But many jurors failed to grasp what Gregory
Vlastos has termed the “complex irony” of Socrates. Whereas,
with simple irony, one says one thing but means another,
complex irony involves speaking in a double sense. Thus,
Socrates was not a teacher according to the traditional notion
of a person who simply transfers knowledge and traditional
values to others. He was a teacher in a radically new sense of
stimulating others to acknowledge their ignorance and take
responsibility for their own pursuit of truth.31 Similarly, as we
have seen, Socrates began his defense with a denial that he
was a conventional rhetorician. He refused to subordinate truth
to persuasion. At the same time, as the complex irony of his
speech demonstrates, Socrates was a master of rhetoric, but a
new rhetoric of truth.
The three Sophists whom Socrates identifies for the jury
were among the most celebrated, their fame having spread not
only in Athens, but also throughout the Hellenic world.
Gorgias of Leontini, a Greek colony in Sicily, was a teacher of
rhetoric who dazzled Athenian audiences with bravura
displays of oratory, especially during the ceremonies at the
Olympic games. In 427 B.C., he led a delegation to Athens to
solicit assistance for his city against Syracuse. His two famous
display speeches, the Praise of Helen and the Defense of
Palamedes, are masterful illustrations of how a skillful speaker
can take a weak case and defend it convincingly. The first
speech, we have seen, aims to exonerate Helen for abandoning
her husband Menelaos, sailing to Troy with Paris; the second
is presented as a speech Palamedes might have delivered to
exonerate himself of Odysseus’ charge that he attempted to
betray the Greeks to the Trojans. Prodicus was also a master
rhetorician and a professional teacher of the art of politics. As
an etymologist and semanticist, he stressed the importance of
precision in the definition of words. Plato’s Socrates called
Prodicus his teacher, apparently a reference to Socrates’
insistence on accurate definitions of abstract moral concepts.32
A critic of Greek mythic religion, the reputed atheist Prodicus
postulated that the gods were created by humans. Like
Gorgias, Prodicus amassed much money through his teaching
and public display speeches. Finally, Hippias was regarded as
one of the most learned of the Sophists, a polymath famous for
his eloquent rhetorical performances at the Olympic festivals,
where he invited the audience to submit topics for him to
discourse upon extemporaneously.
Socrates then relates that he once spoke with Callias, a
prominent politician and one of the richest Athenians, who
allegedly paid more in Sophist’s fees than everyone combined.
The home of Callias—we can infer from Plato’s Protagoras—
was often where Sophists were invited to teach and display
their skills. The dialogue opens with the Sophists Hippias and
Prodicus staying with Callias; they are soon joined by
Protagoras, who has arrived on a visit to Athens. Socrates tells
the jurors that when he asked Callias whether anyone could be
found able to teach his two sons “human and political virtue,”
the rich man responded: Evenus of Paros, whose fee was five
minas. Unfortunately, only a few fragments of the writings of
Evenus—who is identified as a Sophist in Plato’s Phaedrus
and Phaedo— have survived. Socrates informs the jury that he
told Callias that Evenus is fortunate if he truly has such
wisdom and teaches it for such a modest fee. “Had I the
same,” Socrates concedes, with ironic praise, “I should have
been very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I have no
knowledge of the kind.”33 Socrates held that virtue is a form of
knowledge, knowledge of the good. Yet, unlike the Sophists,
he did not think that virtue could be taught. While a teacher
may provide valuable assistance, Socrates believed that virtue
cannot be passed from one person to another, but must be the
product of individual self-examination. Socrates’ interlocutors
must be accountable for their own learning.
Thus Socrates, attempting to define himself for the jury,
again denies that he possesses expert knowledge: first,
knowledge of natural philosophy; now, knowledge of how to
teach human excellence, at least in the sense of the Sophists.
Yet the mere mention of the Sophists’ names must have
infuriated many jurors; and if they regarded Socrates himself
to be a Sophist, he could not have helped his case. The
Sophists taught philosophical skepticism, perceived by many
Athenians as a threat to moral and political stability. In his
treatise On Truth, the Sophist Antiphon argued that behind
words there exists no permanent reality. Gorgias, moreover, is
famous for denying the existence of truth itself with three
devastating propositions: (1) Nothing exists. (2) If something
did exist, we could never know it. (3) Even if something did
exist, we could never communicate such knowledge to
anyone. While, taken at face value, Gorgias’ propositions may
seem patently absurd, what he intended to assert was that the
phenomenal or physical world is not grounded in any fixed
reality or “existence,” but is instead an ephemeral realm of
constant flux of which humankind cannot obtain certain
knowledge.34 Although Gorgias’ propositions were probably a
mere rhetorical tour de force, they nevertheless reflected a
climate of skeptical opinion, popularized by several Sophists,
that denied the possibility of real knowledge and objective
values.
Such epistemological nihilism was perceived as dangerous
to morality. If there is no objective moral code, right and
wrong are mere conventions. Hence, one need not have any
qualms about making the weaker argument the stronger,
whether in the Assembly, in the lawcourts, in relations with
other states, or in private business. For those who wished to
master the art of rhetoric, Protagoras counseled that “there are
two opposite arguments on every subject.”35 In fact, some
Sophists specialized in teaching their students to argue both
sides of a question like an advocate in a lawcourt. Protagoras’
Antilogies (Opposing Arguments) illustrated how on each
question one could make an effective case for either side.
Having illustrated the prevalence of conflicting logoi
throughout everyday life, he taught students how to argue first
one view, then the opposite; after arguing for the prosecution,
one could then effectively reverse one’s position, arguing for
the defense.36 Whatever his intentions, Protagoras’ teaching
was regarded as dangerous. While the ability to argue both
sides of a case is useful for an advocate in a court of law or, in
the disinterested pursuit of truth, as a means to express fully
alternate positions on an issue, the underlying assumption of
the Sophists was that, since in fact there is no such thing as the
“truth,” it mattered little what position one took, as long as one
was victorious in debate or secured an acquittal or conviction
in court. Trained by the Sophists, many young Athenian
politicians became specialists at making the weaker cause
defeat the stronger.
But the Sophists should not all be painted with the same
brush; indeed they have suffered a fate similar to that of the
Pharisees in the Christian Gospels. In modern times, scholars
have attempted to rehabilitate the Sophists’ reputation. George
Grote, in his monumental History of Greece, argued that the
Sophists did not constitute a cohesive school with a uniform
doctrine, but were individual thinkers with divergent
intellectual views.37 While it is true that they were important
leaders of the Greek Enlightenment and, along with Socrates,
were instrumental in promoting the humanistic study of man
and society, there were nevertheless aspects of the Sophists’
teachings that could easily be exploited by the state to justify
power politics, even genocide. According to their philosophy,
truth was not grounded in absolute and universal standards,
contingent upon circumstances. Hence “truth” became merely
whatever people could be persuaded to believe. If the weaker
argument defeats the stronger, its very victory makes it now
the truth. In the Athenian Assembly and lawcourts, therefore,
“truth” was determined by the dēmos, the majority of citizens
who had the right to judge and have their views prevail.38 Too
often, as the Peloponnesian War demonstrates, power became
equated with justice.
During the time of Socrates, Greeks began to inquire
whether the gods, morality, society, and political institutions
were the product of nature, or merely local custom. As the
Greeks came into contact with other civilizations, the Sophists
argued that institutions and values were culturally conditioned
and relative. The ethnographic accounts of various non-Greek
peoples in Herodotus’ Histories demonstrated the rich
variability of the nomoi. The distinction between nature and
convention, similar to the modern distinction between nature
and nurture, was expressed by the words physis, regarded as
the essential nature of an individual or thing; and nomos
(nomoi, in the plural), regarded as man-made, or founded upon
human agreement, and hence different from culture to culture,
such as customs and laws.39 While the Sophists helped cut the
cords of myth, dogma, and blind tradition, they cut with a two-
edged sword, as the nomos-physis distinction also seemed to
tear away the sacred veil that had covered moral values and
social institutions from time immemorial. To many traditional
Athenians, the fact that something was “natural” gave it
normative weight, in the sense of “natural” versus “unnatural.”
Hesiod wrote that law and justice were instituted and
supported by the gods. And Aeschylus, in the Eumenides, the
climax of his Oresteia trilogy, dramatized the founding of the
Areopagus, a homicide court, by Athena herself. But the
radically new thinking represented by the Sophists held that
good and evil, truth and error, and justice and injustice were
not divinely sanctioned or rooted in nature but were mere
conventions created by human society on the basis of
expediency or imposed by those with superior power. At the
same time, ostensibly freed from dependence upon a
transcendent order as the basis for social institutions, many
progressive Athenians embraced a confident humanism, as
reflected in the famous lines from the chorus in Sophocles’
Antigone, “there are many wonders, but nothing more
wonderful than man,” and in the Funeral Oration of Pericles, a
celebration of Athenian achievements in culture and law.40
 As moral standards declined during the Peloponnesian War,
Sophists such as Antiphon undertook to devalue nomos in
favor of physis, arguing that conventional law suppresses
man’s instincts, thus violating nature, which favors the strong.
Antiphon suggested that individuals should, when necessary,
adhere to the conventional moral standards of society; but, in
private, hidden from public scrutiny, they should pursue their
enlightened self-interest. For some in Socrates’ day, therefore,
the nomos-physis distinction became a device to overturn
traditional morality.41 Plato’s Callicles, an aspiring politician
sympathetic to the view of some Sophists, declared that “the
popular and vulgar notions of right” are “not natural, but only
conventional. Convention and nature are generally at variance
with one another.”42 According to Callicles, nature dictates
that might is right. Hence, conventional laws and justice,
which enable the inferior weak majority to control the few,
who are physically and intellectually superior, actually violate
nature. It is natural for the strong to prevail over the weak, the
superior to prevail over the inferior. Another radical view is
found in Plato’s Republic, where the Sophist Thrasymachus,
unlike Callicles, refuses to acknowledge any right of nature.
Instead, he defines justice as simply “the interest of the
stronger.”43 In all states, justice becomes whatever benefits the
interests of the ruling powers or established government,
whether a tyranny, aristocracy, or democracy. The rulers make
the laws, and the just is identified with the legal.
Arguments on behalf of self-interest and utility at the
expense of justice are found in Thucydides’ History of the
Peloponnesian War. In 428 B.C., Mytilene, a town on the island
of Lesbos and an ally of the Athenian empire, rebelled against
Athens. After crushing the rebellion, the inflamed Athenian
Assembly, urged by the demagogue Cleon, decided that the
entire adult male population of Mytilene should be executed
and the women and children enslaved. In the judgment of
Thucydides, Cleon was “the most violent of the citizens, and
at that time exercised by far the greatest influence over the
people.”44 The next day, the Assembly, having second
thoughts, met again to reconsider this extreme decision.
According to Thucydides, a debate ensued between Cleon,
who defended the original decision, and Diodotus, a politician
otherwise unknown. It is significant that both speeches argue
from Athenian self-interest. For years, the Athenians found no
incompatibility in maintaining a democracy at home with an
autocratic empire throughout the Aegean. Cleon, echoing the
sentiment of Pericles, reminded the Athenians that “your
empire is a despotism exercised over unwilling subjects.”45
Hence, they should expect to have unwilling subjects
continually plotting against them. Moreover, the Mytileneans
obey not because of concessions Athens, to its own detriment,
might grant them or out of any good will the Mytileneans
might have, but because of Athenian superior power. While
Cleon based part of his argument upon justice—the
Mytileneans deserved severe punishment for their unjust
rebellion—he subordinated justice to self-interest. “If, right or
wrong, you are resolved to rule,” he declared, “then rightly or
wrongly they must be chastised for your good. Otherwise you
must give up your empire, and, when virtue is no longer
dangerous, you may be as virtuous as you please. Punish them
as they would have punished you.”46 And even if, by the
standards of retributive justice, the Mytileneans deserved to be
punished, one could argue that the punishment dictated by the
original decree, failing to distinguish degrees of culpability,
was excessive. But Cleon’s cold realism had set the terms of
the debate. When Diodotus mounted the rostrum to argue
against the massacre, he dismissed altogether an appeal to
justice or humanity, arguing that the self-interest of Athens,
the survival of the empire, was best served by a more
moderate expedient. The Assembly responded by voting again
and rescinding its original decision by a narrow margin,
putting to death only those Mytilenean males most responsible
for the rebellion. Nevertheless, this involved the execution of
more than one thousand men.
A more blatant example of Athenian power politics was the
crushing of the island of Melos in 416 B.C. Traditionally a
friend of Sparta, Melos sought to remain neutral in the
Peloponnesian War. Having refused to join the Athenian
empire, Melos was besieged by an Athenian force. Thucydides
composed a dialogue between the Athenian ambassadors and
the Melian government, which, while probably not historical,
accurately reflects Athenian thinking and power politics.
Dismissing conventional justice, the Athenians—with an
argument similar to Plato’s Callicles, the champion of natural
superiority—proclaimed that nature dictates that the strong
ought to rule the weak. When the Melian Council declared
their trust in the gods to protect the island from wrong,
Thucydides represents the Athenians as retorting: “For of the
Gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a law of their
nature wherever they can rule they will. This law was not
made by us, and we are not the first who have acted upon it;
we did but inherit it, and shall bequeath it to all time, and we
know that you and all mankind, if you were as strong as we
are, would do as we do.”47 The Olympian gods, therefore, had
been enlisted to support imperial tyranny, checked only by the
limits of Athenian power. Athens crushed Melos, killing the
entire adult male population and enslaving the women and
children.
While the Sophists cannot be blamed entirely for the moral
decline of Athens—indeed, a large number of citizens
supported these teachers— they nevertheless did provide a
rationale for the city’s power politics, in which justice became
equated with self-interest. No doubt, most Athenians,
especially from the lower classes, continued to adhere to
traditional beliefs, but the radical new ideas of the age found
support among many young men who became leaders in
Athenian politics during the Peloponnesian War. If, therefore,
Socrates were to succeed in defending himself against his
accusers, old and new, he had to separate himself in the minds
of the jury not only from the perceived impiety of the natural
philosophers but also from the skepticism and relativism of the
Sophists.
 Chapter 5

SOCRATES’ RADICAL
PHILOSOPHIC MISSION

THE DELPHIC ORACLE

H
AVING DEALT WITH THE FALSE CHARGES of his old accusers,
Socrates introduces a fictitious objector who is
represented as asking why, if Socrates is neither a
natural philosopher nor a Sophist, he has been so
misrepresented. This is the first of five times, four in his
defense speech and one in his speech after conviction, that
Socrates responds to a hypothetical objector with an important
digression, using the formula “perhaps someone will ask.” By
means of this rhetorical device, Socrates is able not only to
anticipate retorts to his arguments, but also to introduce
important issues related to his philosophic mission. Litigants
in Athenian trials were given considerable leeway to present
their most convincing case, using a variety of narratives,
arguments and digressions. Unable to engage in his customary
dialectical method, except during a brief skirmish with his
adversary Meletus, Socrates invents interlocutors in the form
of “objectors.”
In response to the first “objector,” Socrates prefaces his
remarks by conceding that although the jury might believe he
is “joking,” he is about to tell them the truth. Having devoted
the first part of his defense to what he is not, he now proceeds
to construct his identity before the court by means of a
narrative, an important part of a classical oration, in which the
speaker explains the source of a difficulty. Socrates alleges
that he received his false reputation because he does indeed
possess a type of wisdom, “such as may perhaps be attained by
man.” This human wisdom distinguishes Socrates from the
Sophists, who claim a “super-human wisdom, which I may fail
to describe, because I have it not myself.” Anticipating a
protest, he requests the jury not to interrupt him with shouts,
even if he seems to make an “extravagant” claim, while he
calls a witness, “who is worthy of credit,” to corroborate his
unique, albeit merely human, wisdom: the God at Delphi!1
One can imagine the jury’s surprise upon hearing Socrates
announce that he was calling the Delphic oracle as a witness.
His speech is punctuated by outbursts of heckling dissent from
his listeners, as if from a dramatic chorus participating in the
action. Athenian citizens invariably reacted vociferously to
speeches in the Assembly and the lawcourts, as well as in the
theater. Shouts and other noises, known as “din,” or thorubus,
could have an influence upon the outcome of a trial or the
judgment of a drama.2 To deal with such public outbursts, a
litigant had to be adept at thinking on his feet and attempt to
incorporate juror reaction into his rhetorical strategy. When a
controversial defendant like Socrates made an outlandish
claim, especially in the competitive setting of an Athenian
lawcourt, he risked infuriating many jurors, in addition to the
numerous spectators at the trial. Yet Socrates assured the
jurors that he would speak truthfully.
Since the eighth century B.C., the Greeks believed that the
God Apollo spoke through his priestess, the Pythia, at the
shrine in Delphi, the spiritual heart of Hellenic civilization.
Situated on the southern slopes of Mount Parnassus, with the
Gulf of Corinth below, the shrine was believed to be at the
center of the world. Inscribed on the portals of the Delphic
shrine were two expressions of wisdom aspired to by the
ancient Greeks: “Know thyself” and “Nothing to excess.”
Consultants would journey to the oracle to seek counsel,
relying upon Apollo’s superior insight. Individuals sought
advice on personal matters, such as marriage or vocation. Even
cities beseeched the oracle prior to important ventures, such as
waging a war or adopting a constitution. While the “oracle”
originally referred to Apollo’s response, eventually it became
identified with the oracular shrine itself. Like other Greek
deities, Apollo bore a multiple function, for he was not only
the God of prophecy but was also the God of reason and truth,
balance and harmony, healing and well-being.
If Socrates intended to win an acquittal, many might have
questioned the wisdom of introducing the testimony of the
oracle, regardless of its religious authority. Perhaps he
believed that revealing an intimacy between himself and
Apollo would help establish his moral character before the
court. But the introduction of the God probably aroused mixed
emotions. Apollo had sided with the enemies of Athens—first
with the Persians, and then with the Spartans in the recent
Peloponnesian War. According to Thucydides, when the
Spartans consulted the oracle as to the wisdom of their going
to war with Athens, the God replied that “if they did their best,
they would be conquerors, and that he himself, invited or
uninvited, would take their part.”3 Moreover, many Athenians
believed that it was Apollo who sent the plague upon the city
that wiped out so many, including Pericles, at the end of the
first year of the war.4 Thus assisted by Apollo, the Spartans
defeated the Athenians, who surrendered unconditionally in
404 B.C. Athenian antipathy toward Apollo was expressed
early in the war by Euripides, who attacked the God and his
oracle in two plays, Andromache and Ion.5
Again requesting the jury not to interrupt, Socrates relates
that, years earlier, his childhood friend Chaerephon journeyed
to Delphi and asked the oracle whether anyone was wiser than
Socrates. Scholars have speculated that Chaerephon put his
question to the oracle probably during the 430s B.C., when
Socrates was about thirty-five years old, thus prior to the
production of Aristophanes’ Clouds, and about thirty years
before Socrates’ trial in 399 B.C.6 Apparently, Socrates had
already been engaged in philosophy and had gained a
reputation for considerable wisdom. According to tradition,
Chaerephon would have followed a prescribed procedure at
Delphi. After a purifying ritual, he would have presented his
question in writing. Upon receiving a consultant’s inquiry, the
priestess of Apollo, seated on a tripod, went into an ecstatic
trance and uttered the God’s answer, which was interpreted by
an attending priest.7 Defending Chaerephon’s credibility as a
witness, Socrates reminds the jury that, like other supporters of
democracy, his friend had left Athens during the reign of the
Thirty Tyrants to join the resistance under Thrasybulus in 403
B.C. Chaerephon, “very impetuous in all his doing,” obviously
did not hesitate to go to the oracle and inquire about Socrates’
wisdom.8 Although Chaerephon was now deceased, his
brother, said Socrates, was present in the court and was
prepared to verify the story.
According to Socrates, the Pythian priestess responded to
Chaerephon: “No one is wiser” than Socrates! Upon first
hearing the oracle’s reply, Socrates relates, he was utterly
baffled: “What can the god mean? And what is the
interpretation of this riddle? For I know that I have no
wisdom, small or great.” But he proceeds to rephrase the
oracle’s claim in superlative terms: “What then can he mean
when he says that I am the wisest of men?”9 Socrates extends
the oracle’s relatively modest characterization of him from “no
one is wiser” to “I am the wisest.”10 The oracle may have
merely meant that other people were equally as wise as
Socrates, but that “no one is wiser.” Yet Socrates applies the
most honorific interpretation to the oracle’s words, apparently
attributing to himself a wisdom superior to all. The oracle had
placed him in conflict; although aware of no wisdom in
himself, he also knew that it was against the nature of the God
to lie. Hence, Socrates concluded that the oracle must not be
taken literally, but interpreted. After considerable reluctance,
Socrates continues, he decided to verify the truth of the oracle
by searching for a man wiser than himself. If he found such a
person, he would go to Apollo with “a refutation,” declaring:
“Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was
the wisest.”11 Thus Socrates, who had devoted his life to
rational inquiry, was prepared not only to test but, if necessary,
to “refute” even Apollo himself.
The Delphic oracle was famous for its cryptic
pronouncements. In fact, throughout Greece, Apollo was
known as the “ambiguous one.” Heraclitus said it best: “The
lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks out nor conceals
but gives a sign.”12 Because the oracle’s answers were often
expressed in riddle or ambiguity, wise consultants realized that
interpretation was required. Even when the literal meaning
seemed clear, a deeper meaning was often possible. Hence,
when the oracle “gives a sign,” it is uttering one thing that,
upon reflection, signifies another.13 The oracle’s ambiguity
compelled consultants, confident of Apollo’s sanction, to rely
upon their own creative resources. This, of course, did not
prevent many enquirers from supplying self-serving readings.
One of the most famous examples concerned King Croesus of
Lydia, who consulted the oracle on whether he should invade
Persia. Apollo responded that if Croesus made war on Persia, a
great empire would fall. Rejoicing at this news, the king
promptly invaded Persia, only to be soundly defeated. The
great empire that fell was his own. With oracular hindsight, the
priests at Delphi could point to another successful prophecy.
During the Persian invasion in 481 B.C., the Athenians
consulted the oracle and received a dismal prediction.
Unwilling to accept defeat, they demanded from Apollo a
more favorable prospect. This time they received a glimmer of
hope, as the oracle hinted that the Athenians would be
impregnable behind their “wooden wall.” Considerable debate
ensued, challenging the Athenians to apply their active
intelligence to interpret the oracular pronouncement.14 Some
argued that the wooden wall referred to the Acropolis; on the
other hand, the great statesman and general Themistocles
insisted that the wooden wall actually referred to the city’s
ships. After convincing the Athenians that their salvation lay
in making a stand at Salamis, Themistocles led them in a
decisive naval victory against the Persians in 480 B.C. Of
course, the ambiguous oracle could not err, for if the
Athenians had lost at Salamis, the priests could reply that a
successful defense could have been made at the Acropolis.
The priests at Delphi, who supervised all consultations of the
oracle, most likely believed that the Greeks had only a slim
chance of victory. Nevertheless, the ambiguity of the “wooden
wall” inspired Themistocles to search for new possibilities.
His superior military judgment convinced him that a stand at
the Acropolis would have been fatal; indeed, a Greek loss
would have altered the course of Western civilization. The
oracle, instead of precisely forecasting the future, in effect
placed the decision back in the hands of the enquirers.
According to Rollo May, the words of the Delphic oracle did
not supply explicit advice, “but rather were stimulants to the
individual and to the group to look inward, to consult their
own intuition and wisdom. The oracles put the problem in a
new context so that it could be seen in a different way, a way
in which new and as yet unimagined possibilities would
become evident.”15 The oracle, therefore, sometimes
succeeded in drawing pow-ers from individuals that became
the basis for their greatness. With Themistocles, the oracle
stimulated his intelligence and military judgment; with
Socrates, the oracle confirmed his search for wisdom and
engendered a missionary zeal to urge his fellow citizens to
pursue virtue and the perfection of their souls.

SOCRATES EXAMINES THE

POLITICIANS, POETS, AND
CRAFTSMEN
Having introduced the unusual story of the oracle, Socrates
relates that he set out to test its truth by searching for someone
wiser than himself. If he discovered such a person, the oracle
would be “refuted.” Perhaps the oracle’s affirmation of his
wisdom, characterized by Socrates himself as a “riddle,” was
meant to convey a deeper meaning. To discover such a
meaning, the oracle had to be tested. As he relates to the jury,
he accordingly went to three groups of Athenians with a
reputation for wisdom: the politicians, the poets, and the
craftsmen.16
Socrates tells the court that he first went to a politician,
presumably one of the leaders in the Assembly. While
unnamed, this person may have been someone like Anytus,
who was influential in democratic politics. After examining
the politician, Socrates concluded that although he appeared to
be wise, especially to himself, in fact he was not wise at all.
Here was another example of an allegedly wise leader whom
the majority of citizens tended to follow blindly. Socrates
relates that when he succeeded in demonstrating the
politician’s ignorance, he was met by bitter resentment not
only from the politician but also from many wit-nesses to the
interrogation. Socrates’ encounter led him to reflect:
“Although I do not suppose that neither of us knows anything
really beautiful and good, 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 have
slightly the advantage of him.”17 Socrates then went to another
politician, one who enjoyed an even greater reputation for
wisdom, but this effort also proved unavailing, and he again
aroused the resentment not only of the object of his
examination but also of several observers. When probed by
Socrates, the reputed experts found that they had difficulty
thinking clearly and consistently about their professed area of
expertise.
Socrates alludes to the fact that although neither he nor the
politicians know what is “really beautiful and good,” the
politicians were under the illusion that they possessed such
knowledge.18 We can surmise that the philosopher might have
also asked politicians, who purported to promote justice and
piety, to define precisely these virtues. While probably able to
point to particular examples of virtues, they apparently could
not define clearly or discuss the virtues without contradiction.
If, as Socrates argues in the Gorgias, politics is the art of
improving others, making them better human beings, the
politicians he examined were apparently deficient. Instead of
pursuing wisdom and moral goodness, they were preoccupied
with personal fame and power. As we have noted, Socrates is
represented in the Gorgias as alleging that Miltiades and
Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles—the most famous leaders
of Athens—could not have been good politicians because they
left Athens in a worse condition morally than they found it.19
And in the Meno, Socrates proclaims to an outraged Anytus
that the most renowned politicians of Athens’ past were unable
to teach virtue even to their own sons. Anytus responds by
warning Socrates to be careful, for “perhaps there is no city in
which it is not easier to do men harm than to do them good,
and this is certainly the case at Athens, as I believe that you
know.” Socrates then remarks to Meno, a young aristocrat, that
Anytus’ anger does not surprise him, “for he thinks, in the first
place, that I am defaming these gentlemen; and in the second
place, he is of the opinion that he is one of them. But some day
he will know the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does,
he will forgive me.”20 Yet many Athenians were probably
inclined to interpret Socrates’ disparaging remarks about their
revered politicians as an insult to the polis.
Socrates informs the jury that, despite his dismay over the
resentment he provoked, he continued his interrogations.
“Necessity was laid upon me,” he declared; “the word of God,
I thought, ought to be considered first.” His quest was now
transformed from a “refutation” to a mission on behalf of
Apollo to examine anyone who professed wisdom: “Go I must
to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the
oracle.” The result of his mission—Socrates swears that he is
telling the truth—was that men with the greatest reputation for
wisdom turned out to be nearly the most foolish, while others
considered inferior were actually wiser. Essentially, Socrates’
mission had become partly one of unmasking the hypocrisy
and shallow thinking of many Athenians, convicting them of
ignorance. He then compares his mission to a series of
Heraclean labors undertaken to decipher the truth of the
oracle’s declaration regarding himself.21 The jury could not
fail to wonder about his comparing his intellectual
confrontations to the famous twelve labors of the Greek hero
Heracles. Although some might have been amused, given the
obvious physical contrast between Socrates and Heracles,
many might have been infuriated by what they regarded as an
arrogant comparison. In addition to worshiping the gods,
Greeks also venerated a number of individuals, real or
mythical, whose character and actions demonstrated great
heroism. Among the Athenians, Theseus and Sophocles were
considered heroes; the Spartans revered Lysander and
Brasidas. Heracles, perhaps the most famous of them all, was
honored throughout the Greek world.
Like the intellectual labors of Socrates, the physical labors
of Heracles were initiated by the Delphic oracle. While
Heracles, known for his strength and endurance, bore a club, a
bow, and arrows, along with a sword, as his weapons,
Socrates, the hero as philosopher, wielded his formidable
method of cross-examination. Like the archetypal hero,
Socrates had to perform some challenging task to show that he
was worthy of the quest. While Heracles battled ferocious
beasts, Socrates confronted the ignorance of his fellow
Athenians, attempting to free them from their illusions and set
them on the road toward self-knowledge. For his heroism,
Heracles was elevated into a divinity at his death, thus
achieving immortality. Socrates, although meeting an
ignominious death at the hands of the Athenians, would
achieve heroic stature and immortal fame in the writings of
Plato.
From the politicians Socrates proceeded to examine the
poets, also expecting them to possess greater wisdom than
himself. Throughout Greece, the poets, especially Homer,
were exalted for their wisdom. Yet despite their integral role in
the education of Athenians, Socrates relates that when he
asked the poets, including the tragedians, to explicate their
works, they were deficient. In fact, the bystanders were
usually better able to explain a poet’s meaning. Like the seers
and prophets, the poets “say many fine things, but do not
understand the meaning of them.”22 As Socrates declares in
Plato’s Ion, like the prophets, the poets compose not by
deliberate art but through divine inspiration, either through
Apollo or the Muses.23 Socrates found that the poets not only
assumed for themselves the divine wisdom in their poems but
also claimed an understanding of other subjects of which they
were totally ignorant. Hence, he was as disappointed by the
poets as he was by the politicians.
Finally, Socrates approached the craftsmen, including not
only artisans (carpenters, shoemakers, and builders), but also
physicians, sculptors, and artists. While, as he had anticipated,
the craftsmen surpassed him in genuine knowledge of their
various crafts, and hence were wiser than he in this respect,
nevertheless, like the poets, they erroneously assumed that
they also possessed knowledge of other important matters.
Socrates’ retelling of his humiliation of numerous craftsmen
must have created a stir in the court. Athenian democracy had
enfranchised many among the working class. While few jurors
were politicians, exerting leadership in the Assembly, and
fewer were poets, perhaps the majority were craftsmen. Yet, as
Socrates reminds the court, his interrogations of various
Athenian craftsmen led him to ask himself “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 to the oracle that I was better off
as I was.”24 Although Socrates could not, of course, be
indicted for having exposed shallow thinking, recounting his
deflating interrogations probably incensed many jurors. He
had demonstrated that the Athenian politicians, poets, and
craftsmen, in assuming they possessed wisdom, lacked self-
knowledge. In Platonic terms, they had no real knowledge, but
mere opinions. Yet Athenians did not want to hear the truth
about themselves. In the eyes of many, the interrogating
Socrates was an officious busybody (polypragmōn).25
Nevertheless, he was convinced that only by relentlessly
pursuing his philosophic mission could he hope to turn his
fellow Athenians away from the quest for power and material
wealth and toward virtue and the perfection of their souls.
The method that Socrates employed against the reputedly
wise, pointing out their inconsistent views, was that of cross-
examination, the so-called elenchus, or refutation.26 This was
how Socrates practiced philosophy. While conversing with an
interlocutor, an ethical concept, such as wisdom, justice,
courage, or piety, whose meaning was usually assumed, would
invariably be introduced. At this point, Socrates would press
for a clear definition of the concept, claiming his own
ignorance. Once eliciting a definition from his interlocutor, he
proceeded to illustrate that it was either too broad, or too
narrow, or that the conclusions arrived at directly contradicted
some initial assumption. The respondent’s definition was
usually based upon little reflection, as was readily
demonstrated when Socrates attempted to apply it to specific
cases. Forced to amend his definition, Socrates’ interlocutor
was ultimately left in a frustrating position by a new series of
questions. Attempting to answer the philosopher’s questions,
he was caught in further inconsistencies, revealing that he
lacked clear knowledge of basic concepts. As a result of such
inquiries, the superficial understanding of many victims was
revealed, with many spectators looking on. People would
wonder whether such self-proclaimed wise men, now exposed
and vanquished by Socrates’ elenchus, really knew what was
best for Athens. Were the politicians really wise enough to
take a leading role in the Assembly? Were men who could not
define virtue really fit to be parents? Hence, according to
Socrates, the democratic government of Athens had been
placed in the hands of numerous pretenders to wisdom—
politicians, poets, and craftsmen—ill-equipped to assume the
responsibility of governing and educating the polis.
Plato’s Meno conveys a sense of the shock inflicted by
Socrates’ formidable interrogations. Questioned by Socrates
on the nature of virtue, Meno confesses his trepidation:
“Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were
always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now
you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting
bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits’ end.” He then
compares Socrates to a stingray fish: “For my soul and my
tongue are really torpid,” laments Meno, “and I do not know
how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an
infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to
many persons—and very good ones they were, as I thought—
at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is.”27 If this
reflects accurately the profound effect of Socrates, it is no
wonder that the prosecution initially warned the jury to beware
of his speech. Like the stingray, Socrates in effect paralyzed
his dialectical partners. Recognizing their shallow views, they
lost the ability to articulate. Their certitude was reduced to
confusion. What they had taken for granted was shown to be
without foundation; their view of the world was turned upside
down.
Even Alcibiades, a man of formidable intellectual gifts
whose political ambition led him to betray Athens to Sparta, is
said to have been stung by Socrates’ discourse. “My heart
leaps within more than that of any Corybantian reveller,”
Alcibiades says in Plato’s Symposium—not without a touch of
hyperbole—“and my eyes rain tears,” whenever he heard
Socrates speak. “And I observe that many others are affected
in the same manner. I have heard Pericles and other great
orators, and I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any
similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them, nor was I
angry at my own slavish state.” Alcibiades then offers an
insight on the root of his own corruption: He had entered
Athenian politics morally unprepared. Socrates compelled him
to “confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the
wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns
of the Athenians; therefore, I hold my ears and tear myself
away from him.” In other words, before entering politics,
Alcibiades should have cultivated self-knowledge and
perfected his soul. Alas, the gifted Alcibiades shut his ears and
fled from Socrates, “as from the voice of the siren, my fate
would be like that of others,—he would transfix me, and I
should grow old sitting at his feet.” Yet he would never again
encounter the likes of Socrates: “His absolute unlikeness to
any human being that is or ever has been is perfectly
astonishing…. Of this strange being you will never be able to
find any likeness, however remote, either among men who
now are or who ever have been.”28 That Alcibiades became
corrupt merely shows that Socrates never sought to mold his
“students” in his own image. Given the moral condition of
Athens in the latter part of the fifth century B.C., if one entered
politics without a clear understanding of morality, one could
easily lose one’s soul.

THE MASK OF IGNORANCE

To be sure, Socrates aroused great hostility. Not only did he
demonstrate the ignorance of many allegedly wise Athenians,
but many witnesses to his interrogations also assumed that he
claimed wisdom for himself. In Plato’s Republic, the Sophist
Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of being ironic, merely toying
with his interlocutors, feigning ignorance while having the
answers himself all along: “How characteristic of Socrates!…
that’s [his] ironical style! Did I not foresee—have I not already
told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to
answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he
might avoid answering?”29 Hence, Socrates’ “ignorance,”
Thrasymachus alleged, was merely a debating ploy, an ironic
pretense to catch his opponents off guard. Such descriptions of
the Socratic method highlight the original pejorative meaning
of the word irony (eirōneia) as deceitful or concealing speech.
When Socrates opened the Apology by recalling the
prosecution’s warning that the jury should beware of him as a
“clever” speaker, he was referring not only to their implication
that he was a Sophist but perhaps also to his well-known
reputation as an ironist. The word originated in Greek comedy,
which featured a stock comic character known as Eirōn, an
astute dissembler who pretended to lack intelligence,
triumphing in a contest or agōn over a boastful stock character
named Alazōn. As J. A. K. Thomson observed: “The Alazōn
professes to be something more, the Eirōn to be something
less, than he is. As Cicero puts it, the former simulates, the
latter dissimulates.”30 Listening to Socrates review his
Heraclean labors in outwitting numerous deluded Athenians
who, like Alazōn, professed to be wise, many jurors might
have concluded that the defendant was using his trial merely
as a forum to expose their moral shortcomings. As Alexander
Nehamas points out, irony often expresses a sense of
superiority in the ironist.31 Indeed, the ironic Socrates was
viewed by many as merely affecting ignorance and self-
deprecation, hiding pride behind a mask of humility.
Nevertheless, Plato’s dialogues portray Socrates as perhaps the
only person of his day who, in a city of many imposters, strove
to follow the Delphic maxim, “Know thyself.”
The early dialogues of Plato, which many scholars believe
to reflect closely the teachings of the historical Socrates, are
aporetic in that, although endeavoring to define different
virtues, they invariably leave the reader perplexed, with few
solid conclusions. In the Laches, for example, Socrates seeks
to determine the meaning of courage by finding the common
element shared by each particular example of the virtue. When
Socrates asks Laches whether he understands the purpose of
the question, he replies that he does not. The discussion closes
with Socrates admitting that neither he nor anyone else knows
the meaning of courage. The Charmides, an investigation of
temperance, ends with a disappointed interlocutor concluding
that even Socrates is unable to define temperance; the Lysis,
on friendship, concludes with Socrates conceding that he and
his interlocutors have not been able to discover precisely what
is meant by a friend; and the Euthyphro, an examination of
piety, ends with Socrates confessing: “Then we must begin
again and ask, What is piety?”32 Although these dialogues
brilliantly explore various philosophical difficulties, they leave
the interlocutors, including Socrates himself, ultimately in a
state of confusion. The dialogues teach primarily questions. To
engage in philosophical discussion with Socrates was to
embark upon an intellectual adventure, in which there were no
foregone conclusions. He is represented as declaring in the
Republic, “wither the argument may blow, thither we go.”33
Like Socrates’ interlocutors, readers of Plato’s early dialogues
are challenged to formulate their own answers.
In stimulating other people to think, Socrates understood his
philosophical role as analogous to an intellectual midwife
who, although not possessing wisdom himself, helps others
give birth to their own thoughts. The philosopher is
represented as saying in Plato’s Theaetetus: “Like the
midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made
against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit
to answer them myself is very just—the reason is that the god
compels me to be a midwife but does not allow me to bring
forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I
anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own
soul, but those who converse with me profit…. It is quite clear
that they never learned anything from me; the many fine
discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But
to me and the god they owe their delivery.”34 In a similar vein,
Socrates declares in Plato’s Republic that true education does
not involve putting “knowledge into the soul which was not
there before like sight into blind eyes,” but rather a turning of
the soul away from unreality to the world of reality.35 In other
words, education is essentially a conversion experience, a
turning toward the truth. The success of Socrates’ pedagogy
depended upon the spontaneous oral interaction between
himself and his associates. Mind must work upon mind in
face-to-face encounters. Learning from books simply will not
do. Wisdom is the product of a slow maturation process.
According to Plato’s Seventh Letter, the lasting benefit of
philosophy “is not something that can be put into words like
other branches of learning; only after long partnership in a
common life devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon
the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark, and once it is
born there it nourishes itself thereafter.”36
Modern Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin concluded
that Socrates had what he characterized as a “dialogic mind,”
one open to the paradox, ambiguity, and richness of the human
condition. Socrates declares in the Theaetetus, that philosophy
is “the conversation which the soul holds with herself.”37 The
“dialogic mind,” explains Robert Grudin, is free from all
forms of authority, whether political, ethical, intellectual, or
religious. Such a mind “rejects the tyranny of a single system
or dogma; it welcomes new ideas and guarantees them
equality as it considers them; it provides an open forum for
competing theories and systems; it refuses to censor
‘dangerous’ ideas; it cherishes and protects its capacity to
learn and grow.”38 As Bakhtin observed in reference to
Socrates’ conversational method: “Truth is not born nor is it to
be found inside the head of an individual person, but is born
between people collectively searching for truth, in the process
of their dialogic interaction.”177 The Sophists, in contrast to
Socrates, claimed to know the answers, virtually closing off
the ongoing dialogical exploration of truth. But ultimate truth
will never be known by humans. Such knowledge, Socrates
told his jury, was the province of God alone. Yet Socrates
opened his interlocutors up to more copious thinking, able to
view a problem from a variety of perspectives.39 In Plato’s
early dialogues, he managed to capture Socrates’ open-ended
dialogical method, juxtaposing various viewpoints; but this
Socrates, a midwife merely stimulating others to think,
degenerates into a monologic “teacher” expounding the “truth”
in Plato’s later works. The historical Socrates taught more by
example than by doctrine or precept.
Despite his edifying intentions, the inconclusive nature of
Socrates’ discussions could easily be interpreted as
encouraging dangerous skepticism. Socrates’ interlocutors, at
least until conversing with him, were certain that they had
understood the meaning of the basic virtues. On a superficial
level, at least, they did know something about virtue. Most
Athenians thought that they understood the difference between
justice and injustice, temperance and intemperance, courage
and cowardice, even if they did not always practice them. But
when challenged, they were unable to define these virtues
precisely. Nor could they honestly continue to subscribe to
untested dogmas and conventional ways of thinking. Socrates
sought definitions that not only expressed the essence of a
virtue but also were applicable to each and every case. But not
even he could fulfill this goal. Nevertheless, as Gregory
Vlastos explains, when Socrates professes to lack knowledge,
he means that human knowledge can never be definitive. All
truths and convictions must be held provisionally, always open
to reexamination.41
Nevertheless, overcome by confusion about life’s
fundamental questions, many of Socrates’ interlocutors
probably concluded that they had been victims of an
accomplished Sophist bent on uprooting cherished beliefs.
They clamored for positive, definitive doctrine, but the
philosopher offered only the injunction to think for oneself.
Hannah Arendt argued that Socrates battled against the prison
of “frozen thought,” making him the consummate critical
thinker. Philosophy, the process of thinking itself, is
fundamentally a radical activity, radical in the literal sense
(from radix, meaning “root”) of going to the foundations of
things. Hence, to practice philosophy as Socrates did is to
invite the suspicion and punishment of society. This is why he
maintains in the Apology that the philosopher must, like a
soldier in battle, remain at his post, courageously facing
danger, even death. As Arendt asserts: “The consequence is
that thinking has a destructive, undermining effect on all
established criteria, values, measurements of good and evil, in
short, on those customs and rules of conduct we treat of in
morals and ethics. These frozen thoughts, Socrates seems to
say, come so handily that you can use them in your sleep; but
if the wind of thinking, which I shall now stir in you, has
shaken you from your sleep and made you fully awake and
alive, then you will see that you have nothing in your grasp but
perplexities, and the best we can do with them is share them
with each other.”42
According to Socrates, everything is open to question. He
turned his critical method upon all subjects—political, ethical,
and religious. As Arendt observed, thinking is an ongoing
process, and is “like Penelope’s web; it undoes every morning
what it has finished the night before.”43 Instead of replacing
false opinions with the truth, therefore, many interlocutors
departed from Socrates with no opinion at all.44 The traditional
morality appeared to be without rational foundation, and the
fate of the polis seemed to be in the hands of citizens who had
but a superficial understanding of necessary virtues. Hence, to
many Athenians, Socrates was regarded as a dangerous thinker
who, beneath the mask of ignorance, threatened the stability of
the social order. As George Grote remarked, the wonder is not
that Socrates was indicted in 399 B.C., but that he was not
indicted before.45

SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF THE

ORACLE
As a result of his many philosophic interrogations, Socrates
finally arrived at the solution to the oracle’s riddle. What
began as an apparent attempt at refutation became a reading.
Socrates succeeded in “refuting” not the oracle itself, but its
literal interpretation. The meaning of Apollo’s pronouncement
was that humans are ignorant, and if Socrates is wise, it is only
in the limited human sense that he acknowledges his own
ignorance. The oracle had reinforced its famous counsel to
“know thyself,” which includes understanding one’s
limitations, especially one’s lack of wisdom, since human
beings are not gods. Socrates then explains to the jury that, lest
they conclude that he is making an inflated claim for himself,
in truth only God is wise. Hence, Socrates avers, when the
oracle singled him out as the “wisest,” it merely used him as
an example, as if to say: “He, O men, is the wisest, who, like
Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”46
The irony of this statement must have stunned Socrates’
audience. The wise are, paradoxically, those who recognize
that they are not wise, possessing at most paltry “human
wisdom.”
Nevertheless, even with human wisdom, Socrates turns out
to be the “wisest,” a claim that could not have endeared him to
the jurors. Perhaps, many might have thought, they were being
manipulated by a skillful Sophist. Indeed, Socrates’ extension
of the Delphic pronouncement that “no one is wiser” than he
to “Socrates is the wisest” is a “gap” in the text that is no
inadvertence.47 Reading the speech between the lines,
searching for the unexpressed in the expressed, we see that
Socrates’ professed ignorance is not a declaration of humility,
but of superiority. All he has done is admit that he is not as
wise as God. Until proven otherwise by his interrogations,
Socrates is saying, he is indeed the wisest Athenian. Thus, his
rephrasing of the oracle, expanding “no one is wiser” to the
inflated claim that he is the “wisest,” provides an aperture
through which we can discern the unstated meaning of the
speech. What appears to be a mere mistake in phrasing reveals
the philosopher’s intended meaning. He does indeed regard
himself as the wisest. What is unstated at this point in his
speech would become overt as Socrates would take an
increasingly defiant, uncompromising stance.
Although the story of the oracle contains no explicit
command from Apollo, some scholars have argued that
Socrates’ philosophic mission stemmed from his antecedent
view of piety.48 Like the great Hebrew prophets, he believed
that he had a duty to God to promote morality and justice.49
Socrates’ extraordinary claim that he must do God’s work for
the benefit of his fellow Athenians, declares Gregory Vlastos,
would revolutionize the Greek idea of piety.50 Moreover, as C.
D. C. Reeve contends, Socrates’ long effort to decipher the
oracle’s meaning, in addition to his persisting in a philosophic
mission that not only aroused great enmity but also reduced
him to poverty, can only be explained by his devotion to
Apollo.51 But this does nothing to mollify Socrates’ claim,
which must have seemed outrageous to the jury, that he had a
special vocation as God’s missionary. Here again, a “gap” in
the text, created by Socrates’ illogical leap from the oracle’s
declaration of his wisdom to the inauguration of a philosophic
mission, is revealing. In essence, Socrates elevated himself to
the status of Apollo’s dialectical instrument. Many
undoubtedly questioned his sincerity. Although Socrates,
speaking under oath, insisted that he was telling the truth, the
jurors were being asked to believe that he was sanctioned by
Apollo to conduct a mission to save the Athenians from
themselves. Moreover, they were expected to accept the
veracity of the oracle story merely on the word of Socrates and
the brother of the now deceased Chaerephon.
Having related the results of his intellectual odyssey in
search of a wise person, Socrates concludes this segment of his
defense by explaining that the hostility his interrogations
aroused was aggravated when young Athenians chose to
follow him “of their own accord,” since they enjoyed hearing
those who professed wisdom cross-examined. Many youths
were enthralled by Socrates; never before had they witnessed
such a razor-sharp mind in action. Never before had they seen
the pretensions and complacencies of the older generation so
easily exposed and deflated. Taking Socrates as their model,
these youths turned his methods against those who thought
they knew something, but really knew little or nothing. As a
result, their victims became angry not at them, but at Socrates,
“a villainous misleader of youth” who corrupts them.52 Thus,
Socrates has conceded at least some influence upon young
Athenians. Yet, he alleges, unable to ascertain what evil he
supposedly teaches, the pretenders to wisdom resorted to the
stock charges against those who legitimately pursue wisdom,
the same charges found in the Clouds: Socrates teaches the
young about things in the heavens and below the earth, to
disbelieve in the gods, and to make the weaker argument the
stronger. This, Socrates explains, is the real source of the
hostility that he has incurred for years, now crystallized in the
indictment under the charge that he “corrupts the young.” By
this time, many jurors must have realized that the defendant
was in the process of turning his defense into an indictment of
the city. As far as they were concerned, Socrates’ admission
that he had exerted an influence upon the young to question
established authority, even if unintended, was proof enough
that he had corrupted them.
As if to show that his methods had encompassed the wide
spectrum of the Athenian population, Socrates tells the jury
that Meletus represents the poets, Anytus the politicians and
craftsmen, and Lycon the orators.53 By unmasking the false
wisdom among these groups, we have noted, Socrates
undermined the reputations of those who purported to teach
civic virtue to young Athenians. Thus, the three nominal
prosecutors merely represented the multitude of those
Athenians who held Socrates in contempt. Anytus, we recall,
was the principal instigator behind the indictment. In fact,
Socrates’ first reference to his accusers is to “Anytus and his
associates.”54 As a leading proponent of the general amnesty
of 403 B.C., issued by the democrats after the overthrow of the
Thirty Tyrants, Anytus may have concluded that his name
ought not appear as the principal instigator of Socrates’
indictment. Anytus is depicted in Plato’s Meno as a staunch
defender of the city against what he regarded as the corrupting
influence of the Sophists: “I only hope that no friend or
kinsman or acquaintance of mine, whether citizen or stranger,
will ever be so mad as to allow himself to be corrupted by
them; for they are a manifest pest and corrupting influences to
those who have to do with them.”55 According to Xenophon’s
Apology, Anytus bore a personal grudge against Socrates for
allegedly advising his son not to follow him by confining his
education solely to the leather-making trade.56 Anytus’
reputation as a good citizen, enhanced by his role as a leader
of the democratic exiles during the time of the Thirty, had
been enhanced by his renouncing, after their fall, any
compensation for the loss of his substantial fortune under their
rule. Socrates adverts to Anytus’ admonition that the jury must
vote to execute him, for, if acquitted, his corrupting influence
upon the youth would be even greater.57
Meletus was possibly the same Meletus who indicted
Andocides for impiety in 399 B.C., the year of Socrates’ trial.58
If so, he was an ardent defender of the traditional Athenian
religion. In the Euthyphro, Socrates refers unflatteringly to
Meletus as “a young man who is little known…. [H]e has a
beak, and long straight hair, and a beard which is ill grown”.59
The orator Lycon is virtually unknown, except for his role in
Socrates’ trial.60 Given Socrates’ assault upon conventional
rhetoric as morally irresponsible, one can understand the
hostility he aroused among those orators who used speech to
gain power and influence in the Assembly and the lawcourts.
While many orators sought to manipulate their audiences,
sacrificing truth to mere persuasion, we have seen that
Socrates was committed to stating the truth.
Socrates concludes the first part of his defense by conceding
that the considerable prejudice against him, in addition to the
limited time the law allotted for him to speak at his trial, will
make the gaining of an acquittal extremely difficult. Moreover,
he alleges, his commitment to speak the truth, to conceal
nothing, to dissemble nothing, will bring further resentment.
As the remainder of Socrates’ speech illustrates, the
philosopher would confront the Athenians in a way that struck
at the very roots of polis life.
 Chapter 6

THE ATHENIAN POLIS

IDEAL

THE FUNERAL ORATION OF

PERICLES: APOTHEOSIS OF THE
POLIS

T
HE FUNERAL ORATION OF PERICLES, re-created by
Thucydides, is the most celebrated example of rhetoric
from ancient Greece. Much of our admiration for
Athenian democracy originates from the noble sentiments that
the speech embodies. The funeral oration, or epitaphios logos,
is an Athenian creation, antedating Pericles, although his
speech is the earliest extant of the genre. As Lycurgus
exclaimed, “among the Greeks only the Athenians know how
to honor valor. ” And Demosthenes praised the Athenians
who, alone in the Greek world, “deliver funeral orations for
citizens who have died for their country.”1 The Athenians,
therefore, set the standard. Abraham Lincoln’s much shorter
Gettysburg Address, it has been noted, bears a marked
similarity to Pericles’ oration.2 Pericles sets forth not only the
polis ideal that inspired the Athenians, but also the ideal
citizen, one who participates in politics and willingly sacrifices
his life for the city. Thucydides may have witnessed the event;
if not, most scholars agree that the funeral speech is
nevertheless a true reflection of Pericles’ beliefs.
Ancient Athenian funeral speeches were solemn occasions
not only to honor those who had fallen in battle but also to
renew the collective commitment to the civic ideology. We
find in Pericles’ oration the per-sisting Homeric conception of
aretē, but now democratized. “Pericles’ conception of glory,”
observed C. M. Bowra, “embraced both his city and her
individual citizens.”3 According to Alasdair Maclntyre:
“Pericles may have offered a distinctly fifth-century and
Athenian version of the Homeric ethos, but it was still the
Homeric ethos.”4 As Donald Kagan concludes: “The
aristocratic values never lost their powerful attraction to all
Greeks, and Pericles claimed them for the Athenian
democracy. He rejected the notion that democracy turned its
back on excellence, reducing all to equality at a low level.
Instead, it opened the competition for excellence and honor to
all, removing the accidental barriers imposed in other
constitutions and societies.”5 Indeed, Pericles elevated the
Athenian polis itself, the entire citizen body, to the status of a
hero, hence allowing each individual to participate in the aretē
that once was limited to individual warriors.
The Funeral Oration of Pericles is the epitome of what the
Greeks termed epideictic, or ceremonial, oratory, a public
display speech designed to inspire an audience. As Peleus had
urged Achilles—always be the best—Pericles similarly sought
to inspire the Athenians to maintain their city’s preeminence.
But the speech is no mere celebration of Athenian values.
Insofar as it spurs the Athenians to future action, it also
becomes deliberative or exhortatory rhetoric. The oration was
delivered in the winter of 431–430 B.C., during the first year
of the Peloponnesian War. According to Athenian custom, a
public funeral was held annually to honor those who had died
defending the city. As Thucydides relates, three days prior to
the ceremony, the remains of soldiers slain during the first year
of fighting were placed in a tent, where their families and
friends could mourn and make private offerings. This was
followed by a funeral procession in which the dead were
placed in expensive state-provided cypress coffins, transported
on carts. Individual family loss was now redefined as public,
as the deceased were no longer distinguished by name, family,
or economic status, but were now simply the “dead” who had
given their lives for the city. Such a death brought distinction
greater than any individual or family honor. The solemn
funeral procession included one decorated coffin for each
tribe, containing the bones of their fallen members, and an
empty bier for those “unknown soldiers” whose remains could
not be recovered. The cortege included everyone, citizens and
foreigners, men and women, who wished to honor and lament
the fallen heroes. After the ceremony, the coffins were buried
in the most beautiful grounds outside the city walls. An
exception to this, Thucydides tells us, had occurred at
Marathon, where those who gave their lives resisting the
Persian invasion, displaying uncommon valor, were buried on
the battlefield itself.
After the coffins were placed in the ground, Thucydides
relates, a man chosen by Athens for his “known ability and
high reputation” delivered an oration in praise of the dead.6
The individual chosen after the first year of the war was the
great Athenian leader Pericles. A person of superior
intelligence and judgment, he, more than anyone else, had
been responsible not only for the construction of the Athenian
empire but also for the building program that made Athens one
of the world’s most beautiful cities. Pericles had the distinction
of being reelected general (stratēgos) by the Athenian
citizenry fifteen times in succession, until his death in 429
B.C. As Thucydides assessed, while Athens was a democracy,
the citizens often deferred to Pericles’ judgment because of his
persuasive oratory and leadership skills. The challenge for
Thucydides was to recapture not only the essence of Pericles’
speech but also its spirit. The speech must have exerted an
extraordinary influence upon the audience. According to
Plutarch, when Pericles descended from the speaker’s rostrum,
“many of the women of Athens clasped his hand and crowned
him with garlands and fillets like a victorious athlete.”7 As a
young man in the Athens of Pericles, it is possible that
Socrates had been present for this magnificent speech.
Pericles’ oration exemplifies the truism that a funeral
speech is intended not only to honor the dead but also to
console and inspire the living. He sought to renew the
collective commitment to the fundamental ideals of the polis
and to distinguish Athens from other Greek cities, especially
Sparta, its principal enemy. The entire ceremony consisted of
symbolic actions designed to reinforce the cohesion of the
community. As a genre, the funeral speech naturally included a
degree of idealiza-tion, but Pericles’ exaggerations and
distortions nevertheless reveal faithfully the aspirations of the
average Athenian in the age of Socrates. Pericles proves
himself a master at invoking the emotive Athenian symbols:
the heroes of the past and present, the mighty empire, and the
famed Athenian democratic system of government. He begins
his speech surprisingly by paying tribute not to those who had
recently died, but to the great ancestors of the Athenians, those
who established the city’s democratic institutions, bequeathing
to the present generation the freedom it now enjoyed. He
refers not only to those ancestors who founded Athenian
democracy but also to those who fought and died at Marathon
and Salamis, saving Greece by defeating, like David against
Goliath, the mighty Persians. From these heroes, the torch
passed to those who founded the Athenian empire. Under
Pericles’ leadership, the Athenians had transformed what had
begun as a defensive military alliance against the Persians into
a league of tribute-paying states subject to Athenian
hegemony. The present generation, Pericles proclaims, has
added to the power of the empire and organized a city that can
manage successfully its own affairs, whether in war or in
peace. He regards the present generation as an invaluable
bridge between the past and the future. His audience would
understand not only the cause for which their fellow Athenians
gave their lives but also the great price that would be paid if
the city were to lose the present war. Its outcome would
determine whether future generations would be the
beneficiaries of the greatness of Athens. Pericles is asking his
audience to ponder their legacy.
Pericles goes on to describe, before the assemblage of
grieving citizens and foreigners, the form of government and
way of life that made Athens and her empire great. Like a
Homeric hero, Athens does not copy the institutions of other
cities, but is instead a model for them to emulate. Its system of
government, he says, is called a democracy because the
“administration is in the hands of the many and not of the
few.”8 For the Athenians, the word dēmokratia meant that
ordinary citizens (the dēmos) held the political power (kratos).
Pericles is reminding the Athenians that they were the
founders of democracy, a system of government that made
them the envy of the Greek world. Throughout his speech,
Pericles argues that democratic institutions exercise a positive
educative influence upon the Athenian mind and character,
providing the basis for the city’s greatness. No mention would
be made of the fact the Athenian constitution excluded so
many—women, foreign residents, and slaves—from
citizenship. Nevertheless, Athens had the distinction of being
the only city of the ancient world in which a significant
portion of the population participated as citizens in enacting
the laws and sharing in the decisions that determined the fate
of the entire community.
Pericles then outlines the principal characteristics of
Athenian democracy. Among the points he makes are that in
Athens everyone is equal before the law. Moreover, in filling
public offices, what matters is not membership in a particular
class, but one’s ability and merit. No citizen is excluded from
office because of poverty. Hence, the democratic principle of
equality, instead of fostering mediocrity, enabled those with
talent to exercise public leadership. Pericles emphasizes the
democratic ideal of freedom, called eleutheria by the Greeks.
This ideal had two aspects—political and personal. Politically,
each citizen was free to participate in the public sphere of the
democratic polis, voting in the Assembly and serving on the
Council of Five Hundred and the popular juries. This equal
opportunity to participate in the political process was termed
isonomia. Moreover, the Athenians were afforded much
freedom and toleration in their private lives. Not only citizens
but also foreigners were entitled to live free of interference
from society, unless they violated the law or the collective
interest of the polis. Pericles avers: We are not suspicious of
one another, nor angry with our neighbour if he does what he
likes; we do not put on sour looks at him which though
harmless, are not pleasant.” Nevertheless, such freedom does
not diminish the deep respect Athenians have for the rule of
law, obeying those persons whom they have elevated to
positions of authority. They especially abide by those laws
which protect the oppressed and those “unwritten laws” which
everyone acknowledges it is a shame to violate.9 By
“unwritten laws” Pericles probably meant the traditional moral
laws believed by Athenians to be universally valid, such as
reverence toward the gods, hospitality to strangers, respect for
parents, and proper burial for the dead.10
Pericles proceeds to compare the Athenian and Spartan
ways of life. While Athens is a city “open to the world,”
Sparta, with her preoccupation with military security, is a
closed city.11 Here Pericles is adverting to the fact that, unlike
Sparta, Athens attracted people from throughout the Hellenic
and non-Hellenic world: merchants, skilled craftsmen, and
intellectuals. The rigorous Spartan system of education,
imposed from the earliest boyhood, had a stifling effect upon
the mind. The Athenians, in contrast, have developed refined
tastes, including an appreciation of beauty. Yet such
enjoyments, Pericles proclaims, have not detracted from the
ability of Athenians to defend their city with natural rather
than the artificial courage of the Spartans, derived only from
laborious training. Moreover, while the Athenians enjoy
wealth, they do not see it as something to boast about, but to
be used properly. In itself, poverty is not viewed as shameful;
the real shame, for Athenians, stems from doing nothing to
escape it.
Pericles’ speech assumes an intimate bond between the
Athenian citizen and the polis. Civic virtue consisted in the
performance of one’s public duties. In Athens, each individual
is concerned not only with his own affairs but also with the
affairs of the city. “We alone,” Pericles proclaims, “regard a
man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless,
but as a useless character.” Acknowledging that even in a
democracy, positions of leadership will be exercised by the
few, the Athenian leader nevertheless insists that although
“few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a
policy.” With an implied reference to the democratic
Assembly, he declares that the Athenians see no
incompatibility between words and deeds, basing policy upon
public discussion, and never rushing into action without
debating the consequences beforehand. Politics founded on
discussion, moreover, enables Athenians to display true valor.
Their bravery is not blind but is based upon prior calculation
of the consequences and risks involved in taking military
action. “And,” Pericles concludes, “they are surely to be
esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense
both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account
shrink from danger.”12
Summing up his celebration of the city’s institutions and
way of life, Pericles declares that “Athens is the school of
Hellas.”13 In effect, he places Athens in the role of Homer.14
Generations of Greeks had been nurtured on the Homeric
epics. But now, he boasts, Greeks can look instead to Athens
as the model of democratic values and institutions, as the
school of civic virtue. The majestic achievements of the
Athenians do not need to be celebrated by a poet such as
Homer, for they are manifest for all to see. Words of praise
from a bard might bring momentary delight, but could never
convey the true measure of the city’s greatness. In fact,
Pericles affirms, when tested, Athens will be found to be even
greater than her reputation. Displaying the full arrogance of
power, he alleges that no enemy need be ashamed when
defeated by Athens, and no city subject to her empire can
justifiably complain of being governed by people unfit for
their responsibilities. “Mighty indeed are the marks and
monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will
wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.” While
Pericles’ boast proved correct, the Athenians would be
admired not so much for their empire, but for their great
cultural accomplishments. Reflecting ancient retributive
justice, Pericles proceeds to observe that Athens has bravely
entered every land and sea, and “everywhere we have left
behind us everlasting memorials of good done to friends or
suffering inflicted on our enemies.”15 Concluding his portrait
of the Athenian polis ideal, Pericles declaims: “Such is the city
for whose sake these men nobly fought and died.”16
The polis ideal promoted a conception of the hero different
from that found in Homer. Whereas the Iliad identifies
numerous heroes, both Greek and Trojan, who succumbed in
battle, Pericles chose to focus instead upon the city itself, for
which the Athenian soldiers died, and to which all living
Athenians must continue to devote themselves. The individual
hero, immortalized in the Homeric epic, is replaced by the
multitude of those who are willing to risk their lives for the
glory of Athens. “In magnifying the city,” Pericles declares, “I
have magnified them, and men like them whose virtues made
her glorious.”17 Unlike the individually named heroes who
fought and died at Troy, the Athenian civic heroes of the
Peloponnesian War remain anonymous. In truth, they have no
existence apart from the city. To be sure, bravery and ability
are still praised. And one might still, as in Homer, fight for
individual goals, such as the protection of one’s family and
home, but the city’s fortune remained paramount.18 Even the
private faults of the men who died, Pericles declares, disappear
in light of their courageous service to the city. For they have
“benefited the state more by their public services than they
have injured her by their private actions.”19
Given his attempt to summarize the Athenian ethos, Pericles
is strangely silent about the gods. While he does say that the
Athenians engage in regular contests and sacrifices, probably
referring to the dramatic contests of the Great Dionysia and
various religious rituals, he relegates these to the status of
“recreations,” diversions undertaken after the work of running
the city is completed. And although the gods might be
included under the “unwritten laws” that Athenians obeyed,
one wonders whether the average citizen would have agreed
that such an indirect reference was sufficient. This
underplaying of religion probably reflected the skeptical views
of Pericles, who welcomed the Sophists and their teachings
into the city and became an intellectual companion of
Protagoras and Anaxagoras.20 And Thucydides would have
concurred with Pericles’ incredulity, for the gods and oracles
play no significant role in his History. Nevertheless, one
wonders why, considering the importance of the divine in
ancient Greek culture, Pericles refrained from making a more
explicit reference to the gods. In a time of war, with the
survival of the city and empire at stake, rhetorical expressions
of piety, beseeching the blessing of the gods, might have
added religious sanctity to the occasion, reminding the citizens
of their debt to the divine and inspiring them to even greater
courage in the struggle against Sparta. But Pericles may have
wished to emphasize that the Athenian achievement owed less
to the gods than to human genius. If so, contemporary critics
would have regarded such a declaration of human self-
sufficiency as a reflection of hubris, the gravest sin against the
gods. As Leo Strauss reminds us, Pericles never once mentions
moderation (sōphrosunē).21 Indeed, one of Thucydides’ main
themes is that pleonexia, unrestrained ambition and avarice,
led the Athenians to overextend themselves, paving the path
toward the debacle in Sicily. But, in the eyes of Thucydides,
this would be a secular tragedy; for the Athenians themselves,
not the gods, would be responsible for the city’s downfall.
Some have suggested that explicit reference to the
Olympian gods was not among the traditional topoi of
Athenian funeral speeches; hence, Pericles’ silence on the
gods was to be expected.22 If true, he must have decided to
take full advantage of his opportunity to proclaim that the
Athenian achievement was the product of generations of
extraordinary human effort. He may also have believed that he
could better foster unity among the Athenians by appealing not
to the gods, but to the power of Eros.23 Indeed, Eros or
passionate love for the city, with its honor and glory, could be
used to unite the people into a cohesive community, making
the highest good of the individual and the highest good of the
community one and the same.24 Standing before his fellow
Athenians on this solemn occasion, with the Parthenon within
everyone’s view and the achievements of Athens within
everyone’s memory, Pericles exhorted: “Day by day fix your
eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled
with the love of her.”25 The word he used was erastai,
connoting the “violent passion of the lover for the beloved.”26
According to Victor Ehrenberg, this was a genuine Periclean
concept.27 The individual could now surrender his identity to
the polis, sublimating his private Eros in the collective and
participating vicariously in the glory of Athens.
Nearing the conclusion of his oration, Pericles refers to
those Athenians who recently died fulfilling their civic “duty,”
thus ending their lives with “honor.” As part of a valiant
collective effort, those who died have won “a praise which
grows not old, and the noblest of all sepulchres—I speak not
of that in which their remains are laid, but of that in which
their glory survives, and is proclaimed always and on every
fitting occasion both in word and deed. For the whole earth is
the sepulchre of famous men.”28 Eulogized in a public funeral
speech, the anonymous heroes were saved from oblivion and
granted immortality in the everlasting remembrance of the
community. Pericles ends with a few words of comfort for the
parents of the deceased warriors. Those who are still able, he
entreats, should bear more children, not merely for personal
satisfaction, but also to maintain the population and security of
the polis. Those too old to produce more children for the city
should be buoyed by the fame of their departed loved ones.
Finally, turning to the women widowed by the war, Pericles
urges them to continue the life of anonymity that the polis
expected of them. “To a woman not to show more weakness
than is natural to her sex is a great glory, and not to be talked
about for good or for evil among men.”29 Excluded from the
Greek notion of heroism, and from virtually all arenas of
Athenian public life, the anonymous Athenian woman was
expected to sacrifice her identity to the polis. Throughout their
lives in the patriarchal Greek culture, Athenian women were
under male guardianship, either of a father, a brother, or a
husband.30 As Nicole Loraux reminds us: “The glory of a
woman was to have no glory.”31 As for the children of the
fallen heroes, Pericles declares that the polis will assume the
duty, traditionally that of the family, of providing for them
until they reach adulthood.
The Funeral Oration of Pericles reflects the importance of
rhetoric in Athenian life, as the inhabitants of the city fell
under what has been characterized as “the spell of an
ideality.”32 The captivating and distorting quality of speech
that Socrates warns about in the opening of the Apology is
epitomized by the genre of the funeral oration. In the prologue
to Plato’s Menexenus, regarded as a parody of the Pericles
Oration, Socrates is represented as demystifying the rhetoric of
the funeral speech. He points out how, by means of a funeral
oration, wise men—an obvious reference to those schooled by
the Sophists—captivate an audience. Their speech exemplifies
the corrupt rhetoric, aiming at mere persuasion rather than
moral edification, that Socrates assailed in the Gorgias and the
Phaedrus. As Socrates continues in the Menexenus: “In every
conceivable form they [wise men] praise the city; and they
praise those who died in war, and all our ancestors who went
before us; and they praise ourselves also who are still alive,
until I feel quite elevated by their laudations.” Here he refers
to the attempt by skillful speakers like Pericles to elevate the
average Athenian citizen indiscriminately to the status of a
Homeric hero, one willing to devote himself to the polis, even
at the ultimate price. As Socrates observes: “O Menexenus!
Death in battle is certainly in many respects a noble thing. The
dead man gets a fine costly funeral, although he may have
been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise
man who has long prepared what he has to say although he
who is praised may not have been good for much. The
speakers praise him for what he has done and what he has not
done—that is the beauty of them—and they steal away our
souls with their embellished words.” Enchanted by such
speakers, Socrates confesses, with an ironic thrust: “I imagine
myself to have become a greater and nobler and finer man than
I was before.” The effect of such a spell, he continues—
echoing the opening of the Apology, in which Socrates
“praises” the prosecution’s speeches for having made him
“forget” who he is—lingers with him for at least three days,
during which he feels as if he were transported to the “Islands
of the Blest,” until he recovers his senses on the fourth or fifth
day. “Such is the art of our rhetoricians,” he concludes, “and in
such manner does the sound of their words keep ringing in my
ears.”33
Socrates proceeds to recite for Menexenus a funeral oration,
replete with all the commonplaces of the genre, allegedly
taught to him by Pericles’ mistress, Aspasia. According to
Socrates, Aspasia composed the Oration of Pericles. In his
parody, Socrates claims that, like himself, each Athenian also
identifies with the ringing praises of the speaker of such an
oration. But, unlike Socrates, the average Athenian is unable
to cast off the magical spell. As Loraux observes, the Athenian
funeral oration “abolished the frontiers that separate reality
from fantasy and, by trying to focus excessively upon Athens,
which it turns into a spectacle or a mirage, it ends by
displacing Athens from itself and substituting for the real city
the phantom of an ideal polis, a Utopia.”34 In glorifying the
city, Pericles’ rhetoric raised it to a heroic status, giving the
Athenians an inflated view of themselves, untrammeled by the
gods or morality. The Socrates of Plato’s Menexenus,
therefore, attacks the patriotic rhetoric of Athens as mere
flattery, corrupting rather than improving the souls of the
audience. At the same time, he belittles those citizens who
allowed themselves to fall victim to such distortions and
prevarications. As we shall see in our analysis of the Crito,
Plato’s Socrates was particularly adept at draping himself in
the garb of unquestioning patriotism, compelling us to grasp
his real meaning by reading between the lines of his ironic
discourse.
As the events of the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath
illustrate, beneath the ideal portrait presented by Pericles’
rhetoric lay a dark side to the Athenian polis, one that would
rationalize genocide. Indeed, the images of Athens in the
Funeral Oration of Pericles and Plato’s Apology present a stark
contrast. The city lauded by Pericles is “the school of Hellas,”
allegedly open to the world, priding itself upon its freedom
and tolerance and welcoming thinkers from throughout
Greece. But the Athens revealed in the Apology is a city on the
defensive, struggling to recover its stability, a city humiliated
before the Greek world, a city struggling to maintain its
traditional values, a city seeking to stifle the philosopher
Socrates as a subversive.
What Pericles did not realize—and perhaps what
Thucydides sought to teach—was that the power of Eros, left
unchecked by moderation (sōphrosunē), becomes unbridled
lust, a rapacious insatiable drive for conquest after conquest.
In the words of Francis Cornford: “Appetite, doubled,
becomes Eros; and Eros, doubled, becomes Madness.”35 Eros,
Plato observed, is especially the passion of the tyrant.36 As
Thucydides represents Alcibiades declaring to the Athenian
Assembly prior to the Sicilian expedition: “We cannot fix the
exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a
position in which we must not be content with retaining what
we have but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule
others, we shall be in danger of being ruled ourselves.”37 The
foreign policy of Pericles had been engulfed by Eros.
According to Thucydides, virtually the entire Athenian
citizenry, young and old alike, inflamed by erotic passion,
clamored for the expedition to Sicily; anyone who opposed
kept silent, lest he be viewed as an enemy to the city.38
Describing the launching of the expedition, Thucydides
declared that “no armament so magnificent or costly had ever
been sent out by any single Hellenic power.” But, he added,
“to the rest of Hellas the expedition seemed to be a grand
display of their power and greatness, rather than a preparation
for war.”39
When Pericles began his oration by indicating how each
generation of Athenians built upon the achievements of those
before them, from the defeat of the Persians to the founding
and expansion of the empire, he made it incumbent on his
contemporaries not only to preserve, but also, in order to
achieve heroic status, to augment the legacy they had
inherited. Throughout the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians,
consumed by the quest for empire and glory, wreaked havoc
not only upon the Hellenic world but also upon themselves. As
Pericles eventually realized, the Athenians had crossed a line
and there was no turning back. They could not relinquish their
power. “For by this time your empire has become a tyranny,”
he warned with sober realism in his last speech before he died,
“which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly
gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.”40
The Athenian theater, Bernard Knox observes, could not
ignore contemporary politics, especially during the
Peloponnesian War. We have seen that Greek tragedy often
reflected the city’s basic values and conflicts. Sophocles’
Oedipus tyrannos, argues Knox, is more than an individual
tragic hero, but is also a reflection of Athens, the polis
tyrannos in her moral decline: “The character of Oedipus is
the character of the Athenian people. Oedipus, in his capacities
and failings, his virtues and his defects, is a microcosm of the
people of Periclean Athens.”41 As the chorus sings in
Sophocles’ play: “Violence and pride engender the tyrannos.”
Knox concludes: “Just as Oedipus, who pursues a murderer
according to the processes of law, is himself a murderer, but
goes unpunished, so Athens, the original home and the most
advanced center of the law, rules with a power based on
injustice and is beyond the reach of human law. As the fury
and passion of the war spirit mounted, the actions of Athens
became more overtly violent and unjust; the contradiction
between the laws of the city and a higher law beyond the one
man has made, a contradiction already explored in the
Sophoclean Antigone, became more open, insistent, and
oppressive.”42
Athenians would eventually pay a price for their apotheosis
of the polis. Indeed, we have seen that the Peloponnesian War
reflected a moral decay throughout the Greek world. As Leo
Strauss explains: “When we open Thucydides’ pages, we
become at once immersed in political life at its most intense,
in bloody war both foreign and civil, in life and death
struggles. Thucydides sees political life in its own light;… he
presents us political life in its harsh grandeur, ruggedness, and
even squalor.”43 Thucydides viewed the war as the greatest
disturbance in the history of Greece: “No movement ever
stirred Hellas more deeply than this; it was shared by many of
the Barbarians, and might even be said to affect the world at
large.”44 Under the Greek historian’s guidance, we see the
devastating impact of the war upon Hellas, both materially and
psychologically. The death of Pericles was for Thucydides the
beginning of Athens’ decline. For the Athenian statesman, a
person of “transparent integrity,” led the Athenians, rather than
being led by them. “Thus Athens,” Thucydides concludes,
“though still in name a democracy, was in fact ruled by her
greatest citizen.” But his successors, in contrast, “each
struggling to be first himself,” were prepared “to sacrifice the
whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the people.”45
After Pericles, a series of popular leaders, known as
“demagogues,” or “leaders of the people,” emerged who
accelerated the city’s downward moral spiral. According to W.
Robert Connor, these “new politicians”—with Pericles as the
prototype and Cleon as the epitome—ascended to power by
appealing directly to the dēmos. In the process, they furthered
the ideal that Pericles had done so much to promote, stressing
civic virtue and subordinating all personal interests to the
polis. While previously, politicians would have considered
their loyalties to lie first with their family and their political
faction, with the rise of the demagogues, the city as a whole
became the principal focus. As Connor concludes: “They
seemed to foretoken a new era in which the interests of all
citizens would be equitably represented, in which ever closer
ties would bind the citizen to the polis.”46
This new era was reflected in the language of politics.
Connor notes that during the last third of the fifth century B.C.,
“the terminology of friendship is applied to the city and
especially to the dēmos. The individual’s relation to his polis
comes to be spoken of in ways that had formerly been reserved
almost exclusively for his relations to persons…. For the first
time in Greece people begin regularly to profess that they will
show the city the kind of loyalty which was formerly promised
to friends. We begin to hear men called ‘dēmos-lovers’ or
‘dēmos-haters.’”47 To these was added the epithet philo-polis.
Thus, any person regarded as a danger to Athenian democracy,
such as Socrates, would be regarded as an enemy of the people
and the polis.
Soon the radical demagogue Cleon became the leader of the
people, manipulating their emotions and leading them toward
increased brutality. He revolutionized the manner of speech in
the Assembly and was responsible for giving to the word
demagogue, originally a neutral term, the pejorative sense that
later arose. According to the Constitution of Athens, attributed
to Aristotle, Cleon was the “first to shout when addressing the
people; he used abusive language, and addressed the ekklēsia
[the Assembly] with his garments tucked up when it was
customary to speak properly dressed.” Cleon was succeeded as
the people’s leader, first by Cleophon, then by Callicrates.
“After Cleophon there was an unbroken series of demagogues
whose main aim was to be outrageous and please the people
with no thought for anything but the present.”48 Under
demagogues such as Cleon, Athens became a radical
democracy, with increasing numbers of the lower classes
becoming citizens and unscrupulous politicians rising to power
by catering to their whims.
At the end of the first year of the war, as we have noted,
Athens suf-fered a plague. In the work of Thucydides, who
took Greek tragedy as his model, the Funeral Oration of
Pericles, which portrays a proud Athens at the height of her
power and fame, is followed immediately by a graphic
description of the plague that took so many Athenian lives, a
quarter or perhaps a third of the population, including Pericles.
Within a few pages, Thucydides presents the reader with two
contrasting portraits: one, a civilized city in which each
individual willingly sacrificed himself to the good of the polis;
the other, a city ravaged by horrible disease, moral as well as
physical, where laws, both written and unwritten, were flouted
and civilized life destroyed. The plague foreshadowed the
ultimate defeat of Athens. As death became a frightening
reality to the population, the thin veneer of civilization wore
away, exposing human nature at its worst. For the first time,
the toll of the war had been impressed upon the Athenians.
And when their sufferings were not alleviated either by
prayers in the temples or consultations with oracles, the
population ceased to believe in the efficacy of religion,
becoming “reckless of all law, human or divine.”49 And yet,
Thucydides makes clear, the Athenians had only themselves to
blame. If the historian was inspired by tragedy, in his hands
the story of Athens became, as we have noted, a secular
tragedy. For the Athenian defeat was not a punishment from
the gods, but a natural consequence of their own ambition.
Athens, along with the entire Hellenic world, continued its
moral decline. Thucydides observed—in one of the few places
where his voice intrudes into his narrative—”war, which takes
away the comfortable provision of daily life, is a hard master
and tends to assimilate men’s characters to their condition.”50
By subjecting people to frightful brutality and abrupt change,
war transforms them into violent agents. When pushed to
extreme limits, human beings easily dispense with civilized
notions of morality. The world was out of joint; the proverbial
center could not hold. Surveying Hellas, Thucydides records
that civil war erupted in city after city, with democrats and
oligarchs fiercely pitted against one another. Human nature
being what it is, Thucydides declares, many calamities were
suffered. Under the austerity of civil war, even language
deteriorated into a kind of proto-Orwellian newspeak, as
Greeks became obsessed with power: “The meaning of words
had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by
them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be
loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward;
moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know
everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true
quality of a man. A conspirator who wanted to be safe was a
recreant in disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted,
and his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was
deemed knowing, but a still greater master in craft was he who
detected one. On the other hand, he who plotted from the first
to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker up of parties
and a poltroon who was afraid of the enemy. In a word, he
who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and
so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it.
The tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a
partisan was more ready to dare without asking why…. The
seal of good faith was not divine law, but fellowship in
crime.”51
As Thucydides concluded, these civic calamities led to
“every form of wickedness” throughout the Hellenic world.
With the breakdown of language, the possibility of moral
discourse was undermined. The stress of the numerous civil
wars, not to mention the major conflict between Athens and
Sparta and their allies, was too much to bear. Thucydides’
famous account of the civil war on Corcyra, an island off the
western coast of Greece, is representative of the anarchy that
ensues when human nature is no longer restrained by laws:
“At such a time the life of the city was all in disorder, and
human nature, which is always ready to transgress the laws,
having now trampled them under foot, delighted to show that
her passions were ungovernable, that she was stronger than
justice, and the enemy of everything above her.”52
 As the war dragged on, the Athenians discarded the mask of
morality that disguised the arrogance of power. While in the
debate over the fate of Mytilene in 428 B.C., occurring about a
year after the death of Pericles, the Athenians attempted at
least to rationalize their iniquity, by the time of the inhuman
crushing of Melos in 416 B.C., we see nothing but naked self-
interest and moral depravity. Indeed, within months of the
massacre at Melos, Euripides’ Trojan Women, an incisive
condemnation of war and imperialism, was first performed at
Athens during the Great Dionysia. At this time, preparations
were underway to send the Athenian armada to invade Sicily,
with the city of Syracuse the main target. The message about
the horrors of war, in addition to the parallel between the
Greek destruction of Troy and the slaughter at Melos, were not
lost on the Athenian audience. The play’s prologue—
foretelling the destruction of the Greek fleet during its return
from Troy as divine punishment for desecrating sacred altars
and defiling virgins in holy places—should have been
interpreted as an ill omen for the Sicilian venture, a tragic
reversal of fortune. It is estimated that, out of an Athenian
citizen population of between 30,000 and 40,000, some 10,000
perished in Sicily at the hands of the combined Syracusan and
Spartan forces in 413 B.C.53 Although Friedrich Nietzsche saw
conflict as the source of much that was great among the
ancient Greeks, he believed that Athens caused its own
destruction by deeds of hubris: “The Hellenic state, like the
Hellenic man, deteriorates. It becomes evil and cruel, it
becomes vengeful and godless.”54 Blinded by the appetite to
score a decisive victory, the Sicilian invasion ended in disaster
for the Athenians. In the poignant words of Thucydides, the
defeat was “the most ruinous to the vanquished; for they were
utterly and at all points defeated, and their sufferings were
prodigious. Fleet and army perished from the face of the earth;
nothing was saved, and of the many who went forth few
returned home. Thus ended the Sicilian expedition.”55

HOMERIC SHAME CULTURE

The conflict between Socrates and Athens can be better
understood by examining the ancient Greek notion of the hero
and its transformation during the development of the
democratic polis. Among the factors that contributed to the
Athenian hegemony in the Hellenic world was the
democratization of the Homeric heroic code. As the Funeral
Oration of Pericles makes clear, the aristocratic values were
appropriated by the polis. In archaic Greece, an aristocratic
warrior culture as demonstrated in the Iliad, the good man was
one of noble birth, strong, courageous, successful, prosperous,
one who did good to friends and harm to enemies. While
intelligence, in the form of cunning, was valued, as reflected in
the character of Odysseus in the Odyssey, martial virtues
necessarily reigned supreme prior to the development of a
stable legal-political order. Hence, Homeric society valued
most those men, the aristocracy, or “best people,” who
manifested the competitive virtues.56 While cooperative
virtues such as justice, prudence, patience, and self-control
were not entirely absent from archaic Greece, they were
clearly subordinated to the aggressive virtues of strength,
courage, and military prowess.
As Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out in The Genealogy of
Morals, for the Homeric Greeks, the “good” was associated
with military prowess and had nothing to do with the altruistic
notions of virtue that constituted later systems of morality. At
the same time, the “bad” was associated with the weak, the
ineffectual, and the cowardly. Bruno Snell supports
Nietzsche’s point: “When Homer says that a man is good,
agathos, he does not mean thereby that he is morally
unobjectionable, much less good-hearted, but rather that he is
useful, proficient, and capable of vigorous action…. Similarly
aretē, virtue, does not denote a moral property but nobility,
achievement, success and reputation.”57 Because Achilles
excelled in the martial virtues, he enjoyed the status or honor
(timē) of being the “best of the Achaeans.” Generations of
Greek youth were nurtured on the Homeric poems, which
served as their “Bible,” and inspired by the example of
Achilles. Aretē (excellence) and agathos (good) were the most
honorific words in the Greek lexicon; and those who
demonstrated such qualities merited honor or status, which
included the esteem of their peers and other social and
material rewards. Hence, to the ancient Greeks, “good”
connoted being “good at” something—successful, effective,
and useful—while “bad” (kakos) connoted being “bad at”
something—unsuccessful, ineffective, and useless.58
According to the Homeric code of honor, one was judged not
by the interior standard of intentions, but by results. Alasdair
Maclntyre points out that “a man in heroic society is what he
does…. To judge a man therefore is to judge his actions.”59
Public opinion, not morality as we understand it today, became
the principal sanction for the warrior’s actions, and there was
no excuse for failure. Pitted in an ongoing competition with
his peers for ever more glory, the individual warrior received
his identity from his evaluation by society; only one’s fellow
heroes can bestow honor. As Sarpedon, the great ally of the
Trojans, declares in the Iliad, the hero’s quest for honor is in
fact spurred by his inevitable mortality.60 Only honor and fame
can soften the blow of death; without honor and fame, life for
Homer’s warriors is not worth living.
The warrior class of archaic Greece was consumed by the
love of honor, or philotimia, won through fierce competitions
known as agōnes, from which is derived the English word
“agony.” At a time when most did not believe in the
immortality of the soul, courageous individuals sought
meaning in worldly honor and comforts, and a kind of
immortality through fame and glory (kleos). “The best men
choose one thing rather than all else,” declared Heraclitus,
“everlasting fame.”61 Part of Nietzsche’s fascination with the
Homeric Greeks derived from their appreciation of the
importance of the contest, at every level, in bringing out the
best in humanity. “The greater and more sublime a Greek is,”
proclaimed Nietzsche, “the brighter the flame of ambition that
flares out of him, consuming everybody who runs on the same
course.” Nietzsche relates the story that Themistocles could
not sleep until he surpassed the laurels of Miltiades. Such
ambition spurred him to great achievement. “Every talent must
unfold itself in fighting,” Nietzsche concludes.62 And while a
hero such as Achilles might express solicitude for others, such
as his love for Patroclus, his primary duty was to himself, his
personal honor, fame, and glory, or to his household, which
was merely an extension of himself.63 According to Moses
Hadas: “The most striking single feature of the Homeric ethos
is the enormous importance attached to individual prowess,
individual pride, individual reputation. Heroes of other epics
prize their individuality also, but in none is the drive for self-
assertion so ruthless and pride so paramount as in Homer.”64
Peleus exhorted his young son Achilles “always be the best,
my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above the
others.”65 In avenging Patroclus’ death, Achilles fulfilled the
accepted ethical injunction to return harm with harm, injustice
with injustice, behavior that Socrates would later condemn as
the antithesis of morality and justice. In such a competitive or
agonistic culture, even the deities were preoccupied with the
competitive quest for honor. As Werner Jaeger explains, the
Homeric gods were an aristocracy, priding themselves on their
worshipers and jealously avenging any infringement of their
honor.66
The work of Bruno Snell, Arthur Adkins, and E. R. Dodds
has shed light upon the psychological roots of the Greek
obsession with earthly fame.67 Ancient Greece was a “shame
culture,” in which the worth of an individual was determined
by “what people say,” as opposed to a “guilt culture,” in which
an individual’s sense of worth originated from a good
conscience.68 In a shame culture, praise and blame are the
sources of honor (timē) and shame (aidōs). Compared to being
judged favorably by others, having a “good conscience” was
not deemed important. “Homeric man’s highest good,”
concluded Dodds, “is not the enjoyment of a quiet conscience,
but the enjoyment of timē, public esteem.”69 In a shame
culture, “action morality,” whether one has done certain
things, is the primary criterion in judging someone; in a so-
called guilt culture, an individual’s intention, “intention
morality,” determines the judgment of the action.70
Alvin Gouldner clarifies the distinction between the two
cultures: “The basic difference between the shame and guilt
cultures is the agent or locus of reproach. In shame cultures
the reproachful party is some person other than the
reproached; in guilt cultures reproach comes essentially from
the self, so that the reproacher and the reproached are one and
the same person. In shame cultures the person conforms with
the norms of the group because of the cost of nonconformity
or because of the rewards of conformity, which are—in both
cases—created by the judgments of others. In guilt cultures the
person avoids nonconforming and pursues group norms
because of his desire to avoid self-criticism or to optimize self-
approval.”71 In a shame culture, therefore, behavior is dictated
by external or social control; in a guilt culture, behavior is
dictated by internal control or conscience. Shame is public,
guilt is private. In ancient Greek culture, public opinion
determined one’s self-esteem, and dishonor or shame was the
worst fate. “In a guilt culture,” Gouldner concludes, “the
norms are regarded as intrinsically significant; they are
experienced as desirable in and of themselves. In a shame
culture, however, the norms—even when well-known—have
relatively little intrinsic significance.”72 The mission of
Socrates was to attempt to transform Greek ethics from its
preoccupation with external societal approval to an internal
concern for one’s conscience and soul.

DEMOCRACY APPROPRIATES HOMER

When Greece passed from the archaic to the classical age, the
competitive heroic Homeric values persisted, and the epic
poem continued to be the staple of Greek education. But now
these values were integrated into the life of the polis.73 One of
the greatest fears of the Greeks was that of stasis, or internal
discord within a community, which threatened harmony and
sometimes destroyed cities. The Athenians would be unable to
maintain a cohesive polis unless they found a way of
reconciling the agonistic striving of immoderate individuals
with the need to live together peacefully in a community, in
accordance with the rule of law. Among the most significant
developments of the Athenian polis occurred under the
leadership of Solon, the great statesman and poet of the early
sixth century B.C. One of the renowned Seven Sages of Greek
tradition, his reforms brought political and economic stability
to Athens during a seminal phase of its development. During
the seventh century B.C., Greece was plagued by a severe
economic crisis. As the poor were preyed upon by the rich,
Athens was threatened by disruption that could be cured only
by the rule of law and a new view of virtue. This view came
from Delphi, as the oracle admonished all to live by the
maxim, “Nothing to excess.” Moralists joined the oracle in
calling upon Greeks to curb their fiercely competitive
behavior. And laws were initiated by reformers like Solon who
sought to establish moderation in community life. In 594 B.C.,
Solon drafted a new law code designed to introduce more
social equality into a city on the verge of class war. To assist
the poor and restrain the rich, he canceled the debts of the
poor, abolished the practice of enslavement for debt, placed a
limit on the size of landed property, and broke the upper-class
monopoly on political power. To make the Athenian
democracy more efficient, he established a Council of Four
Hundred to prepare the business of the Assembly of citizens,
which met regularly. Moreover, he created the first popular
appeal court, the Ēliaia, which, unlike the aristocratic
Areopagus, was open to all citizens.
According to Solon, dikē, or justice, is part of the divine
order. Those, therefore, who sacrifice justice to greed and
lawlessness face a definite peril. For justice is ultimately
victorious, trampling upon human hubris by bringing the
nemesis of crippling disorder to the community, endangering
its survival. The unjust society, like the sick physical body, is
ravaged by severe disturbances and disease, while the just
society is rewarded by peace, prosperity, and order. With
Solon, we see a move to engender a sense of collective
responsibility, subordinating the interests of individuals and
classes to the good of the polis. He not only averted a class
war but also laid the foundations for the development of
Athenian direct democracy. Solon’s legacy was that “a
heightened consciousness about public affairs, vital to a polis,
emerged in the Athenian community.”74 A public sphere
emerged to balance the private sphere, as each member of the
community was encouraged to accept his civic responsibility.
The citizenry, which Solon divided into four classes based
upon property, was given a place in the Assembly and the
popular juries, and participation was regarded not as a
privilege, but as a duty. Members of the community thus
became truly “citizens,” and Athenian society became, in
Solon’s words, “our polis.”75 In one of his more famous
poems, Solon eulogized eunomia, good order under the rule of
law, and condemned its opposite, dysnomia.
After a period of rule under the Pisistratid tyrants, during
which Athens flourished economically and culturally, the next
important development toward greater democracy came with
the reforms of Cleisthenes, 508–507 B.C. Regarded as the
father of Athenian democracy, Cleisthenes replaced the old
system of four tribes, which had allowed a minority of wealthy
families to exercise inordinate power, with a system of ten
tribes, or demes, based not upon birth but upon residence in
Attica. The Assembly of all citizens became the sovereign
legislative body of the polis. Cleisthenes also originated a
Council of Five Hundred to assist the Assembly in governing.
The judicial functions were placed in the hands of juries of the
people, chosen annually by lot. Cleisthenes thus laid the
foundation for the radical, lower-class democracy that would
later characterize Athens. In the late 480s B.C., Ephialtes and
Pericles instituted reforms that weakened the powers of the
ancient council of the aristocratic Areopagus and strengthened
the powers of the Assembly and the Council. The introduction
of a small payment for attendance in the Assembly and the
lawcourts made possible the participation of at least some of
the poor in the public affairs of the polis.
The Athenians had thus constructed a unifying political
culture that became the basis for their greatness under the age
of Pericles. Athena went from being a household goddess to
Athena Polias, protectress of the city’s freedom and security.
Her temple, the beautiful Parthenon atop the Acropolis,
symbolized the polis, whose primacy is captured by Werner
Jaeger: “The enormous influence of the polis upon individual
life was based upon the fact that it was an ideal. The state was
a spiritual entity, which assimilated all the loftiest aspects of
human life and gave them out as its own gifts…. The polis is
the sum of all its citizens and of all the aspects of their lives. It
gives each citizen much, but it can demand all in return.
Relentless and powerful, it imposes its way of life on each
individual, and marks him for its own. From it are derived all
the norms which govern the life of its citizens. Conduct that
injures it is bad, conduct that helps it is good…. Even the most
intimate acts of the private life and the moral conduct of its
citizens are by law prescribed and limited and defined.”76 To
the ancient Athenian, the polis was not merely a set of laws
and institutions but an organic, living entity, conferring upon
its citizens a civic identity.
With the rise of democracy, the Greek conception of the
hero was transformed. This was made possible by the post-
Homeric introduction of the armed hoplite phalanx into the
Greek world. Despite the advanced civilization represented by
the growth of cities, warfare continued to be one of the most
valued means of attaining fame and glory. “War was quite
natural to the Greeks of the classical period,” observes Jean-
Pierre Vernant. “Organized, as they were, into small cities, all
equally jealous of their own independence and equally anxious
to affirm their supremacy, they saw warfare as the normal
expression of the rivalry that governed relations between
different states, so that times of peace, or rather truces, seemed
like dead periods in the constantly renewed web of conflict.”77
According to one historian, from the war with Persia to the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War, 479–431 B.C., “Athens
was at war, or Athenians were on campaign … virtually every
year.”78 With war so prevalent, the polis became the principal
focus of the citizen, not only for the protection that it afforded
but also as the only means to a civilized life. While the
Homeric warrior concentrated upon individual exploits and
personal duels to demonstrate superiority, the Athenian
hoplites fought and died together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a
collective effort on behalf of the city. The phalanx, heavy
infantry armed with shields and spears and arranged in tight
battle formation, depended for its success not upon individual
prowess but upon cooperation among large groups of soldiers.
In the age of the phalanx, it was no longer possible to achieve
individual honor like Achilles and Ajax. Thus, while the
Homeric heroic ideal persisted, the focus shifted from the
individual to the polis.79 Moreover, economic and political
changes undermined the aristocratic monopoly in warfare, as
the middle classes entered the hoplite ranks or became rowers
in the Athenian navy. With the emergence of the Athenian
democratic polis, defended by the nonaristocratic citizens,
collective success replaced the older individual quest for
glory.80 When Pericles stood before the throng of mourners to
deliver his Funeral Oration, he found an audience receptive to
his call for individuals to devote themselves, sacrificing their
lives if necessary, to the continued glory of the polis.
As democracy emerged in Athens, the quest for honor was
directed into ways more compatible with communal life.
Competitions now occurred, and honor was won or lost, in the
Assembly, the lawcourts, the dramatic festivals, and the
athletic fields. These public arenas served to regulate and
sublimate the aggressive drives of the Athenians. As Isocrates
declared, with the Athenians “it is possible to find with us …
contests not alone of speed and strength, but of eloquence and
wisdom and of all the other arts—and for these the greatest
prizes.”81 In each competitive setting, Athenians strove to win
honor as they performed outdoors in the presence of numerous
spectators. The link between individual achievement and
service to the polis extended beyond warfare to every aspect of
public life. As Jacob Burckhardt explained: “Great deeds
really belonged not to the individual but to the native city; it
was the city, not Miltiades or Themistocles, that was victorious
at Marathon and Salamis.”82 The Homeric values endured,
therefore, but the hero became democratized. While the honor
of Achilles was dictated by a minority of great warriors, the
honor of an Athenian citizen was dictated by the entire polis.
As Jean-Paul Vernant explains: “In a face-face society where
to be recognized one had to surpass one’s rivals in constant
competition for glory, each person was placed under the gaze
of others; each person existed because of that gaze. One was
what the others saw in one. The identity of an individual
coincided with his social evaluation; from derision to praise,
from scorn to admiration.”83 The Homeric hero had been
transformed into the Athenian citizen.

THE POLIS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

The philosophic mission of Socrates brought him into conflict
with the Athenians, raising the question of whether an
individual should be free to challenge values fundamental to
the community and whether he should be permitted to
encourage others to do likewise. The Athenians prided
themselves on their freedom of speech, which they believed
constituted an essential difference between a democracy and a
tyranny. The importance of this freedom is underscored by
Aeschylus at the conclusion of the Oresteia. When Athena, the
goddess of wisdom, finally persuades the vengeful Furies to
accept their new role as Eumenides, the Kindly Ones, she
honors two new divinities of the Athenian polis: Peitho, the
goddess of persuasion, and Zeus Agoraios, the god of popular
assemblies. Both divinities represent an Athens that has
replaced bloodthirsty violence and vengeance with reason and
persuasion, the hallmarks of civilized life. Athenians
designated two forms of free speech. The first was isēgoria,
the equal freedom of each citizen to speak and make proposals
in the Assembly. After the opening of each meeting with a
sacrifice and a prayer, a herald signaled the beginning of the
day’s deliberations with the question, “Who wishes to
speak?”84 This equal freedom of each citizen to speak in the
Assembly was celebrated by Theseus, the hero of democracy,
in Euripides’ Suppliants: “Liberty is epitomised in these
words: ‘Let each man who would give good advice to the city
come forward and speak.’ Each one can according to his will
either bring himself into prominence by speech or keep
silence. Is there a finer equality than this for citizens?”85 Any
citizen could mount the speaker’s platform, either to initiate a
proposal or to address one already under consideration. In
addition to isēgoria, Athenians cherished parrhēsia, the
freedom of citizens to speak their mind frankly and
completely, in all political forums, largely without fear of
reprisal.86
Even Socrates praises Athens in Plato’s Gorgias as “the
most free-spoken state in Hellas.”87 In no other Greek city
would Socrates have been permitted to conduct his mission
with impunity for so many years. Citizens were free to express
themselves not only in the Assembly but also in the agora—
the political, legal, and commercial center of Athens. An open
space, the agora was the focal point where Athenians gathered
to discuss political matters that would be more formally
addressed in the Assembly. Here, along the borders, were the
principal government offices and the lawcourts. There also
were the stalls or tables of various traders, and the stoa, open-
fronted, covered buildings where citizens freely conducted
business and philosophers such as Socrates engaged in
intelligent conversation. During the state-sanctioned religious
festivals, the tragic and comic poets were also permitted
considerable liberty to criticize not only popular politicians
and civic institutions but even the gods.
Nevertheless, the Athenian conception of free speech
differed from the modern liberal one. Speech was more
tolerated in the acceptable public forums, where unorthodox
views could be examined by the multitude. All freedom was
subordinate to the interests of the polis, which could exercise
considerable coercive power over dissenters. As the heresy
trials of the second half of the fifth century B.C. show,
philosophers and religious skeptics, whenever perceived as a
menace to the values that made civic order possible, were
granted less tolerance than poets and dramatists.88 As M. I.
Finley asserts, although the Athenians valued and practiced
freedom, “they would not allow that the Assembly had no
right to interfere. There were no theoretical limits to the power
of the state, no activity, no sphere of human behaviour, in
which the state could not legitimately interfere provided the
decision was properly taken for any reason that was held to be
valid by the Assembly.”89 Athenian liberties were not founded
on what were later called natural rights, existing anterior to the
state, but were acquired through active participation in the
public realm—the Assembly, lawcourts, and agora—the realm
of speech and reason, discussion and persuasion. The purpose
of Athenian law was not to guarantee rights but to preserve the
polis. Citizens had no rights to claim against the community.90
The primary focus was not upon rights, but upon political
participation and civic duties.91 The individual could not be
understood apart from the social matrix of values and
relationships. With virtually everything the state’s business,
the ancient Greeks would not have comprehended the modern
liberal view of individual rights. Nor would they have
comprehended the liberal view that limits the state’s function
to the protection of rights. Socrates spoke the language of
duty, especially his paramount duty to obey God, rather than
rights. Indeed, throughout the Apology, he never claimed a
“right” to free speech or a “right” to believe in God as he
chose. In the words of Victor Ehrenberg: “Freedom within the
state was a general fact, freedom from the state was the
exception.”92
Despite the Athenian value of freedom, democracy can
easily deteriorate into a “tyranny of the majority,” with the
sovereign many imposing their will upon minorities or
individuals, not only by law, but also by public opinion. Using
Athens in the time of Socrates as an example, Plato and
Aristotle warned that democracy, whenever it degenerates into
mere license, becomes destructive of freedom. Unlike modern
democracy, in which tyranny can be checked by the separation
of powers, in ancient Athens, the legislative, judicial, and, in
part, executive powers were united in the multitude of citizens.
The sovereign citizenry possessing unlimited power, they
subordinated justice to expediency.93 The Athenians had a
history of oppressing some of their most outstanding citizens
by means of a device known as ostracism. Each year, the
citizens were given an opportunity to banish, by means of a
quorum vote of six thousand, any powerful person deemed a
threat to the interests of the polis. The citizens voted by
scratching on a fragment of pottery (ostrakon) the name of the
person whom they wished to see banished. During the
turbulent years after the Persian Wars, several Athenian
politicians, including Themistocles and Cimon, were
ostracized. Hundreds of pottery fragments have been
unearthed in Athens, some bearing the names of famous
persons such as Themistocles, but many others bearing names
otherwise unknown. While ostracism was ostensibly designed
to protect the freedom of the polis from tyrants, in practice it
was often abused; no measures were taken to protect the
liberty of individual citizens from the collective power of the
majority. Even Pericles, a leader known for his integrity, was
removed from office, tried for embezzlement of funds, and
fined in 430 B.C. Soon after, the Athenians reversed
themselves, reelecting him general shortly before his death
from the plague in 429 B.C. As Thucydides remarked, in a
“time of public need” the Athenians “thought that there was no
man like him.”94
While the Athenian hero-culture valued individual
achievement, the individual remained subordinate to the
community. Athenian citizenship was “communal” rather than
“individualistic” in the modern liberal sense.95 The most
important Athenian freedom was not personal, but political:
the independence of the polis from alien rule and the freedom
of citizens to participate in the government.96 Aristotle
expressed what no Athenian of the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C. was allowed to forget: “The state is by nature clearly prior
to the family and to the individual.” Moreover: “Neither must
we suppose that anyone of the citizens belongs to himself, for
they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the
state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of
the whole.”97 Benjamin Constant, a French liberal of the early
nineteenth century, argued that Athens offered its citizens
greater liberty than a city such as Sparta, but “the individual
was much more subservient to the supremacy of the social
body in Athens, than he is in any of the free states of Europe
today.” According to Constant, among the ancients “all actions
were submitted to a severe surveillance. No importance was
given to individual independence, neither in relation to
opinions, nor to labour, nor, above all, to religion.”98 The state
was responsible for the education and protection of each
citizen. As Max Pohlenz notes, for Pericles and his Greek
contemporaries, “the state comes first. … It is the whole of
which the individual is the part and upon which alone man can
exist… . Only within the limits set by the interests of the
community was the individual to enjoy his freedom.”99 In fact,
the citizenry was regarded as virtually identical to the polis.
“In the good days of the Polis,” Victor Ehrenberg explains,
“there was no real individual life apart from the Polis, because
it was a community embracing all spheres of life, and because
the citizens were also the rulers, and their interest, properly
understood, coincided with those of the Polis.”100
The primacy of the Athenian polis is reflected in the fact
that a citizen who lived an exclusively private life, refusing
like Socrates to participate in the institutionalized collective
decision-making process, was known as an idiōtēs. The origin
of the modern word “idiot,” idiōtēs designated a citizen who
neglected his civic responsibilities.101 The Greek adjective
idiōs means “one’s own” or “private”; and the derivative noun
idiōtēs means a “private person.” As Hannah Arendt
elucidates: “In ancient feeling the privative trait of privacy,
indicated in the word itself, was all-important; it meant
literally a state of being deprived of something, and even of
the highest and most human of man’s capacities.”102 Athenian
citizens were expected to defend their city in war, participate
in religious and other civic festivals, attend the Assembly and
vote on matters determining public policy, and serve on juries.
Such participation was regarded as essential to the life of a
free person. And in political disputes, one had a duty not to
remain neutral. According to tradition, Solon decreed that
whenever the city was beset by a factional dispute, “anyone
who did not choose one side or another in such a dispute
should lose his citizen rights.”103 As Democritus declared, the
man who neglects public business earns a bad name.104 To the
ancient Athenian, citizens who deliberately avoided public
business not only neglected their duty to the polis, but also
acted contrary to their essential social nature. Only within the
nurturing polis could the citizen become fully human, living a
rational and virtuous life. As Aristotle argues, the polis, which
makes possible the good life, reflects the human faculty of
speech (logos) through which human beings communicate
their shared views of the good and the evil, the just and the
unjust. Whereas other species also live communally, humans
are the only beings with the capacity to organize a community
on the basis of shared principles and values, communicated by
speech.105 Speech found its most significant expression in
Athens’ democratic institutions, the institutions that Socrates
chose to shun.
 The trial of Socrates illustrates that when a city seeks power
and wealth at the expense of justice and morality, the good
man is perceived as a bad citizen. In Athens, the virtue of a
good citizen (agathos polītēs) consisted of those qualities that
contributed to the success of the state. Indeed, the Mytilenean
debate and the Melian dialogue—immortalized by Thucydides
—show that, throughout the Peloponnesian War, the power
and material self-interest of Athens took precedence over all
other considerations, especially justice. But Socrates sought to
transform the notions of virtue and the good, making justice
(dikaiosunē) their essential ingredient.106 He also introduced a
new conception of freedom, an interior moral or psychological
freedom that comes with self-knowledge. He offered freedom
from the obsession with material possessions and political
power. In so challenging Athens, Socrates, the good man, was
perceived as a bad citizen. Aristotle later argued in the Politics
that only in a just state will the good citizen and good man
coincide.107 The good man is defined morally and is viewed in
an absolute sense. That is to say, the good man is always the
same, virtuous in any state, regardless of the constitution. On
the other hand, the good citizen is defined relative to the
particular constitution. Good citizenship is thus understood in
a contingent and functional sense, varying with each
constitution, and a good citizen in democratic Athens would
be a bad citizen in oligarchic Sparta.108
Socrates regarded the good man as the only good citizen. In
Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates declares that the virtuous citizen is
one who morally improves his fellows.109 Yet this contradicted
the prevailing view. According to most Athenians, for whom
virtue was intimately connected to the city, the good citizen
was the good man. For Socrates to have been acquitted, he
would have had to demonstrate that, since he was a good
citizen by Athenian standards, the charges in the indictment
were preposterous. But, as the remainder of the Apology
makes clear, the philosopher collided with Athens by
subordinating values and beliefs regarded as essential to the
city’s interest to his divine mission. Socrates did not, of
course, argue explicitly for a modern notion of individual
freedom. Nevertheless, his subordination of the duty to obey
the state to his duty to obey God, expressed by his
conscientious refusal to commit any act of injustice, even if
commanded by the state, constituted a significant step toward
a modern conception of autonomy. By Athenian standards of
civic virtue, one could argue that Meletus was correct.
Socrates, insofar as he promoted a way of thinking and values
antithetical to the Athenian ethos, was legally guilty of
“corrupting” the Athenian young. To the extent that Socrates
did influence the young not to follow blindly the dictates of
the state, but to consult first their conscience, he did “corrupt”
them. At the same time, Socrates could respond, if enough
Athenians were to follow his counsel, pursuing virtue and the
perfection of their souls, the good man would be the good
citizen. Having improved their souls, the Athenians could then
improve the polis.
 Chapter 7

SOCRATES CONFRONTS
HIS PRESENT ACCUSERS:
THE INTERROGATION OF
MELETUS

CORRUPTING THE YOUNG

S
OCRATES’ CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MELETUS is the only
section in the Apology that deals with the charges in the
formal indictment. Socrates exercised his right under
Athenian law to question his nominal accuser. As
reconstructed by Plato, we have an example of the Socratic
elenchus. Meletus, who, according to Socrates, had referred to
himself in his own speech as a good man and a good citizen,
proves to be an easy opponent. Readers of the Apology might
wish for a more formidable adversary, someone like Callicles,
Thrasymachus, or Gorgias, who presented a greater challenge
to Socrates. The cross-examination of Meletus resembles the
dialectical debates popularized by the Sophists. These debates
frequently occurred in the Athenian Assembly and law-courts
and were also sources of entertainment in the gymnasia and at
informal gatherings in private homes. The Athenians, we have
seen, celebrated speech as a means of enhancing one’s prestige
in the city. Established by the Sophists, agonistic debates
featured two participants and an audience. Each participant
adopted a side on an issue, and the contest began. The
participants were given the opportunity to question their
opponents, employing logical devices that would later be
codified by Aristotle in his Topics. If the respondent admitted
to a proposition that contradicted his earlier viewpoint, he lost
the argument. The goal of the questioner was to elicit a
contradictory statement from the respondent; the goal of the
respondent was to anticipate logical traps in the questions and
deal with them effectively and consistently. The audience,
while not a direct participant in the debate, played the role of a
chorus, interrupting to encourage or reprimand the debaters.1
As Friedrich Nietzsche observed, the interrogating Socrates
“discovered a new kind of agōn” and part of the fascination
some Greeks had for Socrates derived from the fact that his
dialectic appealed to their fierce “agonistic impulse.”2 At the
same time, as we have noted, those Athenians who were
humiliated by the philosopher’s formidable cross-
examinations became resentful and envious of him. Such
personal animosity played an important role in the trial of
Socrates.
Confronting Meletus, Socrates easily catches him in logical
absurdities and a gross contradiction. We have observed that,
according to Athenian legal procedure, the trial’s preliminary
hearing included an important phase in which the magistrate of
the court, the King Archon in the case of Socrates, questioned
the disputants, who were also permitted to question each
other.3 At this point, Socrates would have had the opportunity
to size up his opponent. When the time came to cross-examine
Meletus during the trial, Socrates would score a dialectical
victory. Nevertheless, despite his deft handling of his accuser,
Socrates does not deal effectively with the formal charges. Nor
does he elicit the sympathetic emotions from the jury
necessary to gain an acquittal. Instead of merely defeating
Meletus logically, Socrates chooses to badger him and attack
his character.
Socrates begins by repeating the charges in the indictment:
“Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who
does not believe in the gods of the state but has other new
divinities of his own.”4 The attentive juror would have noted
that Socrates reversed the order of the charges, placing that of
corrupting the Athenian youth first. In thinking out his
defense, Socrates may have decided on this tack because he
considered corrupting the young to be the root charge. In
itself, corrupting the young was probably not an indictable
offense.5 Hence, the corruption charge would have had to be
specified by the prosecution in their speeches to the jury. The
fact that the case was initiated before the King Archon, who
had jurisdiction over religious offenses, seems to indicate that
the corruption charge was linked to impiety. If Socrates were
guilty of impiety, such irreverence would serve as a corrupting
influence upon his associates. At the same time, those who
might have borne a grudge against Socrates for criticizing
Athens’ politicians and for avoiding politics could readily
incorporate this into their understanding of the corruption
charge. Would Athenian youth follow Socrates’ example and
abandon politics for philosophy? If many had followed his
critical example, questioning the traditional values and
behavior of their fathers and challenging their wisdom, one
can understand why Socrates would be perceived as a threat to
the established order.6 The future of the city depended upon its
youth. Thus, the charge of corrupting the young, and of
undermining paternal authority, was considered a grave
offense, one that Socrates would have most difficulty
refuting.7 And if he corrupted the youth, he must, of course, be
morally corrupt himself.
From the outset, Socrates casts aspersions upon the motives
and sincerity of Meletus, whom he rebukes for treating a
serious matter frivolously, bringing men to trial not from a
genuine concern for justice but from a pretended zeal for
issues “in which he never really had the smallest interest.”8
Like so many whom Socrates had cross-examined, Meletus
professed to know what he really did not, especially regarding
the moral edification of the young. In interrogating Meletus,
Socrates exposes him to public ridicule. In the process,
Socrates makes a damaging tu quoque argument, reversing the
charge by alleging that Meletus, not Socrates, is a doer of evil
or injustice, since he is untruthful and disrespects the
intelligence of his audience. By seeking to undermine
Meletus’ character and defend his own, Socrates resorted to a
technique common in the Athenian lawcourts. Many might
question the wisdom of the philosopher’s treatment of his
accuser, for he could not possibly win the jury’s favor by a
display of the same elenctic questioning that, by his own
admission, had aroused the hostility toward him over the
years. Many jurors might have concluded that, by questioning
Meletus’ character, Socrates merely detracted from his own.
Nevertheless, he wanted to demonstrate that Meletus, the self-
proclaimed good citizen, was a hypocrite who lacked the
character expected of one professing concern for the morals of
the young and that he did not comprehend the charges in the
indictment of which he was the nominal leader.
Significantly, Socrates’ cross-examination of Meletus
occurred against the backdrop of the amnesty of 403 B.C.,
issued by the restored democracy after the overthrow of the
Thirty Tyrants.9 The new democratic government declared the
year 403-402 B.C., that of the archon-ship of Eucleides, to be
the inauguration of a new era of harmony. The amnesty, also
known as the Act of Oblivion, was designed to heal the
wounds resulting from the civil war between democrats and
oligarchs over the past several months. The amnesty prevented
the prosecution of those who were considered political
enemies, having supported the reign of the Thirty. As decreed,
no person could be indicted for crimes against the state, other
than homicide, committed prior to 403 B.C. Excluded from the
amnesty were the notorious Thirty; the first Board of Ten who
had succeeded them in the city; the Eleven, who had
administered the state prison; and the Ten Governors of
Piraeus; but even these individuals could be immune from
prosecution if they successfully defended themselves upon a
formal review of their activities. The amnesty agreement,
perceived as the most effective way to allow Athens to escape
further bloodshed, evidently had wide support. According to
Aristotle, a man was denounced before the Council and
executed without a trial for violating the agreement.10 In the
spirit of reconciliation, the Council and all jurors took annual
oaths confirming the amnesty. Athenian jurors were required
to swear: “We will remember past offenses no more.”11 The
amnesty, therefore, not only was enforced by government
decree but also secured divine support by a sacred oath.
Yet, as Gregory Nagy reminds us, an amnesty, a
government-instituted act of selective nonremembering, is
never value free.12 Legislation might control actions, but not
memory; those who suffered under the terror of the Thirty
could not forget the past. The purpose of the amnesty was to
“forget” selectively only those things not essential to the city’s
future. As the trial of Socrates makes clear, the conciliatory
spirit of the amnesty did not induce many Athenians to forget
that the philosopher’s beliefs and activities posed a danger to
the city. In modern times, an amnesty is a general pardon,
especially for political offenses against the government. But
the ancient Athenians made no clear separation between
religion and politics. We have noted that in 399 B.C., just prior
to the trial of Socrates, the orator Andocides was tried for
impiety. He had been implicated in the religious scandals of
415 B.C., but managed to secure immunity after confessing and
retiring from Athens. Upon returning, he was indicted in 399
B.C. for a religious crime. He was accused of defying a decree
that prohibited his visiting Athenian temples, allegedly
committed after 403 B.C., and thus not technically under the
protection of the amnesty. But Andocides argued that his
indictment violated the amnesty, under which, he alleged, he
was entitled to full public rights. He was acquitted, either
because he had managed to convince the jurors of his
innocence or because they decided that his indictment violated
the amnesty, at least in spirit. The indictment of Andocides
demonstrates that the amnesty applied to religious as well as
political crimes against the state.
Any intention to indict Socrates prior to 399 B.C. would have
been severely hampered because, after the amnesty, the
Athenians undertook a complete revision and codification of
their law. Completed in 400-399 B.C., this reform nullified all
previous legislation, including a decree against impiety in the
early 430s B.C. that was directed against Anaxagoras. Thus, if
Socrates were indicted for religious crimes allegedly
committed after 403 B.C., it would have had to be on the basis
of a new impiety statute that has not survived. By 399 B.C.,
the resentment that had been building against Socrates reached
its zenith. The oligarchs finally crushed in 401-400 B.C.,
Athens was once again a united city. When the commission
charged with revising the Attic law completed its work the
same year, the courts were no longer in a condition of
confusion. The newly codified laws having been inscribed for
all to see on the Royal Stoa, the way seemed clear for legal
action against Socrates.13 As the city struggled to maintain
stability, the prosecution most likely concluded that charging
the philosopher with corrupting the young and religious
unorthodoxy would best arouse the prejudices and fears of the
average juror.
While the amnesty was essential to the creation of a
peaceful new order, the prohibition against “recalling evils”
from the past hindered the prosecution’s efforts against
Socrates and may help explain the lack of specification in the
written indictment. As I. F. Stone noted, the trial of Socrates
lacked what is now known as a bill of particulars linked to the
indictment.14 A bill of particulars is an amplification of an
indictment, providing a defendant with a more detailed picture
of the case against him. Ordinarily, the prosecution must
provide such particulars, which it is their burden to prove in
court. Moreover, having a bill of particulars enables the
accused to plan a defense. Nevertheless, while Socrates was
charged with impiety and corrupting the young, no specific
impious actions by him are mentioned in the indictment, nor
do we find the names of individual youths that he allegedly
corrupted. The basis for the impiety charge was probably not
some alleged failure by Socrates to abide by Athenian
religious rituals, but was related instead to his unorthodox
beliefs.15 The reference in the indictment to introducing “new
divinities” probably related to Socrates’ divine “voice” or
“sign,” the strange, mystical communication between the
philosopher and God. This divine voice played an instrumental
role in the philosopher’s mission and, as we shall see, figures
prominently in the Apology. Again, since the amnesty
prohibited the explicit inclusion of crimes committed prior to
403 B.C., the indictment could not specify Socrates’ divine
voice, which guided him throughout most of his life. Since the
Athenian polis had insisted on complete control over religion,
an individual who claimed to enjoy private, unmediated
communications from the divine would be regarded as a
threat.
The fact that Socrates had to question Meletus on the
precise meaning of the indictment might indicate that the
speeches of the prosecution did not shed much light on the
charges. Evidently, the accusers feared that specification might
have jeopardized their case, violating the amnesty in spirit, if
not in law. They were aware that Andocides had been
acquitted of the charge of impiety and that the question of
whether the amnesty had been violated had played an
important role. Thus, while the prosecutors may have wished
to indict Socrates for his beliefs and activities prior to 403 B.C.,
the amnesty prevented them from making this explicit. That is,
they could not have indicted Socrates on the grounds that two
of his former “students,” Critias and Charmides, had been
members of the Thirty Tyrants. Critias, a cousin of Plato, had
also been implicated in a religious sacrilege. In 415 B.C., just
prior to the Athenian expedition to Sicily, stone statues of the
god of travelers, Hermes, situated in doorways and at sacred
places throughout the city, were mutilated, causing a general
uproar, as the sacrilege was regarded not only as an ill omen
for the expedition but also as part of an aristocratic conspiracy
to overthrow the democracy.16 Critias also participated in the
short-lived oligarchic revolution of the Four Hundred in 411
B.C. He was, moreover, the reputed author of Sisyphus, a satyr
play that suggested that the gods were invented by rulers to
secure the obedience of their subjects. As Victor Ehrenberg
pointed out, Critias actually lived the right of the stronger
doctrine expressed by Plato’s Callicles and Thrasymachus.17
Charmides, cousin of Critias and uncle of Plato, entered
politics on Socrates’ advice, and he participated in the
oligarchic revolution of 404 B.C. During the reign of the Thirty,
Charmides commanded Piraeus.
The amnesty also forbade the indictment of Socrates for his
association with Alcibiades, who had done much to subvert
the Athenian democracy, first by his betrayal of Athens to
Sparta during the disastrous Sicilian expedition, and then by
his role in the oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C. Alcibiades was
also implicated in the mutilation of the Hermae and the
profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. All these religious and
political crimes of Socrates’ associates made an indelible
impression upon the minds of Athenians, augmenting their
fear of instability and contributing to an atmosphere of
hysteria during the latter part of the Peloponnesian War and its
aftermath. While Socrates could not be legally charged with
complicity in the crimes of his associates, the prosecution
could expect any Athenian jury to harbor hostile feelings
toward the city’s gadfly.
In framing the indictment against Socrates, the prosecution
had to be careful not to violate the amnesty.18 It must at least
appear that Socrates was charged of crimes committed during
the four years since the democracy was restored in 403 B.C.
But the philosopher’s associations prior to the amnesty,
although not legally part of the formal indictment, could still
be introduced against him. Evidence from the speeches of
Lysias and others reveals that while a litigant’s deeds under the
Thirty and before could not, owing to the amnesty, be made
the basis for a legal indictment, such deeds could be used as
evidence of character. In Athenian courts, regardless of the
question legally at issue, the whole life of an individual could
be submitted to lend credence to his good or bad citizenship,
his deserving judicial condemnation or acquittal.19 Hence,
references to acts committed under the Thirty, such as whether
a person had sided with the democrats or the oligarchs, could
be freely made without contravening the amnesty.20 In 399
B.C., the prosecution may have been especially concerned with
linking Socrates to the Sophists, since many Athenians
believed that these professional teachers had corrupted the
young leaders of both the oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C., and
the tyrannical rule of the Thirty in 404-403 B.C.21 Establishing
such a connection could aggravate whatever political
grievances the jury might have had against Socrates, which
could not have been expressly stipulated in the indictment.
Although politics undoubtedly played a role in the
indictment of Socrates, the prosecution may have determined
that because, under the terms of the amnesty, Socrates could
only be charged with crimes allegedly committed during the
period from 403-399 B.C., they had a better chance of
succeeding with the more vague charge of impiety, expecting
that the prejudiced and superstitious minds of many jurors
would supply the precision that the written indictment lacked.
If Socrates had been indicted on strictly political charges, the
trial would have had to take place in a different court, as the
Court of the King Archon had jurisdiction only in cases
involving impiety and murder. In avoiding explicit charges,
political or religious, relating to Socrates’ activities prior to
403 B.C., the prosecution would escape any suspicion that they
had violated the amnesty. At the same time, the amnesty
would not have prevented the prosecution from referring to
Socrates’ political behavior and associations during and before
the reign of the Thirty to establish that a person of his
character did not deserve the court’s mercy. Socrates’ well-
known association with infamous enemies of Athenian
democracy would serve to confirm in the minds of many
jurors the old accusation of the Clouds that the philosopher
was a corrupter of the young who turned them against
cherished Athenian values.
Given the intertwining of Athenian religion and politics, to
isolate the religious charges against Socrates from unstated
political charges is to separate what Athenians regarded as
inseparable. In effect, the religious charges were political, and
the political charges were religious. If the amnesty prohibited
explicit inclusion of political charges in the official indictment,
the jury would nevertheless construe the religious and
corruption charges as related to crimes against the state.
Moreover, if the religious charges were a mere pretext to
disguise fundamentally political motives for the indictment,
Socrates himself did not believe so. In fact, the political
conspiracy theory, endorsed by I. F. Stone and others, suffers
from underestimating the profound influence of religion and
superstition upon the Athenians in Socrates’ day.22 The
impiety charge alone, which struck at the root of polis life, was
sufficient to arouse most jurors. Whatever role politics played
in the indictment of Socrates, the prosecution realized that
they stood the best chance of convicting the philosopher of
impiety, as broadly conceived by the Athenians.23 While
Socrates’ three accusers may have had political motives, many
jurors would have found every aspect of the philosopher’s
mission, religious as well as political, a threat to the polis.24
Socrates took the indictment’s religious charges seriously,
making no reference in his speech to disguised political
motives of the prosecution.25 Plato’s Seventh Letter indicates
that he too, reflecting upon the execution of Socrates, took the
religious charges seriously.26 It would seem that, in 399 B.C.,
with Alcibiades and Critias already dead, many Athenians
were more concerned with the subversive influence that a
philosopher like Socrates, willing to subject every belief,
every tradition, and every institution to critical questioning,
might exert upon the young.
Taking advantage of the amnesty’s restrictions, Socrates
begins his interrogation of Meletus with the corruption charge.
Donning the ironic mask of a learner, he asks Meletus to
instruct him on who improves the young. Mocking the name
Meletus, which means “the man who cares,” Socrates says his
adversary must know the answer. When, after some hesitation,
Meletus credits the laws, Socrates rejects this abstraction,
challenging him to name a person who exercises a beneficial
effect upon the young. The philosopher is aware that it would
not be in Meletus’ interest to offend anyone. Since the
corruption charge implies that some person, namely Socrates,
bears moral responsibility for corrupting the young, he feels
justified in asking Meletus to name those persons who
improve them. Sensing a trap, Meletus fumbles for a reply, as
Socrates badgers him: “Observe, Meletus, that you are silent
and have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful and a
very considerable truth of what I was saying, that you have no
interest in this matter?” Meletus finally answers that the
members of the jury improve the young. Socrates responds
with mock praise: “By the goddess Hera, that is good news!
There are plenty of improvers then.” He then takes advantage
of Meletus’ predicament, encouraging him to push his
generalization to what might appear to be an absurd degree.
Under Socrates’ prodding, the opportunistic Meletus indulges
in what seems to be a gross exaggeration, extending
successively the identity of those who improve the young from
the jury to the spectators present in court, to the five hundred
members of the Council and finally to all the members of the
Assembly.27
Thus, with an expression of democratic piety, Meletus
declared that the entire citizen population of Athens
contributed to the moral edification of the young. To this,
Socrates replies: “Then every Athenian improves and elevates
them; all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their
corrupter?” When Meletus affirms, Socrates proceeds to refute
his victim’s sweeping claim by an argument from analogy. Just
as in the case of horses, Socrates asserts, only one or a few
persons, not everyone, can train or improve them, so one
should expect to find only a few capable of improving the
young. With stinging irony, Socrates emphasizes the apparent
absurdity of Meletus’ claim: “Happy indeed would be the
condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and the rest
of the world were their improvers.”28 If the burden of proof
lay with the prosecution, it seems that Socrates has succeeded
in defending himself on the grounds of probability. With
virtually all of Athens improving the young, it is unlikely that
his single negative influence, even if true, ought to be feared.
Yet, throughout the remainder of his defense, Socrates would
undertake to demonstrate that he alone has an edifying
influence upon the young.
Socrates then proceeds to point out another absurdity. After
inducing Meletus to admit, first, that it is better to live in a
good rather than a bad community and, second, that no one
prefers to be harmed rather than benefited by his associates,
Socrates asks Meletus whether he means to charge him with
corrupting the young voluntarily. When Meletus replies
affirmatively, Socrates subjects his victim to additional
sarcasm: “Is that a truth which your superior wisdom 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?”29 Socrates then argues that since bad people
always exert a bad effect and good people a good effect, it
would be absurd to conclude that he would voluntarily harm
the characters of his associates, for he would then risk being
harmed himself by those whom he had corrupted. Generating
evil in others would be self-destructive. Socrates next alleges
that if he does not willfully harm the characters of his
associates, the proper course of action toward him should not
be indictment before a court of law, but private reproof and
enlightenment, since he would not act to harm himself.
This argument is based upon the well-known Socratic
teaching that virtue is a form of knowledge. According to
Socrates, to know the good is to do the good; to know one’s
duty is to perform one’s duty. If one knows what is good, that
which leads to true human happiness, one cannot fail to act
morally; thus, no one does evil voluntarily. No person,
moreover, would willingly do an evil to himself. Hence, moral
evil is the product of intellectual error, not of a weak or sinful
will in the later Christian sense. Socrates assumes that once
persons have a clear understanding of their real moral
interests, reason and will should direct them to a good end.
“He who knows the beautiful and good will never choose
anything else,” Socrates is represented as saying by
Xenophon; “he who is ignorant of them cannot do them, and
even if he tries, will fail.”30 But a critic might respond that,
according to this logic, since crime harms society and the
criminal must live in society, no one would ever voluntarily
commit a crime.31 If all evil is involuntary, criminals should be
admonished and educated, not punished. Socrates’ more
perceptive listeners may well have seen this as sheer sophistry.
“That this defence does not amount to much,” judged
Kierkegaard, “is clearly seen by all, for in this way one could
explain away every offence and transform it into error.”32
Moreover, many jurors may have viewed the claim that no one
willingly does evil as contrary to everyday experience. No
legal system will accept the contention that criminals do not
willingly commit crimes.
It has often been pointed out that Socrates’ intellectual view
of ethics fails to allow for weakness of the will or
incontinence, what is termed akrasia, and underestimates the
power of the passions in overcoming the understanding.33
According to Socrates, one will do what one rationally knows
to be good and will refrain from what one rationally knows to
be bad. For Socrates, there was no such thing as sin, only
ignorance. Convinced that wrongdoing was rooted in the lack
of knowledge, he devoted himself to examining his fellow
Athenians, exhorting them toward a clear and rational
understanding of their beliefs. Only when they mistakenly see
evil as good will they do evil. Yet, critics might respond, not
everyone is always able to understand the good, and even
when one is, lack of self-control often leads to willful actions
contrary to rational self-interest. In other words, individuals
frequently do freely what they know to be wrong. Socrates
took no account of that condition which led Saint Paul to
lament: “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I
would not, that I do.”34 Knowledge of the good, therefore, is
necessary but is not alone sufficient for the virtuous life.

THE POLIS AS TEACHER

The claim of Meletus that all Athenians contribute to the
moral improvement of the young might seem incredible, but it
reflects the traditional, corporate view of the polis. Meletus
assumed that virtually everyone in society contributed to the
formation of the individual citizen. Plato addressed this point
in the Protagoras, in which the famous Sophist expounds to
Socrates a theory of the origins of human civilization. Plato’s
rendition of Protagoras’ views is apparently based on the
Sophist’s lost treatise, On the Original Condition of Mankind.
Protagoras begins with a mythos similar to that of the social
contract theorists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
He employs the myth to demonstrate the important educative
function of society. Originally, humans, having been created
by the gods, lived a scattered existence in a state of nature. But
the solicitude of Prometheus bestowed upon humankind the
means to a better life`technical arts and fire. With these gifts,
humans provided themselves with food, clothing, shelter, and
speech. Alone among living creatures, they believed in gods,
erected altars, and created divine images. Yet humans lived
without cities, leaving them unprotected from animal
predators. To preserve themselves from beasts in the state of
nature, humans took the necessary step to form communities.
Yet, lacking the “art of politics,” they continually harmed each
other, leading to a reversion to the original precarious state of
nature. Fearing the extinction of the human race, Zeus
dispatched Hermes to humankind “bearing reverence and
justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of
friendship and conciliation.” When Hermes asked Zeus
whether these political blessings, which made society possible,
should be distributed only to select human beings, like the arts
of medicine and other skills, Zeus replied: “I should like them
all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share
in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my
order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be
put to death, for he is a plague of the state.”35 The polis thus
received divine sanction.
Protagoras proceeds to explain that while the political or
social virtues are by nature bestowed upon every human being,
these virtues require conscious development by means of
education. Although individuals differ in endowment and the
degree in which they have perfected the art of politics, the
seeds of this aretē are universally distributed among
humankind and perfectible by education and practice. Thus,
the divinely sanctioned polis is responsible for the education
of its citizens. Their participation in public affairs, a
fundamental principle of Athenian democracy, is in itself an
education in civic virtue. Protagoras therefore explains to
Socrates that while the Athenians may listen only to the few in
matters that demand special technical expertise, such as the
crafts, “when they meet to deliberate about political virtue,
which proceeds only by way of justice and wisdom, they are
patient enough of any man who speaks of them, as is also
natural, because they think that every man ought to share in
this sort of virtue, and that states could not exist if this were
otherwise.”36 Since all men, therefore, possess political virtue,
they are entitled to participate in the government of their city.
In essence, Protagoras had explained the rationale for
Athenian democracy, earning himself the reputation as the first
democratic theorist.37
The teaching of political virtue, Protagoras argues to a
skeptical Socrates, requires no special expertise; in fact, “all
men are teachers of virtue, each according to his ability.”38
This moral education begins in childhood, first with the
parents, then with teachers and study of great poets, and is
completed with the laws. Thus everyone—parents and
teachers, neighbors and friends—promotes virtue for their
mutual self-interest. This view is echoed in Plato’s Meno,
when, in response to Socrates’ request to identify an Athenian
capable of teaching virtue to Meno, Anytus replies: “Why
single out individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at
random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him
than the Sophists.”39 Thus Meletus’ inclusive claim regarding
the educative role of all Athenian citizens merely reflected the
prevailing belief. As the poet Simonides declared: “A city
teaches a man.”40 Yet, if indeed so many contributed to the
edification of the young, one wonders why the Athenians
feared the alleged single corruptive influence of Socrates so
much as to convict him of a capital offense. Nevertheless, the
dauntless philosopher would use his speech to reverse the
charge, maintaining that most of the older generation, having
neglected to pursue virtue and the perfection of their souls,
were the true corrupters of the young. Indeed, as Plato’s
Socrates argues in the Republic, Athenian youth have been
corrupted not by individuals, especially not by philosophers,
but by “the greatest of all Sophists,” the public at large.41

ATHENIAN POLIS RELIGION

The ancient Greeks understood piety (eusebeia) principally as
reverence or respect for the gods and the religious rituals of
the polis. But piety also included proper behavior toward the
dead, one’s parents and ancestors, and all members of the
polis. As one scholar observed, the Greek conception of piety
was “so extended and, indeed, indefinitely extendable as to
make piety just about incapable of being defined as a
particular rather than an all-inclusive virtue.”42 Hence piety
encompassed all virtuous action, and impiety (asebeia) was
regarded as a threat to the foundations of civil life. Impiety
toward the gods, a grave offense, covered a broad spectrum of
behavior, including disrespectful actions, such as damage to
sacred property, destruction of divine images, or profanation
of the Eleusinian mysteries. It also included denial of the
deities recognized by the polis and the introduction of new
deities not officially recognized. In a speech of Lysias, two
cases of alleged impiety toward the mysteries of Eleusis are
mentioned: Diagoras of Melos was “impious in speech
regarding the sacred things and celebrations of a foreign
place,” and Andocides “was impious in act regarding the
sanctities of his own city.”43 The impious individual was
regarded as polluted, and this pollution (miasma), the Greeks
believed, could induce the gods to inflict severe punishment
upon the entire community, such as sterility or plague. The
legal penalty for impiety was usually death or exile.
Greek religion was more one of ritualistic action, or
orthopraxy, than of belief, or orthodoxy.44 The polis
established various rituals and constructed temples in honor of
the gods in order to secure divine protection for the
community.45 The Athenians had no church, no sacred
scripture, no dogmas, and, except for certain exclusive sects,
no priesthood. Although Greek religion had a mystical side, as
manifested in various mystery cults, the intense religious self-
consciousness found later in Saint Augustine’s Confessions
would have been unfathomable to the contemporaries of
Socrates. Nevertheless, while it is no doubt true that impiety
was primarily a matter of behavior, an offense against
established religious customs or rituals, it also included
unorthodox beliefs about the gods and atheism.46 As we have
noted, the impiety charge in Socrates’ indictment probably
referred not to some failure to conform to religious ritual but
rather to unorthodox beliefs. Concern for correct beliefs about
the deities did not begin with the case of Socrates. The
Athenian orator Isocrates declared that poets who spread
falsehoods about the gods, along with those who believed
them, were guilty of impiety. As Harvey Yunis explains,
Athenian polis religion was predicated upon three fundamental
beliefs: The gods exist; they are concerned about human
affairs; and the relationship between the gods and humans is
reciprocal, albeit unequal.47
Impiety could also include teaching or speech that had a
corrupting influence upon public morals. In a little-noted
speech by Hyperides, a younger contemporary of Plato,
delivered in 361-360 B.C., the Athenians were reminded that
they punished Socrates not for his deeds, but for his words.48
Socrates’ words, subjecting traditional values, political or
religious, to critical examination, must have been interpreted
by many as impious. The ancient Greeks believed, in the
words of the poet Pindar, that “Nomos is king of all.”49 The
general population thus was unwilling to tolerate an individual
who challenged established conventions, values, views, and
customs.50 As Edward Caird concluded, the teaching of
Socrates “was essentially individualistic and unsocial in its
effect. It set each man to think out the problem of life for
himself; and if it did not put him in opposition to society, at
least it made him regard his relations to it as secondary, and
not as the essential basis of his moral existence. And from the
point of view of a religion like that of Greece, which was
essentially national (and even municipal) in its spirit,
consecrating the City-state as a kind of church or divine
institution, this was a profoundly irreligious attitude. Thus,
literally and absolutely, Socrates was guilty of the charges
against him.”51
The survival of the community, the Greeks believed,
depended upon maintaining a proper relationship with the
divine. Hence, Athenians in Socrates’ day were expected to
believe in the gods of the polis and participate in religious
rituals. According to Plato’s Euthyphro: “Piety or holiness is
learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers
and sacrifices. Such piety is the salvation of families and
states, just as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is
their ruin and destruction.”52 Since religion was so closely
bound with Greek society, there was no real distinction
between the sacred and the secular, no modern separation
between church and state. Religion was the vital center of the
polis, and the elaborate symbolic system of rituals reinforced
social cohesion. The Athenians regarded their democratic
constitution as divinely sanctioned. Indeed, whenever they
pronounced the name of their city, they thereby invoked the
name of the goddess Athena, their divine protectress. The
religious festivals of Athens were attended by all members of
the population, citizens and resident foreigners, male and
female. Even slaves, excluded from all other significant
aspects of civic life, participated.53 As Martin Nilsson
observed, Greek religion was “from the beginning a religion of
the community…. No such unity as we find in Greece between
state and religion has ever existed elsewhere.”54 During the
Age of Pericles, the marriage between religion and the
Athenian state was reflected by the Parthenon, the Temple of
Athena Nike, and the Erechtheum, symbols of the greatness of
the city and its devotion to the gods.
Traditional Greek piety demanded not only belief in the
gods and participation in the religious rituals of the city but
also respect for the institutions that made city life possible. In
the ancient city, religion inevitably took on political overtones,
becoming a form of patriotism. Each meeting of the Athenian
Assembly opened with prayers and purificatory sacrifices. The
pious person was a good citizen, one who not only abided by
the state religion but also promoted the public interest. A
crime against the state, endangering the fabric of society, was
regarded as a form of impiety, and impiety was regarded as a
crime against the state, not a matter of private conscience. The
interdependence between Athenian religion and politics is
reflected in the official indictment against Socrates, which
charged him with disbelieving in the gods “of the state” and
substituting gods of his own. To offend the gods was not only
a sacrilege but was also a form of treason, since it invited
disaster for the community.
If the Euthyphro accurately represents the religious beliefs
of the historical Socrates, he was indeed subversive of
orthodox Athenian religion. Socrates asks Euthyphro “whether
the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or
holy because it is beloved of the gods.”55 While the latter
alternative, consistent with traditional piety, would imply that
piety or goodness is arbitrary and provisional, whatever the
gods enjoin, Socrates proceeds to argue instead that the gods
love things because these things are pious in themselves.
Indeed, it is the essential character of something that makes it
good or holy. Such a belief detracts from the power of the gods
and contradicts traditional Athenian polytheism, for, instead of
determining morality, the gods are themselves subject to an
absolute objective ethical standard. And if the Olympian gods
are really gods, Socrates further believed, they should be
unequivocally good. If so, their depiction in Greek epic and
myth is patently false.
Shortly after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War,
possibly in response to the plague, Athens issued a decree
prohibiting disbelief in the gods and teaching doctrines about
the heavens.56 This was the decree of Diopeithes, promulgated
in the early 430s B.C., the first known Athenian attempt to
extend the scope of impiety beyond actions to speech and
belief. Yet the decree was not strictly enforced, and the
Athenians did make some allowances. The persecution of
unorthodox religious beliefs was the exception rather than the
rule. Greek playwrights often ridiculed the gods with
impunity. Aristophanes mocked not only Zeus but also
Dionysus, the god whom the dramatic festivals were designed
to honor. Nevertheless, the comic dramatists could never
assume a freedom of speech “right” to ridicule.57 While
Athenians were tolerant of the critical religious views of
playwrights, expressed within the conventions of religious
festivals, they did not extend the same degree of freedom to
philosophers.58 Indeed, since intellectual freedom in Athens
resulted from the absence of restrictive law, rather than a
legally guaranteed right, such freedom could be curtailed
whenever it was deemed a threat to the polis. The natural
philosopher Anaxagoras, who taught that the sun and moon
were not deities but fiery stones originally part of the earth,
became a victim of Athenian persecution. According to one
tradition, he was prosecuted for impiety, fined, and exiled.
Another source alleges that he fled Athens in response to
Diopeithes’ decree and was condemned to death in his
absence.59 Diagoras of Melos, a well-known atheist, escaped
Athens after allegedly being condemned to death for mocking
the Eleusinian mysteries. The Sophist Protagoras was indicted
for his agnostic views expressed in his treatise, On the Gods,
where he states: “Concerning the gods I am unable to discover
whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form.”60
According to tradition, Protagoras’ books were publicly
burned. Charged with impiety, he fled Athens and drowned at
sea while sailing to Sicily. As Diogenes Laertius quipped, the
Sophist escaped Athens, but not Hades.61 Thus, although
ancient Athenian religion was primarily concerned with ritual,
those thinkers, including Socrates, whose beliefs were
perceived to contradict the religious foundation of the polis
were regarded with fear and hostility. Individuals were
punished not only for actions but also for ideas deemed
irreligious.62 The Athenian heresy trials, argues E.R. Dodds,
“prove that the Great Age of Greek Enlightenment was also,
like our own time, an Age of Persecution.”63
The trial of Socrates is the foremost example of the
application of an Athenian impiety law to a person for
unorthodox religious belief or speech.64 If the philosopher was
a bad citizen, many would have regarded him as impious.
Conversely, if he was impious, many would have regarded him
as a bad citizen. Thus, we see that the prosecution benefited
from the vague literal form of the indictment against Socrates.
In the minds of many Athenians, for him to be guilty of the
impiety charge was also to be guilty of the corruption charge;
at the same time, to be guilty of corrupting the youth was also
to be guilty of impiety. And, like corruption, impiety affected
the welfare of the polis. The Greeks, we have noted, believed
that the gods would punish the entire city for the impious acts
of individuals. The Iliad opens with the Greeks afflicted by a
plague because Agamemnon had incited Apollo’s wrath. And
many Athenians may have believed that their defeat in the
Peloponnesian War stemmed from some offense given to the
gods. They may have also believed that the goddess Athena
Polias had deserted the city in its defeat at the hands of the
Spartans. The interdependence of Athenian politics and
religion was illustrated when statues of the god Hermes were
mutilated in 415 B.C., on the eve of the Sicilian expedition.
Many interpreted the sacrilege as an evil omen. Their fears
were confirmed, as Athens soon suffered one of its most
devastating defeats. Thus, impiety was regarded as a crime
subject to punishment not only by the gods but also by the
state.
But Socrates had not profaned the mysteries, and, if we can
believe the testimony of Xenophon, he was scrupulous in
observing the various Athenian religious rites, performing the
requisite prayers and sacrifices.65 It is possible that Socrates
may have aroused resentment by avoiding a number of
important religious festivals. During the fifth century B.C.,
despite the advances of the Greek Enlightenment, the
Olympian gods continued to grip the popular imagination. It
has been estimated that festivals were celebrated on about half
of the days of the year.66 Socrates was so consumed by his
philosophic mission that, as he told the jury, he found no time
for public politics, neglecting his family and other personal
concerns. He may have possibly also ignored many religious
festivals. While his absence may have been legal, it was not
unnoticed, and might, in the less tolerant political climate of
399 B.C., have lent credence to the religious charges in the
indictment.
There are serious implications in the charge that Socrates
was guilty of not “recognizing” or “acknowledging” the gods
of Athens. The gods referred to were probably those regarded
as essential for the protection of the city: Athena Polias, Zeus
Polieus, and Apollo Delphinios.67 The Greek word for
“recognize” (nomizein) is the verb from the noun nomos,
meaning law, convention, or tradition.68 As we have noted, the
ancient Greeks regarded nomos, the entire legal-social order,
as the gift of the gods. Although human intelligence played a
part in shaping the nomoi, which explains their variety, they
were believed to be ultimately rooted in the world of the
divine. During the latter half of the fifth century B.C., as we
have seen, the Sophists attempted to sever the link between the
nomoi and the divine, treating social institutions, including
religion, as human conventions and relative, based solely upon
utility. While, as Bruno Snell observed, nomizein originally
referred to valuing or respecting the gods through the
prescribed sacred rituals, by the middle of the fifth century, as
indicated by the charges against Socrates, the word seemed
also to refer to proper belief concerning the gods.69 If,
therefore, Socrates were guilty either of not believing in the
accepted gods or of introducing gods not formally recognized,
he would have been perceived as a subversive.
Acknowledging the gods according to the established
procedures was regarded as integral to the survival of the
polis. Moreover, Socrates’ individualistic view of piety,
involving a personal relationship to a divinity, inevitably
clashed with the traditional collective and more exclusively
ritualistic view. Finally, in light of the Greek understanding of
impiety, which was broad enough to include virtually any
action regarded as a threat to the polis, such as corrupting the
young, even actions of Socrates not considered impious by
modern standards might fall within the purview of the ancient
Athenian impiety law.
It is probable that the prosecution, given the intimate
relationship between religion and the state in ancient Athens,
capitalized on the thin line between impiety and treason by
framing an indictment sufficiently vague so as to allow the
jury to project a number of grievances upon Socrates. Owing
to the great political insecurity of the time, with the democracy
struggling to establish itself and the imprecise nature of the
impiety law, the prosecution had sufficient basis to believe that
their efforts would succeed. Anyone who taught the young to
question the established beliefs and traditions, either in
religion or politics, could be seen as a corrupter. Moreover, the
large jury, some five hundred citizens, entrusted with great
power and responsibility but lacking expert legal knowledge,
were liable to be swayed by reasons irrelevant to strict justice
and the facts.70
While the Athenian impiety statute has not been preserved,
we can assume that the crime itself was not precisely defined.
Nor did the city have an institution that could have offered an
authoritative definition. As David Cohen concludes: “Whereas
more centralized legal systems regard the resolution of such
questions of statutory interpretation or definition as the
exclusive preserve of some elite group of specialists, Athens
chose not to follow this path because it would have taken a
crucial element of power away from the people.”71 The
community, it was assumed, would recognize impiety when it
occurred. As we have noted, the Greeks had a general
understanding of what constituted impiety. The imprecision of
the statute left the definition in the hands of untrained juries
who decided on a case-by-case basis. Since the Athenian
judicial system did not provide for professional judges to assist
jurors in wading through complex legal issues and to advise
them on how the law should be applied, ordinary citizens not
only had to define impiety in particular cases but also had to
judge whether the crime had been committed.72 According to
one authority: “Every juror had to make up his own mind, not
only on the facts but also on questions of law and equity,
solely from the speeches and evidence presented by the rival
litigants.”73 Given such latitude, it was possible for juries to
judge a person guilty of impiety either for actions or for
unorthodox beliefs. Moreover, juries were not afforded the
opportunity of consulting a body of judicial decisions. In
Athenian courts, precedents did not have legal authority. In
fact, jurors took an oath to decide cases on their individual
merits. Like all Athenian jurors, those assigned by lot to
Socrates’ case had been required to swear by Zeus, Apollo,
and Demeter—the Heliastic Oath—which can be
reconstructed from the work of Demosthenes: “I will cast my
vote in consonance with the laws and with the decrees passed
by the Assembly and by the Council, but, if there is no law, in
consonance with my sense of what is most just, without favour
or enmity. I will vote only on the matters raised in the charge,
and I will listen impartially to the accusers and defenders
alike.”74
At the time of Socrates’ trial, the challenge to the jurors was
exacerbated because, as we have noted, a substantial revision
of the Athenian legal code, authorized by the Assembly in
410–409 B.C. and renewed after the reconciliation of 403 B.C.,
had finally been completed. The revised legal code, we recall,
could be viewed in the Royal Stoa in 400–399 B.C. With this in
mind, as Robert Garland observes, the jury may have regarded
Socrates’ indictment as a “test case” for them to decide
definitively what actions and beliefs fell under a new impiety
statute.75 Hence, beliefs and actions long tolerated could now
be brought under firm state control. As we have seen,
Athenian juries decided cases not solely on their judgment as
to whether or not the defendant committed a crime. Their
judgment was largely influenced by their opinion of the
defendant as a citizen.76 Thus, we can understand why
Socrates felt constrained to begin his defense, not with a
discussion of the official charges, but with the damaging
prejudices against him that had accumulated over the years,
thus hindering an impartial trial. He realized that, given the
Athenian legal system, the jury would be judging him by
standards much broader than those stipulated by the written
indictment. The success of Socrates’ defense, we have
emphasized, depended largely upon whether he could induce
the jurors to interpret vague charges in his favor.

SOCRATES AND IMPIETY

In addressing the indictment, Socrates sees the corruption
charge as rooted in the impiety charge. In other words, he is
accused of corrupting the minds of the young by influencing
them to believe in new deities instead of those officially
recognized by the polis. After Meletus concurs with this
interpretation, he appears to fall into a trap set by Socrates.
The charge of impiety is divided into two parts, positive and
negative: that Socrates introduces new gods and that he rejects
the gods officially recognized. Alleging that he does not
understand precisely the point of the indictment that he has
just restated, Socrates asks Meletus to clarify whether it means
that he believes in some gods, in which case he cannot be a
complete atheist; whether he believes in gods different from
those acknowledged by the polis; or whether he believes in no
gods at all and teaches others to do the same.77 It is plausible
that the philosopher had taken the opportunity to question
Meletus during the trial’s preliminary hearing and concluded
that his opponent lacked a firm grasp of the charges. As we
have noted, Athenian juries had great latitude, functioning as
both judges and juries. Hence, they would, in effect, define the
crime of impiety at Socrates’s trial, and then decide whether he
was indeed impious.78 Strictly speaking, the written
indictment did not charge Socrates with atheism, which he
could easily refute, but with heterodoxy. If, therefore, he can
elicit an interpretation from his accuser that exceeded the
sworn indictment, making atheism the principal offense,
perhaps the jury will ignore the less severe literal charge of not
acknowledging the gods of the polis and acquit him. Socrates
is in a better position to defend himself against atheism, belief
in no gods, rather than unorthodoxy, belief in false gods. If he
succeeds in maneuvering Meletus, he will gamble that the jury
will be moved by his earlier disclaimers to conclude that he is
not the atheistic Socrates of Aristophanes’ Clouds.
Seizing the opportunity to extend the charges of the
indictment, Meletus responds that Socrates does not believe in
the gods at all; he is, in fact, a complete atheist. To this,
Socrates retorts: “Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am
pretty sure that you do not believe yourself.”79 If the jury
regarded Socrates as an atheist, he would certainly be a
corrupting influence upon the young. Obliging Socrates, who
expresses surprise at this radical interpretation of the charge,
Meletus contradicts the positive part of the indictment, thus
revealing the connection between the current charges and
those of the “old accusers.” Striving to link Socrates with the
dangerous teachings of Anaxagoras, regarded as atheistic by
many Athenians, Meletus becomes a victim of Socrates’
incisive cross-examination. Many jurors would have regarded
any unorthodox view of the deities as tantamount to atheism,
despite the written indictment.80 Hence, when asked for
clarification, Meletus responds that Socrates believes the sun
and moon not to be gods, but masses of stone. Socrates then
asks his accuser whether he imagines he is prosecuting
Anaxagoras, whose theories were then accessible in written
form to any Athenian.81 Socrates’ point is that since these
views are readily available, Athenian youth did not have to
learn them from him.
The interchange between Socrates and Meletus merely
confused the issue for the jury. Were they to judge Socrates
solely on the literal terms of the indictment, which accused
him of heterodoxy, or according to the more radical atheistic
interpretation now submitted by Meletus? Having allowed
himself to be pushed out on a limb, Meletus is then induced by
Socrates to saw it off. After prodding Meletus to again charge
that he is an atheist, Socrates, exploiting this extended
interpretation of the indictment, points out the blatant
contradiction. Accusing Meletus of being “reckless and
impudent,” having composed the charges “in a spirit of mere
wantonness and youthful bravado,” he rebukes him for
contradicting the sworn indictment. With transparent sarcasm,
Socrates claims that Meletus had devised a riddle for him to
solve, saying to himself: “I shall see whether the wise Socrates
will discover my facetious contradiction, or whether I shall be
able to deceive him and the rest of them.” Socrates alleges that
Meletus, having charged him of “not believing in the gods and
yet believing in them … is not like a person who is in
earnest.”82
The conclusion to this line of questioning provoked the jury
and numerous spectators. Requesting them not to interrupt—
the third such request thus far in his speech—Socrates resumes
his cross-examination.83 He seizes the opportunity to point out
the blatant contradiction between the indictment’s negative
charge, which does not expressly relate to atheism, but with
not believing in the gods recognized by the polis, and the
positive charge of replacing them with different deities. Under
compulsion from the court to answer Socrates’ questions,
Meletus is then deftly led to concede that just as anyone who
believes in horse matters or music matters must believe in the
existence of horses or music, anyone who believes in
supernatural matters must believe in supernatural beings.
Moreover, if the supernatural beings that Socrates professes to
believe in are mere children of gods, who could believe in the
offspring of gods without also believing in the gods
themselves? Socrates concludes by taunting Meletus, alleging
that he charged him with impiety simply because no legitimate
offense could be found.
Despite his adroitness, Socrates fails to defend himself
adequately against either the corruption charge or the impiety
charge in his cross-examination of Meletus. Instead of
concrete instances in refutation, he is content to rely solely
upon a dialectical victory over his mismatched opponent. In
questioning Meletus, rather than considering the truth of the
charges, he concentrates on their meaning.84 Having shown
that his accuser apparently does not comprehend his own
charges, Socrates assumes that no further refutation is
necessary. Although he easily discredits Meletus’ allegation
that he is an atheist, Socrates never denies that he introduces
new deities, nor does he specifically address the charge that he
disbelieves in the gods of Athens. Moreover, if, as Xenophon
claimed, Socrates had diligently observed the religious rituals
of the city, he fails to mention this at his trial. The religious
charges in the indictment are therefore pushed into the
background, unanswered.85
While Apollo, an official deity of Athens, plays a central
role in the Apology, Socrates’ putative relationship with the
deity was more likely to incite anger or suspicion among
Athenians. And although Socrates does attempt to distance
himself from Anaxagoras, who denied that the sun and the
moon were gods, by claiming that such an eccentric belief
would have brought “laughter” upon himself, these were
neither the anthropomorphic deities that the Athenians valued
most, nor were they particularly associated with the city.86
While Socrates, during his interrogation of Meletus, mentions
Zeus and Hera—the gods he is accused of replacing in
Aristophanes’ Clouds—he does so merely in passing, like
figures of speech.87 Whereas some might argue that an explicit
affirmation of the Athenian gods and his devotion to them may
have been well-received by the jury, Gregory Vlastos
maintains that this might not have been possible for Socrates.
His commitment to the truth would have made him reveal that
his view of the mythic deities was anything but orthodox.
Unlike the city’s gods, who lie, steal, kill, and commit adultery
without compunction, the gods of Socrates can only be good
and do good. In the Euthyphro, Socrates speculates that the
impiety charge against him might have stemmed from his
refusal to believe accepted myths depicting the gods as acting
immorally.88 Hence, Vlastos affirms, for Socrates to explain
his conception of the gods “he would have had to clean out the
Augean stables of the Olympian pantheon.”89 And what
Socrates would soon say about his “divine voice,” implying a
private relation to a deity, was probably impious according to
Athenian religious beliefs.
Although Socrates proclaims triumphantly that he need not
deal further with Meletus, many jurors might have concluded
that the philosopher had refused to take the written indictment
seriously. Indeed, while six pages of the Apology are devoted
to Socrates’ old accusers, whom he considers more dangerous,
the interrogation of Meletus on the official charges occupies a
mere three. Socrates ends this section of his speech by
avowing that if anything brings about his destruction, it will
not be Meletus or Anytus, but the many “enmities which I
have incurred,” in addition to the “envy and detraction of the
world.”90 Thus, instead of following the conventional practice
of showering flattery upon his judges, praising their fairness
and justice as “guardians of the law and the constitution,”
Socrates claims that, unable to discard their prejudices, they
will render an unjust verdict.91 Public hostility, now called the
tyranny of the majority, he concludes, has destroyed many
innocent men in the past, and “there is no danger of my being
the last of them.”92
 Chapter 8

SOCRATES BRINGS THE

PHILOSOPHIC MISSION
INTO THE COURT

DEATH BEARS NO STING

H
AVING DISPOSED OF MELETUS, Socrates passes to the most
important part of his speech. Digressing from the
charges in the indictment, he will present a veritable
apologia pro vita sua, explaining his philosophic mission. We
have referred to the Athenian notion of parrhēsia, the freedom
of citizens to express their views frankly in public forums. As
Michel Foucault argued, the significance of Socrates is that he
transformed parrhēsia from a political virtue, practiced in the
Assembly, to a moral virtue, practiced between individuals.1
An ethical parrhesiast, Socrates exhorted individual citizens to
be concerned not for wealth and power, but for the welfare of
their souls. At considerable risk to himself, he would compel
the Athenians to confront the truth about themselves at his
trial. While he may have offended a number of jurors with the
first part of his speech, he will now arouse even greater
antipathy, as he undertakes two feats at once: a defense of his
mission as a philosopher—in fact, the only sustained public
explanation of his philosophic activity in the works of Plato—
and an attack upon the Athenians. Socrates will bring his
philosophic mission into the court. Accused of being a
Sophist, a natural philosopher, an atheist, and a corrupter of
the young, he will devote the remainder of his speech to
establishing his true identity. But many jurors would regard
this true Socrates as more threatening than the one they had
allegedly misconstrued.
 Socrates begins by introducing his second fictitious
“objector,” suggesting that some jurors might ask whether he
is ashamed of having pursued an activity that now places him
in danger of being condemned to death. To this, he responds:
“There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything
ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought
only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or
wrong—acting the part of the good man or of a bad.” For
Socrates, a good or just life is more important than a long life.
His sense of moral duty overrides every other concern. He
then asserts that if death were something to fear, the Greek
heroes who died at Troy would be less than honorable.
Especially Achilles, whom Socrates does not name but alludes
to as the “son of Thetis,” a reference certainly familiar to all
Athenians, having been raised on Homer.2 Socrates focuses
upon the turning point in the Iliad, when Achilles, the greatest
Greek warrior, after being offended by Agamemnon, leader of
the combined Greek forces, withdrew from the Trojan War.
Agamemnon had asserted his right of kingship to seize from
Achilles his prize for prowess in battle, the young Briseis,
daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo. Achilles’ valor having
thus gone unrecognized, he incurred a severe loss of esteem
(timē) in the eyes of his fellow warriors. As we have noted,
esteem, a reflection of one’s excellence (aretē), was the
principal value among Homeric heroes. According to Achilles,
Agamemnon’s imperious action left him with no alternative
but to cease fighting. “You will eat out the heart within you in
sorrow,” predicted Achilles, “that you did no honour to the
best of the Achaians.”3 But when, after the Greeks suffered a
series of defeats, his beloved friend Patroclus was slain by the
Trojan warrior Hector, Achilles mourned, accepted a peace
offer from Agamemnon, and resumed fighting to avenge his
friend.
Socrates is reminding the jurors of the dramatic moment
when Thetis, the goddess mother of Achilles, informs her son
that if he avenges the death of Patroclus and kills Hector, he
himself will soon die. Yet, Socrates relates, Achilles “utterly
despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them, feared
rather to live in dishonour, and not to avenge his friend.”
Rather than endure such shame, Achilles replied: “Let me die
forthwith, and be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here
by the beaked ships, a laughing stock and a burden of the
earth.” Unlike the immortal gods, a Greek warrior could
become a hero by courageously facing suffering and death.
Achilles had been offered a choice: either a long anonymous
but dishonorable life or a short life with honor and immortal
fame. As a hero, he chose the path that promised honor and
fame, even though it meant his impending death, thus fulfilling
the moral code of a Greek warrior. Avenging Patroclus’ death
thus would enable Achilles to regain something more
important to a Greek warrior than life itself—the esteem he
had lost among his peers. Like Achilles, Socrates no doubt
realized that the inflexible stand he was taking before the court
that day, one that would brook no compromise with his divine
mission, made his death inevitable. Yet he concludes: “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.”4
While Socrates’ response to the first “objector” had enabled
him to digress on the the origins of his philosophic mission,
the introduction of the second “objector” provided him with
the opportunity not only to set forth his uncompromising
ethical stand, even in the face of death, but also to identify his
sense of duty with that of the Greek heroic ideal.5 Linking
himself to Achilles and Heracles, Socrates claimed to enjoy
divine favor. For the philosopher to proclaim, even by
insinuation, himself a hero, must have infuriated many jurors,
for he usurped a privilege of the city. As Nicole Loraux
reminds us, “heroization always depended on a decision by the
community.”6 Yet Socrates was also revising the traditional
notion of heroism. This subtext in the Apology reveals a
radical Socrates. As the remainder of his speech makes clear,
he is challenging his fellow Athenians to rise to a new moral
conception of the heroic. To Achilles, the “good” and the
“bad” were defined, not according to morality as we
understand it today, but solely in relation to the values dictated
by his culture. To the ancient Greeks, the good and just person
is one who gains honor by doing good to friends and harm to
enemies, including avenging the death of one’s friends. By
avenging the death of Patroclus, Achilles would win great
glory. Like Achilles—in the words of Homer, the “best of the
Achaians” —Socrates carried out his mission without fear of
death. But he contradicted the traditional notion of the hero.
To the philosopher-hero Socrates, a life of “dishonor,” living
as an “unjust” or “bad” person, differed fundamentally from
the popular understanding. For him, vengeance is unjust, and
honor is won only in the pursuit of moral virtue, even at the
expense of violating the values of the community.
The new hero that Socrates represented was not one who
excelled on the battlefield or one who surrendered his life
unthinkingly to the polis, but one who remained steadfast in
his commitment to justice. Characterizing the comparison
Socrates draws between himself and Achilles as “breathtaking
in its boldness,” Gregory Vlastos sums up the profound
differences between the two heroes: “Socrates is a plebeian,
Achilles the noblest of the heroes, darling of the aristocracy.
Socrates is the voice of reason, Achilles a man of passion
rampant over reason. Socrates abjures retaliation, while
Achilles, glutting his anger on Hector’s corpse, gives the most
terrible example of vengeance in the Iliad. What can Socrates
and this savagely violent young nobleman have in common?
Only this: absolute subordination of everything each values to
one superlatively precious thing: honour for Achilles, virtue
for Socrates.”7 In 399 b.c., therefore, two conflicting visions of
the heroic— one based on an ethics of honor and shame, the
other based on an ethics of conscience—collided at the trial of
Socrates.
Socrates also uses the device of the second “objector” to
introduce unobtrusively his record of contribution to Athens in
warfare, in which he distinguished himself for bravery.
Although he believed the true hero to be a person of moral
principle, Socrates had also demonstrated on the battlefield the
kind of heroism most acceptable to the ancient Greeks.
Defendants in Athenian courts usually spoke of their civic
contributions, military and financial. In cases where guilt or
innocence could not be easily ascertained, defendants expected
that service to the city would testify to their upright character
and patriotism.8 The citizen who risked his life for the city not
only displayed a character of courage and loyalty but also
engendered feelings of gratitude from the jurors. As a hoplite,
Socrates had demonstrated his willingness to die in defense of
his city. He had participated in three battles. First, he fought in
the successful siege of Potidaea on the north Aegean coast in
432 B.C., where at the age of thirty-seven he saved the life of
Alcibiades but declined a reward for valor, insisting
magnanimously that Alcibiades receive it instead. Socrates
also played a significant role in the disastrous retreat at
Delium in Boeotia in 424 B.C., where, at the age of forty-five,
he rescued Xenophon. Finally, in 422 B.C., he served in the
unsuccessful attempt to recapture Amphipolis, located in
Thrace, during which both Cleon and Brasidas, the Athenian
and Spartan commanders in the Peloponnesian War, were
killed.
Socrates adverts to his valorous military career not only to
demonstrate patriotism, his willingness to die for the city he
loved, but also to prepare the jury for an extraordinary claim.
“Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens,” he
alleges, “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 now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God
orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of searching into
myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of
death, or any other fear.”9 Socrates’ highest allegiance is not to
the state, but to the God who assigned him the post of
philosophy. Whenever his duty to obey God, the highest
“commander,” conflicted with his duty to obey the state, the
state must be subordinate.
Socrates thus regards himself as a soldier of Apollo, the god
of wisdom and truth, who has imposed upon him a philosophic
mission that cannot be overridden by the authority of the state.
He will obey the state only on condition that its commands are
just. Socrates then executes a stunning reversal. If, through
fear of death, he were to disobey the oracle and cease his
philosophic mission, as many Athenians would have liked,
then he might be justly “arraigned in court for denying the
existence of the gods.” Yet many jurors probably found the
philosopher’s comparison inappropriate. It is one thing to
receive, as all soldiers do, a command from one’s military
superior, but it is quite another to allege that one has received
a special mandate from God to undertake a philosophic
mission. Socrates’ claim simply could not be verified.
Moreover, he continues, fearing death as the greatest evil is to
assume wisdom one does not possess, for it supposes one
knows what one does not. Death may in fact be the greatest
blessing. Socrates affirms that he differs from “men in
general” and that he is perhaps “wiser” in 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 and dishonourable, and I
will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain
evil.”10
In defending himself against his accusers, who portrayed
him as a danger to the city, Socrates boldly associates himself
with the ancient Greek heroic tradition, first, as we have noted,
through a comparison between his own elenctic pilgrimage
and the mythical labors of Heracles. Then came the
comparison with the great Achilles, where Socrates linked his
own concern for acting “justly,” like a “good” man, with the
bravery of the hero of the Iliad, but in a radically different
sense of justness and goodness. In claiming a divine mission
as the moral savior of Athens, Socrates might be considered as
usurping the honor due to Theseus, the mythical hero revered
for founding Athenian democracy and saving the city from the
Minotaur. But this time it was the devouring monster of
ignorance and hubris that afflicted the Athenians.
A philosopher-hero devoted to the pursuit of virtue,
Socrates would show courage by maintaining his convictions,
despite his rejection by Athenian society. He thus ranks as the
greatest of the Greek sages and heroes. He was the hero of
moral principle. In fact, his steadfast adherence to justice
helped define our modern conception of integrity.11 While
Achilles sacrificed his life for the sake of public esteem,
Socrates sacrificed his life for the sake of his soul, and the soul
of Athens. What Allan Bloom says about the relationship
between Socrates and Achilles in Plato’s Republic applies also
to Socrates’ challenge to the conventional Greek hero in the
Apology: “The figure of Achilles, more than any teaching or
law, compels the souls of Greeks and all men who pursue
glory. He is the hero of heroes, admired and imitated by all.
And this is what Socrates wishes to combat; he teaches that if
Achilles is the model, men will not pursue philosophy, that
what he stands for is inimical to the founding of the best city
and the practice of the best way of life. Socrates is engaging in
a contest with Homer for the title of teacher of the Greeks—or
of mankind. One of his principal goals is to put himself in
place of Achilles as the authentic representation of the best
human type.”12

CARING FOR ONE’S SOUL

Socrates’ missionary concern for the soul revolutionized
Greek ethics. The philosopher sought to convince his fellow
Athenians that living an examined life, pursuing virtue and the
good of the soul, rather than power and material wealth, would
bring a wayward city into harmony with superior ethical
standards. Francis Cornford credits Socrates with the
discovery of the soul, or the true self.13 To Socrates, the soul
or psychē is the essence of a person, what distinguishes a
human from every other living entity. The soul is perfected by
virtue and ruined by vice. Before Socrates, this notion of the
soul is absent from Greek philosophy and religion. The archaic
Greeks, Bruno Snell observes, lacked a word that could be
translated to our “soul” or “mind,” the seat of thinking and
feeling.14 For Homer, a person is the body; the “psyche” or
soul was the life force or “breath of life,” essential for the
human body’s survival but unrelated to a person’s mental life.
This life force, devoid of mental or emotional functions,
remained inactive in the living individual. At death, it left the
body, becoming a mere ghostly shadow of the deceased, fated
to wander aimlessly in Hades, devoid of either pain or joy. For
the Orphies, an ancient Greek religious cult, the soul, divorced
from a person’s consciousness, was regarded as a “fallen
spirit,” fated to reincarnate in a series of bodies until, after
sufficient ritual purification and ethical conduct, eventual
liberation from the wheel of birth and rebirth and union with
the divine.15 Socrates was the first to view the soul as the
conscious personality related to the individual’s intellectual
and moral nature.16
Socrates’ notion of the soul essentially reinterpreted the
Delphic maxim, “know thyself,” which for generations meant
to avoid hubris and know one’s limits, especially that one is
mortal and not a god. “Surely there is nothing which may be
called more properly ourselves than the soul,” he declares in
Plato’s Alcibiades I. “He who bids a man know himself, would
have him know his soul.”17 This soul, the true self, should be
the prime concern of humans. As Cicero, under the influence
of Socrates, later exclaimed: “When Apollo says ‘Know
thyself,’ he says, ‘Know thy soul.’”18 This notion of the soul is
undoubtedly among Socrates’ greatest legacies. According to
Michel Foucault, Socrates stands before his judges in the
Apology “clearly as a master of the care of the self…. The god
has sent him to remind men that they need to concern
themselves not with riches, not with their honor, but with
them-selves and with their souls.” The cultivation of one’s
soul, or “the care of oneself” would later become the center of
that “‘art of existence’ which philosophy claimed to be.”19
Unlike Achilles, the warrior of violence, Socrates was the
spiritual warrior, devoting his life to self-examination and a
philosophic mission to encourage others to follow his
example. As Albin Lesky observed: “In the greatest possible
contrast with the aristocratic theory of life, man’s value is now
completely separated from power, property and outward
recognition, and placed in the soul, which is his most precious
possession and at the same time his greatest duty. This way of
Socratic thinking leads to a radical opposition against the old
aristocratic norm that being useful to one’s friends and
harming one’s enemies makes one a man. Doing wrong is now
felt as a stain on one’s soul, and is no more permissible to an
enemy as in any other case.”20 Socrates’ view of the soul also
pointed to a more democratic conception of virtue; instead of
the preserve of an aristocratic elite, all persons were now
called to an examined, ethical life.
 By directing attention to the interior person, Socrates
transformed the Greek conception of the sage and the heroic
ideal, anticipating the radical ethics taught later by Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount. According to Werner Jaeger: “Socrates
always uses the word soul with exceptional emphasis, a
passionate, a beseeching urgency. No Greek before him ever
said it in that tone…. Like his ‘service of God’ and ‘care of the
soul,’ it sounds Christian. But it first acquired that lofty
meaning in the protreptic preachings of Socrates.” Through
Socrates, Jaeger continues, “the word psyche, soul, acquired
the particular character which made it truly representative of
all the values implicit in the intellectual and moral personality
of Western man.”21 In the words of Bruno Snell: “The figure
of Socrates constitutes the turning-point from the moral
thinking of the archaic and classical periods to that of the post-
classical and Hellenistic ages.”22 And A. E. Taylor argues: “It
was Socrates who, so far as can be seen, created the
conception of the soul which has ever since dominated
European thinking.”23 With this reorientation in Greek
thought, from the external world of science to the inner world
of the soul, Socrates accomplished a revolution.24 The title of
Francis Cornford’s book, Before and After Socrates,
emphasizes the philosopher’s pivotal role in the history of
Western thought. On the basis of the moral revolution
associated with Socrates, later thinkers would be able to speak
of the inherent dignity of the individual person. If Jesus
represented a new Moses, Socrates represented a new
Achilles.
Nevertheless, many of Socrates’ contemporaries were
unwilling or unprepared to accept the philosopher’s teaching.
Centuries before Jesus, Socrates exhorted humans to turn from
their preoccupation with worldly goods and save their souls.
Indeed, the philosopher anticipates the profound question
raised by the Christian Gospels: “What does it profit a man, if
he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?”25 For Socrates,
salvation was not related to an afterlife, but meant striving
toward a more human life in this world, here and now. Unlike
Plato’s Socrates of the Phaedo, the Socrates of the Apology
merely entertains a hope in the soul’s immortality, professing
that his ignorance precludes definitive knowledge of such
matters. Yet for the average Greek, to whom the body was
more real than the soul, caring for one’s soul had nothing to do
with one’s inner life, but simply meant caring for one’s
material welfare. To these Greeks, Socrates’ counsel to strive
for the soul’s perfection was tantamount to advising one to
care for one’s dim shadow at the expense of his real
substance.26 Socrates’ concern for the soul, for the
development of the true inner self, spurred him in an
uncompromising pursuit of virtue and brought him into tragic
conflict with Athens.

STEPPING UP THE OFFENSIVE

Returning to the Apology, we see Socrates continuing the
aggressive stand that accentuated his conflict with Athens. By
means of a third “objector,” he submits a startling hypothetical
proposition. Anytus had admonished the jury that acquitting
Socrates, rather than putting him to death, would abandon the
city’s youth to his corrupting influence. Suppose, Socrates
says, the jurors vote to acquit him, but on the condition that he
abandon his philosophic mission and that if he resumes he will
be put to death. If the jury were to make such an offer, this
would be his emphatic reply: “Men of Athens, I honour and
love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I
have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and
teaching of philosophy.”27 Socrates knew that the charges
against him were rooted in his life as a philosopher. Even
though the court apparently did not have the authority to issue
such an order, he wishes to make clear that nothing will stand
in the way of his divinely appointed mission. Socrates thus
lays down the gauntlet before the polis, declaring that he
regards his obedience to God’s mandate to practice philosophy
as a moral imperative that prevails over all other duties. If
commanded by the court to relinquish philosophy, he would
assert his moral autonomy and conscientiously refuse. The
boldness of this challenge to the state’s authority must have
appalled the jurors.
 As a citizen in Athens, Socrates probably attended the
theater on many occasions. One imagines that, before and after
the performances, he took the opportunity to discuss
philosophy with his fellow citizens. He was likely to have
been present for the first performance of Sophocles’ Antigone
in 442 B.C., which advocated that the individual’s obligation to
fulfill divine law is superior to the commands of the state.
Socrates and his fellow Athenians were also familiar with
Aristophanes’ antiwar comedy, Lysistrata, first performed in
411 B.C., just two years after the Athenian failure in Sicily.
Practicing militant civil disobedience, the Athenian women
seized the Acropolis, including the war treasury, in an effort to
compel an end to the senseless slaughter brought on by the
Peloponnesian War. Athenians also knew the tragedies of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that dramatized the
various conflicts, such as the individual or family versus the
state or the laws of the gods versus those of the state.
Performed during the festival of the Great Dionysia, in an
outdoor theater that seated an audience of between 14,000 and
15,000, drama, we have noted, was a principal means for
Athenians to explore issues of consensus and conflict,
employing speech and argumentation. Throughout the
Peloponnesian War, the fate of the community would be under
constant discussion; and the Athenian theater of ideas would
be an invaluable forum to explore vital communal concerns.
According to Paul Cartledge: “In a straightforward and broad
sense all Athenian tragedy was political, in that it was staged
by and for the polis of the Athenians, through its regular
public organs of government, as a fixed item in the state’s
religious calendar.” Moreover, for average Athenian citizens
who lacked a higher education, “tragic theatre was an
important part of their learning to be active participants in self-
government and open debate between peers.”28 Since
Athenian tragedy was so closely intertwined with politics, the
parallels between the trial of Socrates and a dramatic conflict
would have been obvious to the jurors. As we have argued, the
inherent drama of the lawcourt was captured by the genius of
Plato in the Apology. When Sophocles and Euripides died in
406 B.C., tragedy was no longer the exclusive province of the
theater. As Eric Voegelin concludes, the Platonic dialogue
would succeed tragedy as the means of dramatizing the
struggle between right order and unruly passion: “The tension
of order and passion that had been mastered by the cult of
tragedy had broken into the open conflict between Socrates
and Athens.”29 While Aeschylus, in the concluding play of the
Oresteia trilogy, brings the courtroom to the stage, dramatizing
the conversion of the vengeful Furies into the conciliatory
Eumenides, Plato’s Apology brings the theater into the
lawcourt.
In effect, like the mythological Antigone, Socrates had
boldly informed the court, which represented the state, that the
only way to stop him was to kill him. The state may have
jurisdiction over his body, but not over his soul. As
Kierkegaard observed: “Socrates’ whole life was a protest
against the establishment, the substantial life of the state.” The
views of Socrates were so radical that “his attack must be
regarded from the standpoint of the state as of the utmost
danger, as an attempt to suck the blood out of it and transform
it into a phantom.”30 Highlighting the tragic conflict between
the philosopher and the state, Kierkegaard concludes that
Socrates was “not a good citizen, and he assuredly did not
make others so. Whether the standpoint which Socrates
represented was in actuality higher than that of the state,
whether he was in truth divinely authorized, must be
adjudicated by world history. But if it is to judge fairly, it must
also admit that the state was within its rights in judging
Socrates.”31 In condemning Socrates, Athens condemned a
philosopher whose moral message threatened to transform
fundamentally the identity of the polis. In order to reform itself
along Socratic principles, Athens would have had to discard
many of its traditional values and pursue a profoundly
different understanding of the purpose of human life.
In locating the essence of the individual in the soul, Socrates
reveals the basis of his conflict with Athens. According to the
philosopher, morality should be founded not upon
unquestioning obedience to traditional authority and
customary values but upon moral convictions arrived at
through rational discussion. Socrates, therefore, threatened the
established morality of his culture by striving to base ethics
upon reason, in which individuals can think for themselves as
autonomous agents and are capable of criticizing the rules and
values of society. In the view of Hegel, Socrates represented a
high point in the progressive development from an externally
based unreflective traditional morality (Sittlichkeit) to a
morality based upon the critical reflective individual
consciousness (Moralitat):
Morals have become shaken because we have the idea present that man creates
his maxims for himself. The fact that the individual comes to care for his own
morality, means that he becomes reflectively moral; when public morality
disappears, reflective morality is seen to have arisen. We now see Socrates
bringing forward the opinion, that in these times every one has to look after his
own morality, and thus he looked after his through consciousness and
reflection regarding himself…. He also helped others to care for their morality,
for he awakened in them this consciousness of having in their thoughts the
good and true, i.e. having the potentiality of action and knowledge.32

According to Hegel’s grand interpretation, the trial and

death of Socrates reflect a tragic collision between the equally
legitimate demands of the collective morality of the Athenian
polis and the individual conscience of Socrates:
It was in Socrates, that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, the
principle of subjectivity—of the absolute inherent independence of Thought—
attained free expression. He taught that man has to discover and recognize in
himself what is the Right and Good. And that this Right and Good is in its
nature universal. Socrates is celebrated as a Teacher of Morality, but we should
rather call him the Inventor of Morality. The Greeks had a customary morality;
but Socrates undertook to teach them what moral virtues, duties, etc., were.
The moral man is not he who merely wills and does that which is right—not
merely the innocent man—but he who has the consciousness of what he is
doing…. Socrates—in assigning to insight, to conviction, the determination of
men’s actions—posited the Individual as capable of a final moral decision, in
contraposition to Country and to Customary Morality, and thus made himself
an Oracle in the Greek sense…. The principle of Socrates manifests a
revolutionary aspect towards the Athenian State; for the peculiarity of this
State was, that Customary Morality was the form in which its existence was
moulded, viz.—an inseparable connection of Thought with actual life. When
Socrates wished to induce his friends to reflection, the discourse has always a
negative tone; he brings them to the consciousness that they do not know what
the Right is. But when on account of giving utterance to that principle that was
advancing to recognition, Socrates is condemned to death, the sentence bears
on the one hand, the aspect of unimpeachable rectitude—inasmuch as the
Athenian people condemns its deadliest foe—but, on the other hand, that of a
deeply tragic character, inasmuch as the Athenians had to make the discovery,
that what they reprobated in Socrates had already struck firm root among
themselves, and that they must be pronounced guilty or innocent with him.33
 Socrates, anticipating the moral revolution represented by
Jesus, sought to ground morality upon inner reflection and
self-knowledge. The similarity between Socrates and Jesus
was noted in Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion:
“He [Socrates] also taught that humanity must not stop short at
obedience to ordinary authority but must form convictions for
itself and act according to them. Here we have two similar
individualities with similar fates. The inwardness of Socrates
was contrary to the religious beliefs of his people as well as to
their form of government, and hence he was put to death: he,
too, died for the truth.”34 We have observed the parallel
between Socrates and Jesus. Just as Jesus would take the
Mosaic Law—traditionally interpreted in a legalistic sense—
and redirect it inward, focusing upon moral reflection and
intention, Socrates likewise took the Greek notion of virtue
[aretē) and redirected it inward with his idea of caring for the
soul. To care for one’s soul means pursuing the truth and
living justly.
As Socrates moved into the central part of his speech, the
soul would become paramount, as he related it first to the
purpose of human life and then to his philosophic mission.35
This stress upon the soul merely highlighted the conflict
between the individual moral autonomy of the philosopher and
the authority of the city. If many Athenian youth chose to
place primary emphasis upon conscience, looking within for
moral truth rather than to custom and employing critical
thought rather than accepting traditional beliefs complacently,
the stability of the city might be fatally undermined. Having
developed a notion of his spiritual center, Socrates bequeathed
to posterity a basis for resisting the state whenever its
commands conflict with justice. Although the philosopher
recognized the individual’s obligations to the community, if
compelled to make a choice he would obey God rather than
the state. Socrates gave the Athenians no way out: They must
either acquit him or execute him. If acquitted, he insists, the
jury should expect him to continue prodding his fellow
Athenians with his usual intensity, saying to each of them:
“You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise
city of Athens,— are you not ashamed of heaping up the
greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and
caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest
improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at
all?”36. The soul is improved intellectually, by thinking
consistently and morally, by acting rightly.37 If any person
claims that he does care for the improvement of his soul, “I do
not leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to
interrogate and examine and cross-examine him and if I think
that he has no virtue in him, but only says that he has, I
reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing
the less.” Hence, Athens should not expect the sharp sword of
Socrates’ critical elenchus to be blunted in any way: “I shall
repeat the same words to everyone whom I meet, young and
old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch
as they are my brethren.”38 He calls for nothing less than a
con-version, a turning away from a lower toward a higher,
moral way of life. His reference to Athens’ great fame, power,
and wisdom—a mocking echo of the Funeral Oration of
Pericles, now seen in the shadow of the recent devastating loss
to Sparta—could not fail to sting many jurors and spectators.
And later readers of the Apology, aware that Athens would
never recover the glory of the Age of Pericles, may reflect
upon the dramatic irony in Socrates’ chiding remark.
Continuing his onslaught, the intrepid Socrates makes
another attempt to revise the Athenian definition of a good
citizen. His greatest service to Athens, he proclaims, has been
spiritual and moral: “I believe that no greater good 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,
not to take thought for your persons and properties, but first
and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.
I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from
virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as
well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine
which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.”39
Having specified his mission as encouraging others to improve
their souls, the ironic Socrates asserts that if his message does
indeed corrupt the young, he will concede that his influence
has been harmful.
 Recoiling from the force of Socrates’ criticisms, many
jurors probably concluded that he was a bad citizen, an enemy
of democracy. But Socrates took a stand not against
democracy as such, but against the deplorable conduct of the
Athenians of his day, with their obsession with material wealth
and power politics. One imagines that had Socrates been free
to speak as a citizen of Sparta, he would have been equally
forthright in his attack on that city’s unjust behavior. Although
living in a democracy, Athenians had been unwilling to subject
themselves to the kind of self-scrutiny necessary for the
maintenance of an open and just society.
As Karl Popper reminds us: “There is no need for a man
who criticizes democracy and democratic institutions to be
their enemy, although both the democrats he criticizes, and the
totalitarians who hope to profit from any disunion in the
democratic camp, are likely to brand him as such. There is a
fundamental difference between a democratic and a totalitarian
criticism of democracy. Socrates’ criticism was a democratic
one, and indeed of the kind that is the very life of
democracy.”40 He believed “that the way to improve the
political life of the city was to educate the citizens to self-
criticism.”41 Citizens of a democracy must be able to think for
themselves in order to deal with the complex issues that
confront any free society.42 To say that Athenian democracy
was prone to the tyranny of the majority, as Socrates suggested
in the Apology, was not to advocate that the city adopt a
different constitution, but to warn that a democracy, more than
any other form of government, places upon citizens the
responsibility to become educated and virtuous.
There is no substantial evidence that the historical Socrates
favored a government other than democracy for Athens.
According to Plato’s Seventh Letter, his mentor was indicted,
not for his political views, but for “impiety.”43 Moreover,
Socrates’ favorable view of democracy is reflected in the
Crito, where, by means of a literary device, he delivers a
speech on behalf of the Athenian Laws. Giving them voice,
Socrates has them declare that he preferred the democratic
constitution of Athens to that of any other state, Greek or
barbarian.44 Gregory Vlastos argues that this reflects the
conviction of the historical Socrates.45 And while Xenophon
testifies that Socrates criticized the Athenian practice of
choosing magistrates by lot instead of according to their
qualifications for office, this hardly counts as advocacy of a
different constitution.46 At best, it is a summoning to rational
reform, as most supporters of democracy would concede that
appointments affecting the welfare of the entire community
should be made on the basis of merit and not left to mere
chance. Even fervent democrats, moreover, have often
lamented that undereducated or unwise voters are easily led
astray by demagogues. Notwithstanding his loyalty to Athens,
the aggressive stance that Socrates adopted throughout the
trial, reminding his fellow citizens of their moral and political
failings, alienated many jurors. As Aristotle later taught,
referring to a remark by Plato’s Socrates, a good speaker must
be sensitive to the audience, for it was not difficult to sing
praises to Athens before Athenians, preoccupied as they were
with honor and fame.47 Conversely, we might add, it was
dangerous to criticize Athens before an Athenian audience.
Socrates had now reached a turning point in his speech. He
remained steadfast in his refusal to follow the convention,
dictated by forensic rhetoric, in which a defendant would
attempt to conciliate the court. To the contrary, in clarifying
his philosophic mission, Socrates in effect put Athens on trial,
displaying the megalēgoria, the arrogant tone that would
contribute to his conviction. Professing to have easily refuted
the formal charges against him, Socrates turned his defense
into an offense.48 Xenophon reported that all those who wrote
about the trial drew attention to Socrates’ megalēgoria.49 In
contrast, Cicero observed that Socrates, in addressing the jury
not as a suppliant and prisoner but as an accuser and judge,
revealed “a noble obstinacy derived from greatness of soul
(megalopsychia), not from pride.”50 Undoubtedly, the
distinction between greatness of soul and hubris was lost on
many jurors; Socrates seemed to have forgotten that his
position before the court was that of a defendant, not a
prosecutor.
 From here on, Socrates’ offensive becomes increasingly
blatant, and the trial takes an inevitable path, with the
philosopher bringing about his own condemnation. In
choosing to lecture the Athenians on their moral weaknesses,
Socrates reveals his commitment to philosophical rhetoric,
speech designed to edify morally his listeners. But the
arguments he made and the patronizing tone he adopted
merely antagonized many jurors and spectators. Those
sympathetic to Socrates must have been dismayed as they
witnessed him seal his fate. There was no turning back as the
collision between the philosopher and his city—a collision
between the morality of the individual soul and the morality of
the polis—took a tragic course to its denouement.

THE GADFLY
“Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me.” Socrates once
again had to remind his audience that he deserved to be heard
without interruption. Yet, by this point in the trial, many jurors
and spectators were unable to restrain their fury. Nevertheless,
he informs them that his next argument is likely to incite even
greater outrage. If they kill him, Socrates declares, “you will
injure yourselves more than you will injure me.” Moreover,
neither Meletus nor Anytus can possibly harm him, for “a bad
man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.”
Emphasizing that Athens, not he, was really on trial, Socrates
then avers: “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 by condemning me, who am his gift to you.”51
The philosopher seemed to be taunting the jury. By this time,
many must have agreed that the only way to put an end to
Socrates’ radical scrutiny was to execute him.
Socrates is now ready to move into the most famous
segment of his speech. He makes the startling claim that God
has assigned him to Athens to play the role of a “gadfly,” to
interrogate, exhort, reproach, and provoke the Athenians,
awakening them from their dogmatic slumber and stimulating
them to lives of virtue: “If you kill me you will not easily find
a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of
speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the State by God; and the
State is 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 God has attached to the State, and all day
long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing
and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find
another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me.
I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person who
is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that you may
easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, and then you would
sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care
of you sent you another gadfly.”52
Needless to say, Socrates’ comparing Athens to a morally
indolent horse that needed to be roused could not fail to
offend. What readers of the Apology may view as a shrewd
combination of playfulness and seriousness was most likely
regarded by the majority of jurors as an impudent insult.
Socrates was, moreover, perverting a device that was standard
in Athenian courts. Defendants often rested much of their case
upon a principle of reciprocity or charis, gratitude. According
to Greek custom, a gift obligated the beneficiary to
reciprocate. Hence, Athenian defendants frequently made an
explicit claim that their service to the city had earned them an
acquittal. Services offered as grounds for charis included
holding office, devotion to democracy, beneficial public
speeches, conducting oneself as a good citizen, and military
experience.53 Of these, according to most Athenians, Socrates
would have distinguished himself only by his service in the
Peloponnesian War. To suggest, as he does, that the Athenians
owe him an acquittal on the basis of a philosophic mission that
led him to be charged with impiety and corruption constituted
a reversal of the accepted understanding of service to the city.
The gadfly trope demonstrated that Socrates regarded
philosophy as a radical activity. He is the conscience of
Athens, prodding his fellow citizens to self-examination.
Earlier in his speech, he rejected the notion that he was a
teacher. According to the conventional view, a teacher was one
who passed on traditional knowledge and values to be
accepted without question. Such teachers merely promoted
blind subservience of the individual to society. But Socrates
represented a new conception of a teacher, one who assists
others in their own self-discovery, encouraging them to judge
every institution, belief, and value according to critical reason.
To most Athenians, such a teacher was a dangerous threat.
Indeed, the city had been subjected unremittingly to the
gadfly’s irritating scrutiny and painful bite. Like the Sophists,
Socrates seemed to be engaged in a merely destructive
activity, contributing to the erosion of the moral foundations of
the city. According to Socrates’ metaphor, he was a stinging
fly “attached” to the sleeping horselike city, sinking his
dialectical teeth into its slothful body. And, as most jurors
must have realized, Socrates the gadfly was now conducting
his provocative philosophic mission in the lawcourt.
Fulfilling the divine mandate involved, Socrates affirms,
much personal sacrifice, which could only corroborate his
sincerity. “The proof of my mission is this:—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; such
conduct I say would be unlike human nature.”54 In order to
devote himself, free of charge, to assisting others privately in
the pursuit of moral goodness, he has had to reduce himself to
poverty, neglecting the welfare of his family. Such unselfish
service to his city, he implies, must have been in obedience to
the divine. Nevertheless, Socrates’ voluntary poverty probably
drew the disdain of the many Athenians who viewed material
prosperity as evidence of moral worth. The funeral speech of
Pericles makes clear that, while the Athenians may not have
stigmatized poverty in itself, those like Socrates, who made no
effort to raise themselves from impoverishment, were regarded
as shameful. As Arthur Adkins observes, “almost all Greeks in
the heyday of the city-state agreed that poverty cripples
arete”55
But Socrates represented a new vision of virtue. He was
prepared to sacrifice everything the Athenians found valuable
—material wealth, power, family, even life itself—engaging in
a philosophic mission designed to induce his fellow citizens to
pursue virtue and the welfare of their souls. Carrying out his
mission as a good man, meant Athenians concluded that
Socrates was a bad citizen. By bringing his mission into the
court, addressing a large audience in a political forum that he
had hitherto avoided, Socrates accentuated his conflict with his
city. He would proceed to argue that in an unjust state, such as
Athens, the proper and potentially most useful place for the
just person was outside the realm of conventional politics.
 Chapter 9

THE POLITICS OF AN
UNPOLITICAL MAN

A PRIVATE RATHER THAN A PUBLIC

STATION

H
AVING EXPLAINED HIS MORAL SERVICE TO THE CITY,
Socrates anticipates—by means of his fourth fictitious
“objector”— that many will question why he goes 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.”1 He responds that his philosophic
mission prevented him from participating in politics. As he
declares to Polus in Plato’s Gorgias, “Polus, I am not a public
man.”2 Other citizens also did not participate in politics,
preferring to remain “quiet Athenians,” but such avoidance
was not illegal.3 Nevertheless, the democratic notion of the
good citizen gave rise to social expectations and pressures to
become active in the deliberative forums of the city. As Robert
J. Bonner observed: “Men who refused to participate in public
affairs were generally regarded with contempt, if not with
suspicion.”4 The fact that Socrates felt obligated to introduce
the subject of his non-participation in politics demonstrates
that it had been a source of some animosity toward him. The
Greek value of political participation was reflected in the verb
politeuesthai, meaning “to be a citizen (polītēs)” or, more
precisely, “to be active in managing the affairs of the city.”5
Most Athenian citizens held such an exalted conception of the
polis and its sustaining democratic process that they probably
viewed Socrates’ refusal to take a more active role in the city’s
affairs as a shameful neglect of civic duty.
 Indeed, Socrates must have been regarded as an anomaly.
For Athenians, citizenship was an invaluable asset; it was the
principal distinction between a Greek and a barbarian. A good
citizen (agathos polītēs) was defined as one who contributed
service to the community, advancing its security and
prosperity.6 This service was primarily political. As we have
noted, the Athenians referred to the person who avoided public
office and public responsibility, devoting himself instead
exclusively to individual or personal concerns of business,
family, and friends, as an idiōtēs.7 We recall that Pericles
considered such a person “useless.” Participation in
democratic politics was a primary means for Athenians to
achieve honor among their peers. Aristotle later argued that
while philosophy is the most important human activity, the
good life is one directed by practical wisdom, or phronēsis,
which requires a citizen to become active in government,
participating in decisions affecting the community as a whole.8
To what extent did Socrates shun the political life of
Athens? Of the means of political participation available to
him, the most obvious would have been the democratic
Assembly (ekklēsia), the sovereign body of Athens, open to all
citizens. Each male citizen over the age of twenty had the right
and duty to attend meetings of the Assembly. It has been
estimated that, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in
431 B.C., Athens had between 40,000 and 50,000 adult male
citizens; by the end of the war, this number was probably
reduced by half, owing to the casualties of battle and the
devastating plague.9 Within the Assembly, which met
throughout the classical period on a hill known as the Pnyx,
west of the Acropolis, public issues were openly debated.
Speakers mounted a rostrum (bēma) and argued their
positions, after which the entire body voted by a show of
hands. Since there were no political parties, individual citizens
had to arrive at decisions independently. Although it is
difficult to determine the number of Athenians who regularly
attended the Assembly’s meetings, often as many as 6,000
citizens of the estimated 22,000 to 25,000 eligible at the end of
the fifth century B.C. were present for important decisions that
affected the common interest.10 During this time, the Pnyx
seems to have had a capacity of no more than 6,000, the
quorum for certain types of decisions, such as ostracism.
While most citizens did not speak as leaders in the Assembly,
they were duty-bound to follow its proceedings and judge the
political discourse of those who did speak.11 During the time
of Aristotle, the Assembly met about every forty days, perhaps
less during the latter part of the fifth century B.C.12 For most
Athenian citizens, even peasants, attendance at regular
sessions of the Assembly was not a severe hardship, although
distance and preoccupation with their farms or businesses
often curtailed attendance. For important decisions in periods
of crisis, attendance at extraordinary meetings of the Assembly
would have been higher. But in time of war, most citizens
would be away from Athens, serving as hoplites on land or
rowers at sea.
In addition to the Assembly, there was a Council of Five
Hundred (boulē), composed of male citizens age thirty or over,
who were chosen by lot, held office for one year, and could
serve not more than twice in their lifetimes. The Council,
which met in a building known as the bouleutērion, was
charged with preparing the agenda for the Assembly and
executing its decisions. After matters were discussed by the
Council, they were formulated into proposals for the Assembly
to consider. When the Assembly was not in session, the
Council, which convened every day, except during important
festivals, served as the government of Athens. The Council
was further divided into a rotating executive committee of fifty
members, known as the prytaneis. Headquartered in a circular
building in the agora known as the Tholos, the prytaneis
convened the Assembly and the Council, prepared their
agendas, and presided over their meetings.13 Finally, there
were hundreds of administrative officials—most, except the
ten generals (stratēgoi) and those occupying certain other
offices demanding special expertise, chosen by lot.
Socrates may have avoided the Assembly entirely, thus
ignoring a paramount duty of citizenship. If he sometimes
attended, he would have shunned a leadership role. As for the
Council, we know that at least once, during the trial of the
generals in 406 B.C., he was a member of the prytaneis and
was most active. But service on the Council, with its daily
meetings, was so demanding and time-consuming that
Socrates undoubtedly found such work an impediment to his
life’s mission. When he did serve, it was merely to fulfill a
civic duty he could not avoid.14 Moreover, he apparently never
submitted his name to be chosen by lot for one of the several
hundred magisterial offices, at home and abroad, which were
instrumental to the efficient administration of Athenian
democracy and its empire. Another means of political
participation was jury duty. Judicial matters were dealt with by
the People’s Courts (dikastēria), located throughout the city.
Each year, several thousand citizens, age thirty and older,
volunteered their names for inclusion in a lottery, from which
a panel of 6,000 was chosen for service in the various
Athenian courts several days a month throughout the year. To
encourage service, which was not mandatory, Pericles
introduced payment for jurors during the 450s B.C. Volunteers
received a daily rate of two obols, which Cleisthenes increased
to three obols in 424 or 423 B.C. Ordinary citizens, including
the poor, could participate in the courts as jurors, or dikasts,
because payment made it possible for volunteers to be away
from their normal sources of income. Service on juries,
regarded by Athenians as a solemn civic obligation, could
nevertheless be avoided by not volunteering for the lottery.
Socrates probably never volunteered. Moreover, at a time
when the Athenians were known to be litigious, he never
brought suit against anyone nor, until his trial, had he been
indicted. Yet he was not entirely ignorant of court proceedings,
for he indicated in his defense speech that he had observed
men of reputation stoop to humiliating themselves in order to
solicit the jury’s sympathy.15
Since many decisions required special expertise and the
ability to argue persuasively, there emerged in the Assembly a
number of citizens, usually with sufficient wealth, status, and
leisure, who took on leadership roles. All citizens were free to
speak, but in practice only a minority actually did so. While
any individual who addressed the audience was termed a
rhētōr or “speaker,” the word was more loosely applied to
those who repeatedly spoke with effectiveness, hence
becoming leaders. Although an elite of speakers thus arose in
Athenian politics, as Josiah Ober has shown, this was not a
“dominating elite.”16 Success in the Assembly required a
mastery of the art of rhetoric in order to move the sovereign
citizenry to adopt one’s proposals. The rhētores were masters
of what Aristotle later termed deliberative or political rhetoric,
the aim of which, we have seen, is to persuade an audience to
adopt or to reject a particular measure or policy. The rhētores
were in effect full-time politicians. While they held no office
or legal position and enjoyed no special privileges that
distinguished them from other citizens, they nevertheless
exercised considerable influence. Before putting a proposal to
a vote, the Assembly listened to the views of the various
rhētores, whom they regarded as “advisers.”17 Hence, the
speakers assisted the Assembly in determining which
proposals were in the best interest of the community. When,
therefore, Socrates reminds the jury that he never sought to
“advise” the Assembly on matters of public policy, he
probably meant that he never served as a rhētōr. Indeed, as he
declared, his philosophic mission and his poverty would have
precluded such an ambition.
The Assembly, the Council, and the lawcourts were integral
to Athenian democracy, arenas in which citizens competed to
display their aretē. Socrates’ neglect of these public forums,
therefore, could have been perceived as an insult to the city’s
institutions and values. In a modern representative democracy,
Socrates’ abstention from politics would have hardly been
noticed. In fact, his obedience to the law and his distinguished
service in the army would have brought him praise. But being
a citizen in Athens involved participating in a wide array of
civic activities, especially the Assembly. Athens had no notion
of representative government; all responsible citizens were
expected to be active participants in the principal political
institutions. For a person of acknowledged superior intellect,
such as Socrates, to refuse to involve himself in politics must
have been regarded by many Athenians as a perverse view of
citizenship.18
I. F. Stone attacked Socrates for avoiding politics, alleging
that he did nothing to resist Athenian injustice either in the
massacre of Melos or in the Assembly debate over whether to
inflict a similar fate upon Mytilene.19 Yet there is no evidence
of Socrates’ views on Athens’ treatment of Mytilene and
Melos. Socrates would have accomplished little had he
become a prominent leader in the Athenian Assembly. Had he
been present to protest the genocide against Melos, he would
have been defeated by the majority and implicated against his
will in their atrocity. And while it may be true that, according
to Thucydides, the single voice of the orator Diodotus
succeeded in convincing the Assembly to reverse its decision
to massacre the inhabitants of Mytilene, he did so only on the
strength of an argument that disregarded justice and appealed
instead to Athenian self-interest. Judging from Thucydides’ re-
creation of the Mytilenean debate, most Athenians were
willing to conduct the city’s foreign affairs according to a
realpolitik that Socrates would have found unconscionable.
For him to engage in Athenian politics, he would have entered
a realm of corruption that would have destroyed his moral
autonomy and harmed his soul. Ironically, he was morally
unfit for conventional Athenian politics, whether conducted by
democrats or oligarchs. The only side Socrates would take was
that of philosophy. Political partisanship was anathema to the
philosopher, who harbored no personal ambition, seeking
nothing other than the moral perfection of the Athenians. As a
politician, Socrates would either have been executed years
before or been rendered ineffectual by the collective tyranny
of the Assembly, where “truth” became majority opinion. If
Socrates would have attempted to address the Assembly,
attacking injustices, resisting prevailing opinion, and
condemning unjust laws, he would have been branded a traitor.
Hence, Socrates’ abstention from politics was an act of
prudence, permitting him to continue his philosophic mission
while adhering to his conscience.
The trial of Socrates highlights a fundamental conflict
between philosophy and politics, between the philosopher and
the citizen.20 In the Republic, Plato’s Socrates speaks of an
“old quarrel between philosophy and poetry.”21 Philosophy, as
practiced by Socrates, a moral life of reason in pursuit of truth,
was incompatible not only with the myths and distortions of
poetry but also with the ethical compromises necessitated by
politics, especially Athenian power politics. Socrates suffered
first at the hands of poetry, victimized by the
misrepresentations of Aristophanes’ Clouds, in which truth is
trumped for the sake of comic effect.22 At his trial, Socrates
would suffer from his head-on collision with Athenian politics.
In the eyes of many Athenians, the danger posed by
philosophy was that it threatened to undermine the polis. The
trial of Socrates was, then, a trial of philosophy. Allan Bloom
captures the view of Socrates shared by many Athenians:
“Such a man’s presence in the city and his association with the
most promising young men make him a subversive. Socrates is
unjust not only because he breaks Athens’ laws but also
because he apparently does not accept those fundamental
beliefs which make civil society possible.”23

SOCRATES’ DIVINE VOICE

Anticipating criticism for refusing to play a more active role in
Athenian politics, Socrates defends himself by introducing
what he considers an unimpeachable transcendent support: the
divine. Just as he had derived his philosophic mission from the
command of Apollo, he now relates his avoidance of politics
to the will of God. Together, these claims give the Apology a
distinct religious tone. If the jury believed the story of the
oracle, and what he is about to tell them, he will have
established his case. Hence, Socrates explains his neglect of
politics: “You have heard me speak at sundry times and in
divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This
sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when
I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do
anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from
being a politician.”24 Here Socrates introduces his famous and
perplexing dai-monion, the divine “voice” or “sign.” He
claims to have heeded the admonition of a divine voice,
steering him away from a life of politics. As he reminded the
court, he had spoken publicly of this voice over the years.
Meletus, he says, had travestied the voice in his speech for the
prosecution.25 In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates does not deny
his interlocutor’s inference that the impiety charge is linked to
his divine voice.26 Xenophon confirms that the voice was the
basis for the accusation of impiety.27 What was this strange,
perplexing monitory voice? How many Athenians believed
that Socrates was privileged to receive direct divine
communications? According to W. K. C. Guthrie, a complete
account of the mind of Socrates must include the philosopher’s
“belief in a special, direct relation between himself and divine
forces.”28 James Adam saw in Socrates a rare union of
transcendentalism and rationalism, “the two apparently
opposite poles in the character of Socrates. On the one hand, a
fixed and unalterable conviction that he stood in a peculiar
relation to the Godhead, and was entrusted with a divine
mission to his country-men; and, on the other hand, a
singularly clear and penetrating intellect, which refused to
acquiesce in anything that reason could not justify— these are
the two predominant characteristics of the man.”29
Socrates considered his divine voice to be supernatural,
stemming from a transcendent source and probably unique to
himself. “Rarely, if ever,” he admitted in Plato’s Republic,
“has such a monitor been given to any other man.”30 Socrates
spoke of the voice not as a personal deity or daimon, but rather
as a divine experience or daimonion.31 He also claimed that
his mission had been further communicated to him “by
oracles, visions, and in every way in which the will of divine
power has ever intimated to anyone.”32 Although Xenophon
alleged that the voice acted in both a positive and a negative
sense, intervening to counsel Socrates not only what he ought
to do but also what he ought not to do, Plato’s Socrates
explicitly said that the voice was only negative, merely
warning him if he were about to veer from the right path,
while remaining silent when he pursued the good.33 Like
conscience, the voice served as a monitor. A modern
psychologist might speculate that the voice stemmed from his
unconscious.34 Socrates merely projected his own innate
sagacity or intuition upon an exterior transcendent agency.
Regardless of its nature or source, such an unverifiable claim
to divine favor would not be well received by Socrates’
contemporaries. To allege that a god has chosen you for
private communications, unmediated by priests or cults,
violated the Athenian notion of piety and the prerogative of
the polis to regulate religion. Moreover, to some jurors,
Socrates’ voice may have reflected possession by a divinity.
Although a common phenomenon in the mystery religions, the
sense of being filled with a divine power, what the Greeks
called “enthusiasm,” was not necessarily a good. In fact, the
Greeks regarded entheos (“within is a god”) as an abnormal
psychic state.35 In Euripides’ Hippolytus, the illicit love of
Phaedra was inspired by Aphrodite, and in the same
playwright’s Bacchae, Argave murders her own son when
possessed by Dionysus.
By this point in the trial, many jurors must have determined
that Socrates had presented an argument not for acquittal, but
for his condemnation. After professing to be the city’s gadfly,
Apollo’s gift to the Athenians, the philosopher reminded the
court of his rejection of Athenian politics, again enlisting
support from the divine, this time a cryptic voice. The
provocative issues that emerged from his defense signified the
culmination of the conflict between philosophy and politics.
Socrates stood diametrically opposed to Athens. The danger he
posed is emphasized in Plato’s Gorgias, when Callicles
questions the philosopher: “If you are in earnest, and what you
say is true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down;
and are we not doing, as would appear, in everything the
opposite of what we ought to be doing?”36 Every society
necessarily depends for its survival upon adherence to
fundamental values—religious, moral, and political—
inculcated through the family, education, and various
institutions. While, in many instances, those who threaten the
established system are in fact guilty of wanton disregard for
order, history provides numerous examples of individuals who
were ahead of their times morally and intellectually, who
perceived truths that were beyond the comprehension of the
average person. These exceptional, individual trailblazers
often act in response to some intuitive “voice” in direct
violation of the “conscience” of society. As Erich Neumann
explains: “The revolutionary (whatever his type) always takes
his stand on the side of the inner voice and against the
conscience of his time, which is always an expression of the
old dominant values; and the execution of these
revolutionaries is always carried out for good and “ethical”
reasons… . The revelation of the Voice to a single person
presupposes an individual whose individuality is so strong that
he can make himself independent of the collective and its
values. All founders of ethics are heretics, since they oppose
the revelation of the Voice to the deliverances of conscience as
the representative of the old ethic.”37
What Friedrich Nietzsche says about society’s reaction to
radical reformers can be applied to Socrates: “Behold the good
and the just! Whom do they hate most? The man who breaks
their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker; yet he is the
creator. Behold the believers of all faiths! Whom do they hate
most? The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker,
the lawbreaker; yet he is the creator.”38 In essence, Socrates
threatened to bring about a revaluation of Athenian values.
Although opposed to Socrates’ rationalism and his kind of
moral revaluation, Nietzsche understood why Athens had
much to fear from its gadfly. Visionaries like Socrates “take a
new route and suffer the highest disapproval from all the
representatives of the morality of custom—they take
themselves out of the community as immoralists, and are, in
the deepest sense of the word, evil.”39 Nietzsche interpreted
the Apology as an expression of the fundamental conflict
between Socrates and Athens. In lectures delivered at the
University of Basel, Nietzsche hailed the Apology as a
“masterpiece of the highest rank.” Indeed, “Plato seems to
have received the decisive thought as to how a philosopher
ought to behave toward men from the apology of Socrates: as
their physician, as a gadfly on the neck of man.”40

DEFENDER OF JUSTICE
Socrates proceeds to argue that had he ignored the
admonitions of his divine voice and entered politics, he would
have “perished long ago,” without doing any good either to
Athens or to himself. He implies that for years, Athenian
politics had been plagued by such immorality and license that
the life of a principled citizen would have been in grave
danger. “The truth is,” he declares, “that no man who goes to
war with you or any other multitude, honestly striving against
the many lawless and unrighteous deeds which are done in a
state, will save his life; he who will fight for the right, if he
would live even for a brief space, must have a private station,
and not a public one.”41 Socrates’ equating Athenian politics
with corruption must have struck many jurors as utter
insolence. According to Gregory Vlastos, “no harsher
indictment of Athenian political conduct has survived” than
these words of Socrates in the Apology.42 He had elevated
himself onto a pedestal of justice, above partisan politics,
conscientiously opposing the corruption, democratic or
oligarchic, that afflicted Athens throughout much of the
Peloponnesian War.43 He insists that only as a private person
could he have survived to fulfill his divine mission.
To prove his contention, Socrates submits two examples
from recent Athenian history in which, despite the warnings of
his divine voice, he could not avoid involvement in politics.
The first occurred late in the Peloponnesian War. In 406 B.C.,
the Athenians defeated the Spartan fleet at Arginusae, a small
group of Aegean islands between Mytilene and the coast of
Asia Minor. Unfortunately, the victory was marred when a
storm prevented the rescue of survivors from a number of
disabled ships. A great number of lives were lost, perhaps
more than during any other battle of the war. The failure to
recover the dead and wounded aroused great indignation in
Athens against the eight generals who had taken part in the
battle, inducing two of them to flee without returning home.
As Sophocles’ Antigone reminds us, Greek piety required that
the dead receive a proper burial according to the traditional
funeral rites; the unburied soul finds no rest in the hereafter.44
The accusers of the generals were headed by Theramenes, who
had been a leader in the oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C. As
we have noted, Athenian constitutional procedure dictated that
only after matters had been discussed in the Council of Five
Hundred and formed into proposals could they be brought
before the Assembly. Accordingly, Callixenus, a member of
the Council, proposed that the remaining generals be tried by a
process known in Athenian law as eisangelia, which meant
that they would be judged by a vote of the Assembly instead
of by a sworn jury. The accusers also demanded that the
generals be tried not separately, but together collectively, with
a single verdict for them all, which was contrary to the
constitution and hence illegal.45 Athenian democracy having
concentrated virtually all power in the hands of the multitude
of citizens, with no effective system of checks and balances,
the majority could easily infringe the constitution and commit
injustices whenever expedient. The sovereignty of the
Athenian Assembly was absolute, unchallenged, and final.
At that time, Socrates, who was about sixty-five years of
age, had been among those chosen by lot to serve on the
Council of Five Hundred. This was apparently his only
experience in public office. A political duty had apparently
devolved upon him unsought; instead of volunteering, he was
probably drafted to serve. As Robert J. Bonner argues: “It is
difficult to imagine that Socrates of his own accord presented
himself for allotment, or that he would have accepted the
office if he could legally have refused it.”46 Within the
Council, it was then the turn of Socrates’ “tribe” to serve as
the prytaneis, or body of fifty, which presided at meetings of
the Assembly and prepared business for its discussion. As we
have noted, the function of this presiding committee was to
bring Council proposals before the Assembly for a vote.47 The
prytaneis took an oath not to allow illegal motions to be placed
before the Assembly. According to Xenophon’s account of the
deplorable events, when a certain Euryptolemus tried to resist
Callixenus’s unconstitutional proposal, a “great mass shouted
out that it was an intolerable thing if the people was not
allowed to do what it wanted to do.”48 Although some
members of the presiding committee refused to present the
illegal motion to the Assembly for a vote, they quickly
relented after Callixenus, encouraged by the angry crowd,
threatened them with prosecution.
Socrates recalls for the jury that he was the only member of
the prytaneis who remained steadfast, voting against the
unconstitutional proposal. His conscientious refusal to support
the Assembly’s proposal could be defended on both religious
and constitutional grounds. As a member of the Council and
the presiding committee, he had taken an oath to do nothing
against the law.49 This law was the Athenian constitution. To
lend his support to the illegal proposal, a breaking of his oath,
would be not only a violation of the constitution but also an
act of impiety. In contravening the constitution, the Athenians
chose to ignore the principle of the rule of law that made their
democratic community viable. Socrates reminded the jury and
the crowd of spectators at his trial that “when the orators
threatened to impeach and arrest me, and you called and
shouted, I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having
law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice
because I feared imprisonment and death.”50 Socrates’
courageous moral stand proved unavailing, as the Assembly
ultimately voted for Callixenus’ proposal, and the six generals,
including Pericles, son of the great statesman, and Diomedon
and Thrasyllus, distinguished for their service to the
democracy, were judged guilty and executed. This was the first
time that Athenian generals had been put to death.51 But
Socrates would not allow the Athenians to forget their unjust
and unconstitutional behavior. Having referred to himself as
“he who will fight for the right,” Socrates five times identifies
the present jury—”you”—with the Assembly that committed
judicial murder. The demos had shown itself to be tyrannical.
Socrates also reminds the jury and spectators that “as you all
thought afterwards,” the motion to try the generals together
had been illegal. Hence, the Athenians conceded that they had
not only committed an injustice but also violated their
democratic constitution.52 Socrates’ conscientious resistance
to the Assembly in defense of the constitution demonstrated
that he would not sacrifice his moral convictions to what the
majority irresponsibly regarded as the city’s interest.
Socrates points out that his second experience with public
politics occurred when Athens was ruled by an oligarchy.
Democracy is not the only form of government subject to the
tyranny of the multitude. As Socrates will show the jury, no
matter what the government, a single individual cannot
prevent the commission of injustices by those who hold power
with the support, express or tacit, of a large number of people.
In the aftermath of Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War,
we recall, the democracy was overthrown and, with support
from a Spartan garrison under admiral Lysander stationed on
the Acropolis, the Thirty Tyrants came to power. Charged with
the responsibility of drawing up a new oligarchic constitution,
the Thirty seized this opportunity to impose their will upon
Athens, dismantling its democracy. In the course of their brief
despotic rule, the Council and the people’s lawcourts were
abolished and some fifteen hundred supporters of democracy,
citizens and foreign residents, were summarily executed and
their property confiscated. According to Xenophon, the Thirty
came “close to killing more Athenians than all the
Peloponnesians did in ten years of war.”53 Among the Thirty,
Critias, the former associate of Socrates, led the extremists,
while Theramenes led the moderates. Eventually Theramenes
expressed his opposition to the reign of terror and led the
moderates in a demand to draw up a list of three thousand
citizens to constitute a voting body. After initially acceding to
this demand, Critias squelched the plan and had Theramenes
seized as a traitor. Dragged off to prison without a trial,
Theramenes was forced to drink the hemlock, but not before
presenting Critias with a mocking toast: “To my beloved
Critias.”54 According to the historian Diodorus Siculus,
Socrates actively opposed Theramenes’ execution.55
Meanwhile, many staunch democrats, including Socrates’ later
accuser Anytus, had gone into exile to organize a resistance
movement.
On one occasion, says Socrates, in accord with their design
to implicate as many people as possible in their heinous
affairs, the Thirty summoned him along with four others to
their headquarters in the Tholos and issued them a directive to
go and arrest the democrat Leon of Salamis, reputedly a just
man, for summary execution. According to the Greek orator
Lysias, the Thirty had “declared that the city must be purged
of unjust men.”56 They decreed that they could confiscate the
property and execute anyone not included on the list of three
thousand citizens. By declaring Leon a traitor, the Thirty
sought to seize his substantial estate, thus helping to alleviate
their financial burdens. W. K. C. Guthrie speculates that
perhaps two of the Thirty, Critias and Charmides, another
former associate of Socrates, believed that, in view of
Socrates’ criticisms of Athenian democracy, they could count
upon his support; but they obviously underestimated the
philosopher’s commitment to justice.57 Moreover, the Thirty
feared Socrates’ moral influence, for they issued a decree,
probably in response to his criticisms, forbidding teaching “the
art of words” to the young.58 Yet even the Thirty were unable
to stop the philosophic activities of Socrates. The work of
Thucydides reveals that, in times of political turmoil, language
often becomes a casualty. As the Thirty sought to undermine
speech, making the immoral appear moral, Socrates’
philosophical rhetoric of truth posed a threat to the regime.
Socrates informs the jury that, while the others carried out
the order to arrest Leon, he refused and went home. He
responded to an unjust command with an act of conscientious
disobedience. This time, he acted not as an officer of the state,
but as a private citizen. Even though silent, Socrates’ action,
inasmuch as it expressed a moral conviction, was a form of
public speech. The Thirty’s command was unjust, but legally
valid under positive law. While during the trial of the generals
Socrates claimed to have “law and justice” on his side, in the
case of Leon, he made no reference to the law. It is clear that
he believed that the Thirty’s command, although legal, was
unjust.59 While Socrates acknowledged the Thirty as the
“government” or ruling body in power, he nevertheless felt
morally obligated to defy their legal command.60 To justify his
disobedience, he assumed a higher standard of justice.
Whenever the law contravenes justice, one must disobey.
Unwilling to do anything “unrighteous or unholy,” Socrates
demonstrated, “not in word only but in deed,” that the threat of
death would not deter him from doing what he believed to be
just.61 He concludes that, had the despotic oligarchy of the
Thirty not been overthrown by the democrats in 403 B.C., he
might have been executed for his defiance. Throughout his
life, he had remained consistent in all his actions, “public as
well as private.” Having demonstrated his refusal to commit
any act of injustice, under any circumstance, under any system
of government, democracy or oligarchy, Socrates concludes:
“Do you really imagine that I could have survived all these
years, if I had led a public life, supposing that like a good man
I had always maintained the right and had made justice, as I
ought, the first thing?”62
Although he shunned conventional politics, Socrates’
philosophic mission was designed to reform Athenian politics
morally.63 His conception of piety, serving others morally on
behalf of God, made him political in the deepest sense—
ministering to the polis. As Henry David Thoreau argued,
most men serve the state with their bodies, obeying its laws
and defending it in war, without exercising their moral faculty.
Others serve the state with their heads, as legislators or office
holders. These, too, rarely make moral distinctions. “A very
few,” argued Thoreau, “as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers
in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their
consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part;
and they are commonly treated by it as enemies.”64 Socrates
was not “useless” in the sense denigrated by Pericles. The
philosopher served the state, the common moral good, with his
conscience. Thus the unpolitical Socrates did practice a private
kind of pol-itics, addressing individuals, one-on-one, rather
than addressing the polis as a whole.65 If, stimulated by the
gadfly, the Athenians had engaged in self-examination,
pursuing virtue rather than unbridled power, the polis would
have reaped substantial moral benefit. Hannah Arendt explains
that conscience, the ability to distinguish right from wrong,
depends upon the faculty of reflective thought, which is
essential in maintaining one’s moral integrity in the midst of
political crises, when things fall apart and “everybody is swept
away unthinkingly by what everybody else does and believes
in.”66 The Athenians, resistant to Socrates’ mission, became
consumed by the polis ideology, forfeiting conscience to
expediency and confusing might with right.
 Chapter 10

THE TRIAL CONCLUDES:

SOCRATES CONDEMNED

THE CORRUPTION CHARGE

REVISITED

T
HE TIME ALLOTTED FOR SOCRATES TO ADDRESS THE COURT,
governed by the waterclock, was nearing its end. Before
resting his case, he returns to the corruption charge, but
now more explicitly. The jurors were probably troubled
because some of his former “students,” namely Alcibiades,
Critias, and Charmides, had committed religious or political
crimes against the city. Should not Socrates be held
responsible for the misdeeds of his wayward associates? Did
he not concede earlier in his speech that many youths had
followed his example, cross-examining the older generation?1
Socrates thus devotes this part of his speech to reaffirming his
integrity and disclaiming any responsibility for the actions of
his “disciples.” To declare him guilty by association would be
a grave injustice. He proclaims: “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.”2; Echoing his response to
the allegation that he was a Sophist, Soctates again insists that
neither did he presume to be anyone’s teacher not did he have
any regular disciples. As we have seen, while he had been a
prominent figure in the public walkways and gathering places
of Athens, conversing with anyone, citizen or foreigner, young
or old, who cared to listen, Socrates did not conform to the
accepted definition of a teacher. He explains: “If anyone likes
to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether
he be young or old, he is not excluded, nor do I converse with
those who 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, neither result can be
justly imputed to me; for I never taught or professed to teach
him anything.”3 By Athenian standards, without a traditional
doctrine to inculcate, he could hardly be called a teacher.
Nevertheless, Socrates did, by example, teach a method of
critical thinking in which every value was subject to
questioning. He also taught that one must cultivate virtue in
the interest of perfecting the soul. If some individuals enjoy
his company, Socrates suggests, with obvious sarcasm, it is
because they enjoy observing him deflate those who pretend to
wisdom. If he has in fact corrupted the young, he concludes,
either the corrupted individuals or members of their families
would have testified against him. But no one did. Hence, it is
evident that “I am speaking the truth and that Meletus is a
liar.”4
But many Athenians blamed Socrates for the destructive
effects of his philosophic method. It is one thing to encourage
the young to think critically, but, unless discredited traditional
values are replaced by positive doctrine, immoral self-interest
easily fills the vacuum. Those who destroy must create anew.
Although Socrates devoted his life to assisting others to think
more clearly about virtues, this abstract thinking would not in
itself have improved their ability to judge right from wrong in
concrete situations. As Hannah Arendt observed, Socrates’
associates, Alcibiades and Critias, were aroused by the gadfly
to “license and cynicism. Not content with being taught how to
think without being taught a doctrine, they changed the non-
results of the Socratic thinking examination into negative
results: If we cannot define what piety is, let us be impious—
which is pretty much the opposite of what Socrates had hoped
to achieve by talking about piety.”5 These associates of
Socrates betrayed their master by directing his critical
techniques toward immoral ends. Arendt argues that the
cynical nihilism of men like Alcibiades and Critias arose not
out of “the Socratic conviction that an unexamined life is not
worth living but, on the contrary, out of the desire to find
results which would make further thinking unnecessary.”6
Nevertheless, some Athenians might have found Socrates
culpable precisely because he refused to become a teacher in
the traditional sense. Given the ethical collapse of Athenian
society during the Peloponnesian War, the philosopher might
have rendered a valuable service by teaching positive doctrine,
specifying the moral reform necessary to save the polis.
History demonstrates that the multitude, even when able and
courageous enough to think for themselves, clamor for
guidance, especially during periods of crisis.

REJECTING AN APPEAL FOR

SYMPATHY
As Socrates’ speech nears conclusion, he surprises the court
by departing from the conventional peroration. He will refuse
to resort to the device of now bringing his family and friends,
including children, onto the speaker’s rostrum to solicit the
sympathy of the jury. Indeed, had Socrates indulged in such a
conventional argumentum ad misericordiam, his speech would
have become an “apology” in the modern sense of a
repentance instead of a bold justification. He prefaces his
remarks by conceding that some members of the jury, having
also been tried, might be offended, for even in cases involving
less than a capital offense, they had no compunction about
presenting a pathetic spectacle of themselves and their families
pleading for mercy. According to tradition, the great Pericles
himself wept openly as he implored an Athenian jury to spare
the life of his mistress Aspasia, accused of impiety by his
enemies.7 Such appeals for pity from jurors had become a
standard in Athenian courts8 By publicly admitting their
powerlessness, defendants became suppliants, renouncing their
honor in the hopes of gaining an acquittal. In a culture that
prized honor inordinately, such public humiliations, while
common, must have devastated many defendants. But Socrates
refuses to plead for clemency. He does not want the court’s
pity.
Some jurors might have concluded that Socrates, simply by
mentioning his family had found a more subtle way to elicit
their compassion. Yet he could not completely ignore his
family. Lest refusing to include them in his defense be viewed
as a sign of familial disaffection, he reminds the jury that he
too has relatives. In addition to his wife, Xanthippe, Socrates
had three sons, one almost grown, two still children. But, as
we have noted, devotion to his mission had led him not only to
reject Athenian public life but also to neglect his family. In
doing so, Socrates stood at odds with what the ancient Greeks
saw as essential to being human. Yet he affirms a familial
connection, however tenuous. Employing words from Homer,
he declares that he is “a creature of flesh and blood and not ‘of
wood or stone.’”9 The phrase, “not of wood or stone,” which
had become proverbial in Socrates’ day, occurs twice in
Homer, first in relation to the theme of identity, then as a
forecast of death.”10 Penelope uses the phrase in requesting
Odysseus, having finally returned home in disguise, to give an
account of his ancestry. As a human, not “of wood or stone,”
he must have relatives. The jury was challenged to
differentiate the true Socrates from his many masks, just as
Penelope had been challenged by Odysseus. Moreover, the
phrase appears in Hector’s final speech, in the Iliad, as he
contemplates his imminent death at the hands of Achilles.
Hector is named three times in a few sentences in the
Apology.11 As Socrates now stood before the Athenian court,
he too, like Hector, anticipated his ultimate fate.
Socrates believes that his departure from traditional practice
warrants an explanation. A pathetic plea for his life involving
his family, he insists, would be dishonorable for someone of
his age and reputation. Whether true or false, he is
nevertheless perceived as “in some way superior to other
men.” It would, therefore, be shameful for anyone like
himself, “superior in wisdom and courage, and any other
virtue,” to engage in degrading supplication to convince a jury
to spare his life. Socrates thus elevates himself, along with
other “virtuous” men, beyond the mundane concerns of the
masses. With a remark that could not fail to further anger
many jurors, Socrates claims that the pathetic and unmanly act
of pleading for clemency would disgrace the entire city.
Indeed, any foreign visitor “would have said of them that the
most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians
themselves give honour and command, are no better than
women.”12 Socrates thus alleges that many Athenian citizens,
who prided themselves on their “manly” behavior on the
battlefield, had behaved like cowards in the lawcourts. For the
Greeks, andreia, or courage, was considered a virtue exclusive
to men and was usually translated as “manliness.” Any public
display of grief, sorrow, or fear was regarded as “natural” only
for women. In fact, such sentiments were institutionalized in
the ritual mourning by women at funerals.13 Moreover,
Socrates argues, pleading for mercy would be unjust; the jury
ought to be convinced not by sentiment but by argument and
facts alone. Their duty is “not to make a present of justice, but
to give judgment.” Finally, an emotional appeal would also be
impious, for the jurors had taken a sacred oath to render a just
and lawful verdict. If Socrates indulges in passionate entreaties
to influence the jury, he would, ironically, convict himself of
the contempt for religion and disbelief in the gods alleged in
the indictment. Then, in an astonishing reversal of the charges,
the man accused of impiety alleges that his piety exceeds that
of those who would condemn him: “I do believe that there are
gods, and in a sense higher than that in which any of my
accusers believe in them.”14 With this claim, Socrates lets his
defense rest. He declares, with noble resignation, that he will
commit his cause to the jury and to God, “to be determined by
you as is best for you and me.”15 In essence, the jurors must
decide whether philosophy and Athenian politics can coexist.
The arguments completed, the herald of the court requested
the jurors to proceed with their decision. As in all Athenian
trials, the jurors did not discuss the case among themselves.
Having tossed the gauntlet before the court, Socrates awaited
the verdict. Judging Socrates would not be easy, for the
Athenian legal system placed juries under an extraordinary
challenge. In fulfilling their responsibility, they had to
interpret the law, determine the standard of proof, and render a
decision according to the best interests of the polis. Their task
was made more difficult by the fact that Socrates was a
complex and elusive personality. Indeed, the jurors had been
presented with a veritable kaleidoscope of often conflicting
images of the philosopher throughout the daylong trial. To
some, Socrates must have appeared like the mythical Proteus,
capable of assuming many different forms.
The defense speech of Socrates presents modern readers
with the same rigorous challenge. There is the accused
Socrates of the indictment, the impious corrupter of the young,
the teacher of Alcibiades and Critias. There is Socrates of
Aristophanes’ Clouds, the Sophist, the irresponsible teacher of
deceptive rhetoric, and Socrates as the follower of
Anaxagoras, the natural scientist and atheist. There is Socrates
the bad citizen, the unpolitical man who, by shunning partisan
public politics, accentuates his difference from his fellow
citizens, setting himself apart from the community; Socrates
the critic of conventionai rhetoric, who flouts accepted
lawcourt discourse; Socrates the provocative iconoclast, the
threat to established beliefs and values; Socrates the arrogant
self-righteous accuser of Athens, a man without the traditional
sense of shame; Socrates, who wears the mask of ignorance,
who ridicules the pretense of those who profess wisdom;
Socrates the reformer, who claims a personal relation to God,
bestowing a divine mission upon himself to sting the
conscience of the Athenians; Socrates the sole recipient of a
cautionary divine voice. Moreover, there is the Socrates who
humbly acknowledges his ignorance before the great
questions; Socrates the obedient servant of Apollo; Socrates
the hero, the new Achilles and Heracles; Socrates the gadfly,
the moral interrogator and intellectual midwife; Socrates the
man of conscience and the advocate of a new rhetoric of truth;
Socrates the husband and father, the impoverished elderly
citizen, the patriotic defender of Athens in time of war, at once
the defender of the constitution and the defiant civil
disobedient. From these various images, the jury had to
construct the identity of the defendant as they reflected on how
to cast their ballots.

PROPOSING A COUNTERPENALTY
After deliberating, the jury turned in a verdict condemning
Socrates by the modest margin of sixty votes. The judgment
was recorded by the clerk of the court. Assuming a jury of 500
members, 280 voted for conviction, 220 for acquittal.16 Each
juror cast his vote into one of two urns, one for conviction, the
other acquittal. What surprised Socrates was not his
conviction, but the closeness of the vote. Given his
provocative speech and the prejudice against him, he knew
that a vote to condemn him could have been overwhelming.
Were it not for the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, he alleges,
Meletus would have failed to obtain, according to law, the
minimum twenty percent of the total votes for conviction, and
hence would have incurred a fine. The closeness of the verdict
may in part be explained by the fact that the jurors, challenged
to deal with a number of difficult issues, had been in deep
conflict over Socrates. They had to balance their professed
value of freedom with the best interests of the polis. Socrates
undoubtedly had many supporters. We should not attribute
malevolence to everyone who condemned him. Socrates was
not the victim of an angry, irrational mob. Perhaps many
supporters were members of the jury, while others were
spectators who presumably reacted vociferously during the
speeches of the prosecution. Moreover, despite its defiant
nature, Socrates’ speech must have per-suaded many jurors
who were not inclined at first to be sympathetic. Perhaps they
were ready to learn the lessons of the Peloponnesian War and
heed the philosopher’s warning to care for their souls. At the
same time, the verdict demonstrates that the majority of jurors,
while probably reluctant to execute the philosopher, concluded
that he was a danger to the polis. They knew that a vote to
acquit Socrates would provide legal sanction for his
philosophic mission. Having observed the defendant convert
his trial into a trial of Athens, in their view making a travesty
of the legal process, they realized that an acquittal would have
amounted to a condemnation of the city.
In cases such as that of Socrates, known as an agōn timētos,
where, owing to degrees of culpability, the law provided no
statutory punishment, after a guilty verdict, the penalty rested
with the litigants and the jurors. The prosecution offered one
penalty, while the convicted person submitted a naturally more
lenient alternative. The jury would then choose between the
two penalties. Unlike modern trials, not only the verdict but
also the penalty was determined by the jury, not by a
professional judge.17 In these situations, since the penalty
would be the product of a compromise, the prosecution’s
interest dictated proposing the most severe penalty it could
expect the jury to inflict. Accordingly, the prosecution
mounted the speakers’ platform and demanded the death
penalty. They ptobably hoped that, confronted with capital
punishment, Socrates would propose exile, a penalty stringent
enough to satisfy the jury.
Socrates begins the final phase of his trial by asking the jury
rhetorically what penalty he really deserves. He reminds the
court how much his life has differed from that of others, how
he did not care for wealth or material comforts, high military
or civil rank, political organizations or factions. He thus
reinforces his difference. Indeed, he appears to manifest
aspects of what Aristotle later termed megalopsychia,
magnanimity or greatness of soul, as one who has lived a life
of exceptional virtue, transcending the narrow and self-serving
interests of the masses. As Socrates announces to the court,
invoking again his philosophic mission: “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 every one 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.”18 In other words, the Athenians
should be more concerned with the state’s moral welfare than
with its material possessions. In promoting this ideal, Socrates
was unique: a private man who is a public benefactor.19 For
such service to the polis, Socrates declares, he deserves not
punishment, but a reward! Considering his poverty, he
suggests that just treatment would consist of providing him
with the support necessary to continue his moral mission:
public maintenance at the city’s expense in the Prytaneum!
Was he merely taunting the jury?
In Athens, the Prytaneum, a sort of state house located in
the agora, contained the sacred hearth of Hestia that
symbolized the life of the polis.20 It also functioned as a public
dining room, in which foreign ambassadors were received and
distinguished citizens, such as generals and athletic victors in
the Olympic contests, were provided with meals at public
expense. Maintenance at the Prytaneum was associated with
the traditional heroic ideal, in which virtue (aretē) and
goodness (agatbos) were honorific terms applied to those
whose prowess, physical or mental, brought them fame. To
invite someone to dine at the Prytaneum was regarded as one
of the highest honors Athens could bestow.
To Socrates, the Prytaneum would be a fitting residence for
the philosopher-hero. In his view, as the city’s moral
benefactor, devoting his life to exposing ignorance and
nurturing souls, the least the Athenians should do in return is
to provide him with physical sustenance. For, according to his
conception of virtue, good ought to be returned for good. Even
though Socrates knew that his request would be rebuffed, it
bears significance. He is announcing that philosophy deserves
the highest place of honor in the city. He is also reasserting his
identification with the Greek heroic tradition. Having
compared himself with Achilles and Heracles, Socrates now
sets himself above those whom the heroic tradition chose to
lionize for success in various contests, military and athletic.
Instead of punishing him as a malefactor, he believes that the
Athenians should honor and celebrate him as the philosopher-
hero, the moral benefactor of the city. In effect, Socrates told
the jury, you must either kill me or reward me! At this point in
the trial, even those sympathetic to the philosopher probably
believed that he had made the death sentence inescapable. Let
us assume that Socrates’ outlandish request had been granted.
Hostile jurors might have envisioned the following scenario.
In a festival for the gods—either the Great Dionysia or the
Panathenaea—Socrates, like celebrated athletic heroes, would
parade on stage to the accompaniment of music and fanfare. A
decree of honor would he proclaimed and a wreath would be
placed upon his head. Then this impious philosopher, who
held his own private religious views and probably corrupted
the young, those who represent the future of Athens, would be
rewarded with a pension for life. With a statement that must
have infuriated the jury, Socrates contends that he deserves
this honor much more than the athletic victor at Olympia, for
he “only gives you the appearance of happiness and 1 give you
the reality.”21
After indicating that if he had more than the one day allotted
to address the court, as was apparently the practice of other
cities in capital cases, he might have won an acquittal,
Socrates proceeds to explain why each of the possible
alternative penalties is unacceptable. Imprisonment is rejected,
for this would mean enslavement to the legal authorities, the
board of Eleven magistrates, chosen annually by lot, who
supervised the prison and carried out sentences.22 At the same
time, given his poverty, a fine with imprisonment until paid
would be tantamount to the same thing—slavery. For Socrates,
imprisonment was objectionable because it would not only end
his philosophic mission but also deprive him of the autonomy
necessary for a moral being. Another penalty found in
Athenian law, which Socrates mentions but does not offer as
an alternative, was loss of civil rights.23 Most citizens would
have regarded this penalty almost as severe as death. Socrates
would have been stripped of the right to vote, hold public
office, enter a temple, speak in the Assembly or in a lawcourt,
become a member of the Council, or serve on a jury.24 Had he
given them the opportunity, many jurors might have voted for
this penalty. Yet because Socrates studiously avoided these
public forums, this punishment would have left him free to
continue his philosophic mission.
Finally, Socrates considers exile, the penalty, he suggests,
most of his enemies expected him to accept. As the enemy of
the polis, the philosopher would be expelled from the
community. The Athenians would then be rid of the gadfly, yet
free from the responsibility of executing him. If Socrates
accepted exile, he could have assumed for many Athenians the
role of the scapegoat, or pharmakos. Each year, during a
spring religious festival of Apollo, known as the Thargelia,
and especially during periods of severe crisis such as war,
famine, or plague, the Athenians garlanded two ugly persons,
the pharmakoi, with a string of figs and expelled them from
the city as an act of ritual purification.25 As Jean-Pierre
Vernant observes: “In the person of the ostracized one the city
expels whatever it is in it that is too high and that embodies the
evil that can fall on it from above. In that of the pharmakos, it
expels whatever is most vile and embodies the evil that
threatens it from below.”26 For the Athenians, Socrates could
fulfill either role. As a superior person, he could, like the great
Themistocles, be ostracized; as the aged philosopher with a
visage of Silenus, he could be the scapegoat.
But for Socrates to submit to exile wouid legitimate the
indictment and be interpreted as an admission of guilt.
Moreover, his commitment to philosophy would, he says,
engender, in city after city, the same charge of corrupting the
young, making him, at his advanced age, a perpetual wanderer.
There was yet another, unstated reason why Socrates rejected
exile. The ancient city was regarded not only as a dwelling
place but also as the vital matrix from which an individual
sprung. As Fustel de Coulanges observed: “Country holds man
attached to it by a sacred tie. He must love it as he loves his
religion, obey it as he obeys a god. He must give himself to it
entirely….Socrates, unjustly condemned by it, must not love it
the less. He must love it as Abraham loved his God, even to
sacrificing his son for it. Above all, one must know how to die
for it.”27 If Socrates accepted exile, he would become apolis,
without a city, even more alien than he was as a philosopher in
Athens. The most pathetic figure, for the Greeks, is the
stateless person.
Socrates anticipates, by means of a fifth fictitious
“objector,” that someone might inquire why he does not
attempt to avoid exile or death by agreeing to end his
philosophic mission, and hence spend the rest of his life in
Athens minding his own affairs. As we have noted, the
“objectors” played an essential rhetorical role throughout
Socrates’ speech, enabling him to control, to a large extent, the
issues and questions to be considered by the jury. The first
objector permitted him to explain the origins of his
philosophic mission with the Delphic oracle; the second
objector allowed him to assert that living a moral life is more
important than a long life and to associate himself with the
Greek heroic ideal that he was in the process of transforming;
the third objector gave Socrates the opportunity to reject a
hypothetical plea bargain, demonstrating that his loyalty to
God is superior to his obligation to obey the state; the fourth
objector permitted him not only to explain his abstention from
Athenian politics but also to introduce his monitory divine
voice; finally, the fifth objector enabled him to express his
profound commitment to a life of philosophic examination,
both of himself and others. The introduction of these
“objectors,” therefore, made it possible for Socrates to raise
questions that might not have been addressed in a more
straightforward speech. Indeed, the “objectors” served as
introductions to the most significant and provocative aspects
of his defense.
Conceding that the jury will think he is merely speaking
ironically, Socrates responds to the fifth “objector” by
persisting in his claim that to abstain from philosophy would
violate the command of Apollo. If he continues to live, it must
be in Athens, as a philosopher. He must not desert his mission.
For Socrates, the “greatest good of man” is the practice of
philosophy, discussing virtue daily, examining oneself and
others. The purpose of philosophy is to show humans how
they ought to live. With the most famous words from the
Apology, Socrates proclaims: “The unexamined life is not
worth living for a human being.”28 He would not choose to
live any other way.
In compliance with the court’s legal demand, Socrates
reluctantly agreed to accept a fine of one mina of silver, the
largest he could afford, and hence would do him no harm. He
did not interpret this penalty as compromising his principles,
since he did not regard it as an admission of guilt. Yet the fine
would have been substantial for Socrates. Indeed, according to
Xenophon, one mina would have been equivalent to a fifth of
Socrates’ entire property.29 A skilled craftsman would earn a
wage of about a mina over one hundred days. Nevertheless,
expecting the jury to reject this fine as unsuitable for a capital
offense, Socrates’ friends, Plato, Crito, Critobolus, and
Apollodorus, immediately increased it to thirty minae, on their
security. Socrates agreed. This larger fine had considerable
purchasing power in 399 B.C. According to one estimate, it
would be equal to approximately eight-and-a-half years’
wages for a skilled craftsman.30 Yet the jury was aware that
Socrates, as demonstrated by his proposal of free maintenance
in the Prytaneum, was unrepentant. Moreover, since the largest
part of the proposed fine would have been paid by Socrates’
friends, the philosopher could hardly be regarded as one
severely punished. Most importantly, despite the size of the
fine, Socrates had made it clear that he would not cease his
critical activity. His refusal to accept exile placed the majority
of the jurors in the difficult position of having to choose
between imposing a fine, allowing Socrates to remain in
Athens to continue his philosophic mission, and the death
penalty.
The tragic conflict between Socrates and Athens, between
philosophy and politics, thus reached a climax. After
deliberating, a majority of the jurors voted for the execution of
Socrates rather than continue to expose themselves to his
relentless scrutiny. This time, according to Diogenes Laertius,
a greater majority, eighty more than the vote for conviction,
condemned the philosopher.31 Thus the final condemning vote
was 360 to 140. Needless to say, Socrates’ most fervent
supporters had voted for the fine. Probably most of those who
had voted for his conviction now voted for the death sentence.
The possibility of imposing a fine, even if substantial for
Socrates, did not deter the majority from inflicting the most
severe penalty. Having originally convicted the philosopher,
many could not countenance nullifying their condemning vote
by agreeing to a penalty they regarded as tantamount to an
acquittal. Some jurors, believing Socrates to be guilty but not
wanting to take responsibility for his death, conceivably voted
for the fine. And perhaps some who originally voted for
acquittal, angered by Socrates’ suggestion that he be rewarded
with free maintenance in the Prytaneum as the city’s greatest
benefactor, voted for his execution. The philosopher would be
compelled by law to drink a cup of poison hemlock.

TRUTH FAILS TO PERSUADE

Socrates did with his defense speech what he had attempted to
avoid throughout his life—address a large body of Athenians
on matters of state. Although he had scored some penetrating
blows, his speech must be judged a failure according to the
standards of forensic oratory later systematized by Aristotle in
his Rhetoric. As George Grote observed: “No one who reads
the ‘Platonic Apology’ of Sokrates will ever wish that he made
any other defense. But it is the speech of one who deliberately
foregoes the immediate purpose of a defense—persuasion of
the judges.”32 We have seen that Aristotle outlined three
modes of persuasion applicable to forensic rhetoric: reason or
argument (logos), emotion (pathos), and character (ēthos).
These modes are interrelated, as a speaker can hardly engage
in one without at the same time employing, in varying degrees,
the other two. By classical standards, good rhetoric is
successful rhetoric. A speech may be eloquent and truthful, but
unless persuasive, it must be judged deficient. Many jurors
undoubtedly gave Socrates mixed reviews for his arguments.
While they might have conceded some points, they also
probably suspected that they were being manipulated by a
crafty Sophist. Who but a Sophist could manage to convert his
own defense into a trial of the Athenians? Indeed, Socrates’
speech contained a number of reversals. The supposedly
ignorant man claimed superior human wisdom, the unpolitical
man purported to be most beneficial to the polis, the allegedly
impious man claimed to be the most pious, the accused
corrupter of the youth presented himself as their only
improver, and the man of apparently unheroic stature elevated
himself to a hero. The jurors would have also noted that
Socrates did not meet each count in the official indictment
unequivocally. Instead of directly answering the charge of not
acknowledging the city’s gods, he goaded Meletus to expand
the accusation from heterodoxy to atheism, thus contradicting
the literal indictment. Instead of rebutting the charge that he
corrupted the youth, Socrates projected himself as the city’s
great moral benefactor.
While argument (logos) was undeniably an important
element in Socrates’ speech, the emotions (pathos) aroused in
his audience and the character (ēthos) displayed by the speaker
were equally important. Arguments alone are insufficient to
persuade, for human beings are often induced to judge and act
from emotion. Aristotle later contended that eliciting a
favorable emotional response from one’s audience is most
important in judicial speeches.33 The master rhetorician is a
superb psychologist. Yet Socrates refused to conciliate the
jurors or solicit their sympathy. He would have nothing to do
with the typical forensic ploy of “appealing to the gallery”
with an argumentum ad populum. On the contrary, as we have
noted, his speech was an act of defiance. He claimed to be
God’s gift to the city and arrogated heroic stature for himself.
The defendant presented himself as Athens’ critic, threatening
to undermine basic values of the community. Ēthos is
intimately related to pathos, for a speaker who instills a sense
of his good character in an audience also elicits benevolent
feelings. A defendant who angers his judges is perceived as
having poor character. Many jurors must have resented
Socrates’ claim that, prejudiced by the “old accusers,” they
were incapable of giving him a fair trial. Moreover, his
interrogation of Meletus reminded many jurors of how
vulnerable they also were to the philosopher’s critical scrutiny.
And Socrates’ pursuit of his own style of private politics,
deliberately avoiding conventional political forums, induced
many to regard him as a bad citizen. His gravest offense,
perhaps, was the bold insistence that his duty to philosophy
was superior to his duty to obey the state. Indeed, he would
defy any government that attempted to terminate his
philosophic mission. In summary, the speech of Socrates
provoked, rather than persuaded.

PARTING WORDS TO ENEMIES

Having received the death sentence, Socrates avails himself of
the opportunity to address the jurors while the court officials
attended to necessary business, recording the judgment and the
death warrant, before escorting him to prison. He devotes a
few minutes to a valedictory, first to those who voted for his
death and then to those who voted for his acquittal. This part
of the Apology might be Plato’s invention; it is uncertain
whether Socrates had an opportunity to speak after his
sentencing, for it does not seem to have been standard practice
in Athenian courts. If Socrates did utter some parting words,
his friends would have listened, but it is less likely that the
convicting jurors would have remained in court to hear
Socrates berate them. If he did not deliver such an address,
Plato could have composed the words in retrospect, reflecting
what he believed Socrates might have said if given the
opportunity. Similar addresses by Socrates to the jury after the
trial are also found in Xenophon’s Apology; however, this
version is probably based upon that of Plato.34
To those who voted for his death, Socrates wonders why
they could not, given his advanced age, simply have waited for
nature to take its course, instead of leaving Athens open to
criticism from its enemies. Those who wish to revile Athens in
the future for executing him, he predicts, will say he was
“wise” even if he was not—one more dose of Socratic irony.
Here he capitalizes on the importance that Athenians placed
upon avoiding shame. Indeed, as Kenneth Dover’s analysis of
Athenian speeches demonstrates, in addressing juries and the
Assembly, orators often appealed to the citizenry’s inordinate
concern with reputation: “‘What will be said of you [by your
fellow citizens]?’, ‘How will you be regarded …?’” This
naturally became: “‘What will the Greek world think of
Athens …?’, ‘It will be shameful for Athens….’”35 Although
many might believe that he could have presented other
arguments or done certain things to secure acquittal, Socrates
has no regrets about his defense. His conviction stemmed not
from lack of argument, he proclaims—in a statement that must
have stung with its irony—but from his lacking “the boldness
or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have
liked me to do.”36 One imagines that the convicting jurors, if
still present in the court, would have responded that it was
indeed the “boldness” and “impudence” of his defense that led
to his condemnation. Nevertheless, Socrates concludes,
alluding to his refusal to plead for mercy from the court: “I
would rather die having spoken after my manner,” he declares,
“than speak in your manner and live.”37
Drawing another implied connection between himself and
the Greek hero, Socrates, the new Achilles, then affirms: “For
neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any man to use every
way of escaping death.” In battle, he alleges, one can avoid
death by surrendering in dishonor to one’s pursuers. If one is
“willing to say and do anything,” one can escape a host of
dangers. Socrates is reminding the jury once again that the
prospect of death did not deter him from upholding his
principles. Most difficult to escape, he argues, is not death, but
unrighteousness. While he will be overtaken by death, his
accusers will be condemned by the truth, overtaken by
unrighteousness, which “runs faster than death.” He concludes
with a prophecy, “for I am about to die, and in the hour of
death men are gifted with prophetic power.” Invoking this
prevalent ancient belief in the prophetic ability granted to
those on the brink of death, Socrates’ vision reinforces the
relationship he sees between himself and the ancient Greek
heroic ideal. The dying Patroclus predicts Hector’s death at the
hands of Achilles; and Hector, when slain by Achilles,
foretells Achilles’ death at the hands of Paris. Like an
Athenian Jeremiah, Socrates predicts that soon after his death,
“punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will
surely await you.”38 As the agent of Apollo, the God of
prophecy, Socrates had delivered a prediction. Whereas he had
admonished the jury earlier that they would suffer if they
executed him, for they would not easily find a successor to
him, he now promises Athens more critics, younger and more
numerous. While not operating under explicit divine
command, these critics, associates of Socrates whom, he says,
he has up to now somehow restrained, will nevertheless fulfill
God’s wish, holding the Athenians accountable for their
actions. Thus, the city will continue to be examined and
prodded by Socrates’ philosophic heirs. Having unjustly
condemned its greatest moral benefactor, Athens would be
convicted before the court of history.

PARTING WORDS TO FRIENDS

Socrates now turns his attention to those who voted to acquit
him. We have noted that throughout his defense, and in his
remarks to those who convicted him, Socrates addressed the
members of the court as “jurors” or simply as “men of
Athens.” Only now, in an address to the acquitting jurors, does
he deliberately use the term “judges” (dikastai). Meletus, of
course, had been careful from the beginning to refer to the
jurors as “judges,” thus avoiding any suspicion that he
regarded them as less than completely upright.39 Although
jurors functioned also as judges in the Athenian legal system,
Socrates obviously believed that a “judge” must merit the title
by rendering just decisions. Throughout his trial, as we have
seen, Socrates refrained from the usual forensic practice of
praising the alleged competence, impartiality, and piety of the
jury.40 From the outset, he insisted that his case must be
decided solely upon the bases of truth and justice. He had
implored the jury, we recall, to reach their decision not
according to his “manner, which may or may not be good; but
think only of the justice of my cause…. [L]et the judge decide
justly and the speaker speak truly.”41 Socrates reserved calling
any of the jurors “judges” until after they demonstrated
whether they deserved the honorific name. Now that the
verdict has been rendered, Socrates is in effect telling the jury
that, while he had spoken truly, the convicting jurors did not
decide justly, hence forfeiting the title of judges. By reserving
the title for those who had voted for acquittal, he registered his
disagreement with the verdict and continued to assert himself
as the judge of Athens.
To those who voted to acquit, Socrates offers words to
reconcile them to his fate. Although condemned to death, he
believes that something “wonderful” had nevertheless
happened to him. We recall that before Socrates began his
defense, he had resigned his fate to God.42 He now informs his
friends that neither when he left home for the court that
morning, nor when he mounted the rostrum to speak, nor at
any point in his speech, did his divine voice attempt to deter
him. Socrates concludes, therefore, that this is an intimation
that his death will be a good one. There are additional grounds,
he maintains, to hope for a good result for himself. Death is
either complete annihilation or a migration of the soul—his
third and final mention of the soul in the Apology—to some
other place. If annihilation, the dead are without
consciousness, as in a dreamless sleep. The prospect of thus
escaping the tribulations of life, he alleges, would be viewed
as a gift by the Great King of Persia himself, proverbially
regarded by the Greeks as enjoying the ultimate earthly
happiness. If, on the other hand, death is a migration to
another place, Socrates declares that the blessing would be
even greater.43 Here he reflects the human hope in some form
of immortality or existence after death. As Socrates declares in
Plato’s Phaedo, swans sing before death, not as a lamentation,
but because, as Apollo’s sacred birds, they anticipate the good
life that is to come.44
The greater blessing that an afterlife offers, Socrates
explains, will stem from the people he would have the
opportunity to meet. He then situates himself within the Greek
heroic tradition. In a journey to the world of the dead,
reminiscent of the Odyssey, he imagines that he would meet
people such as Minos, Rhadamanthys, Aeacus, and
Triptolemus, renowned for their just lives on earth and now
appointed judges in the underworld. In placing himself
ironically in the honored position of a philosopher in Hades,
Socrates boldly appropriated a function of the polis; the
Greeks inferred that those honored by the living on earth
received equivalent honor in the underworld.45 In Hades,
beyond the reach of the “judges” of Athens, he will appear
before the transcendent tribunal of truth. Hence, Socrates
expresses faith in an eternal justice beyond the fallible justice
of this world. Interestingly, he does not say that he would at
last in the afterlife attain the wisdom that had been his pursuit,
for, as he said in his defense, true wisdom is the possession of
the gods alone. But he does envision meeting the great
teachers of the Greeks, Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and
Homer, all revered for their wisdom. Socrates confesses that if
this account is indeed true, he would be willing to “die again
and again.”46 He would also meet Palamedes and Ajax, the
son of Telemon, and other heroes who, like himself, were
condemned to death unjustly. Significantly, he omits any
mention of a possible encounter with Achilles, the Homeric
warrior-hero whom he, as philosopher-hero, superseded.
But the greatest pleasure, Socrates alleges, would come
from the opportunity to examine and search minds, “to find
out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise and is not.” He
longs to interrogate such figures as Agamemnon, Odysseus,
Sisyphus, and “numberless others, men and women too.”
Here, free from the confines of patriarchal Greek culture,
Socrates would be able to include women within his
philosophic mission. Given the restrictive conventions of
Greek society, in which women were virtually confined to the
home and relegated to an inferior status, Socrates’
interrogations in this life were reserved to men. He would thus
be unrestrained in his practice of philosophy. Surely, he
presumes, unable to resist one final barb against his accusers,
philosophers would not be executed for critical activity in the
underworld. The silence of the divine voice, in this climactic
moment of Socrates’ life, had also given him greater insight
into death. For while earlier he had noted that no one knows
what death brings, he is now certain that “no evil can happen
to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not
neglected by the gods; nor has my approaching end happened
by mere chance.” Implying that Apollo had now released him
from the burden of his philosophic mission, Socrates
proclaims that it is “better for me to die and be released from
trouble.”47
Before closing, Socrates insists that he bears no ill will
toward either his three accusers or the jurors who condemned
him, for in truth they cannot hurt him. Nevertheless, he
alleges, they still bear responsibility for their actions and must
live with the consequences. Socrates then makes a surprising
request of those who had condemned him. If his sons, when
they grow up, value material wealth rather than goodness, the
condemning jurors must reprove them as he had reproved the
Athenians. If the condemning jurors grant him this favor, he
insists, they will have done justice not only to his children but
also to him.48 Thus, with an ironic barb, Socrates implies that
the Athenians will eventually repent and devote themselves to
morality and justice. In effect, he is requesting the condemning
jurors to take over his role as father, in loco parentis, as he had
served as a father to his city. If so, Socrates proclaims, he will
have received posthumous justice from Athens. He thus makes
a last attempt to transform the traditional Greek conception of
the hero, promoting himself as the ideal. Pericles had summed
up the old heroic ideal in his Funeral Speech, commemorating
those who died defending Athens as great benefactors of the
city and offering their orphaned children support at public
expense until they came of age. Socrates requests the same
benefit, but as a hero in a new moral sense. Each year, during
the Great Dionysia, the dramatic festival of the city, orphans
whose fathers had been killed in battle, and who had therefore
been educated by the state and reached maturity, were paraded
in full hoplite armor.49 The ceremony was designed to pay
homage to those who had given their life to the community.
Now prepared to emulate the courage of their heroic fathers,
the sons and the entire community participated in a ritual
lesson in citizenship. As Socrates’ final request to the
condemning jurors on behalf of his sons makes clear, he
believed that, as the great benefactor of Athens, he deserved
the same honor granted to those warrior heroes who had died
for the city.
As the court officials approached to lead him off to jail,
Socrates suggested that the jurors contemplate an enduring
philosophical issue: “The hour of departure has arrived, and
we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God
only knows.”50 The Apology offers the response of Socrates
the philosopher to this culminating rhetorical question: It is
better to die with integrity than live an unexamined life.
 Chapter 11

SOCRATES AND CIVIL

DISOBEDIENCE: THE
CRITO

SOCRATES AND ANTIGONE

N
O ATHENIAN ANTICIPATED that the tragic conflict
portrayed on stage in Sophocles’ Antigone
foreshadowed the drama of the trial of Socrates. Life
imitated art. The philosopher remained steadfast in his
devotion to his divine mission until the end. As we have seen,
he declared to the jury that, were they to grant him an acquittal
on condition that he obey an injunction to cease
philosophizing, he would defy the court, thus committing civil
disobedience. The question was not whether the court had the
legal authority to issue such an injunction—it probably did not
—but whether any state institution could command individuals
to violate their conscience. Socrates held that whenever there
is a conflict of obligations, duty to God takes precedence over
duty to any secular authority. Indeed, he had demonstrated his
commitment to act on his moral principles when he risked his
life by resisting the Assembly in the trial of the generals and
when he defied the command of the Thirty to arrest Leon of
Salamis. Socrates refused categorically to violate his moral
principles, or what he conceived to be the higher command of
God; no human law, no Assembly, no court could compel him
to act otherwise. Could Athens continue to tolerate a person
who held that his conscience was superior to the state? Did not
Socrates in effect declare that he was above the law?
Socrates took a stand similar to that of Sophocles’ female
protagonist. Produced in 441 B.C., when Athens’ power was at
its zenith, Antigone was performed throughout the
Peloponnesian War and was familiar to most citizens.1 We
have indicated the interrelationship between the themes of
tragic drama and Athenian politics. The conflict between
Socrates and Athens, like that between Antigone and Creon,
King of Thebes, was a conflict between principles. Inherent
within the dual system of Athenian law—the law of the gods
and the law of the polis—lay the possibility of conflict.
Individuals might find themselves in unavoidable
circumstances in which obeying a divine law would require
disobeying a law or command of the polis. Antigone illustrates
that the question of an individual conscientiously violating a
state law was openly debated in the time of Socrates. Antigone
rejects Creon’s proclamation forbidding the ritual burial of her
brother Polyneices, a traitor to the city, basing her
conscientious disobedience on the traditional family bond
sanctioned by the higher law of the gods. “That order,” she
declares to Creon, “did not come from God. Justice, that
dwells with the gods below, knows no such law. I did not think
your edicts strong enough to overrule the unwritten unalterable
laws of God and heaven, you being only a man.”2 Creon,
protests Antigone, had encroached upon the jurisdiction of the
gods. Involved in a conflict of orders, Antigone chose to obey
the gods rather than the state. Similarly, Socrates proclaimed
to the Athenian court: “I shall obey God rather than you.”3
The notion of a higher moral law would later be formulated by
Aristotle, who, referring to Antigone, drew a distinction
between particular or conventional law, relative to individual
states, and universal or natural law, binding on all humans,
everywhere.4 This view would be fully developed in ancient
Greek thought by the Stoics.
For Socrates, the higher law of God was the basis for
resistance to state commands that violate conscience. Civil
disobedience, the deliberate, conscientious breaking of a law
of the state, has an ancient history. It assumes a distinction
between civil law and morality. The Hebrew Bible records that
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were executed for refusing
to worship a divine image of Nebuchadnezer. The conflict
between the duty to obey the law and the duty to obey God can
also be seen in the early history of Christianity. Christians
defied the Roman authorities and chose death rather than
worship the Emperor. While civil disobedients recognize the
legitimacy of the state, they place conscientious limits on state
power. The First Epistle of Peter admonishes Christians to
“submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s
sake.”5 Nevertheless, in Acts, Peter recognizes a superior
obligation: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”6
Over the centuries, several philosophers, from Socrates to
Aquinas to John Locke, have maintained that state laws
contrary to the higher law of God or natural moral law are
invalid. John Milton refused to obey the censorship laws of
seventeenth-century England. Quakers in colonial America
refused to pay taxes for military purposes because they were
morally opposed to war. The American Founding Fathers
brought forth a new nation on the basis of the natural right to
disobey unjust authority. Thomas Jefferson acknowledged a
higher law when he endorsed the epigram: “Disobedience to
tyrants is obedience to God.” The nineteenth-century
American abolitionists defied fugitive slave laws on the
grounds that slavery was opposed to the law of God. Henry
David Thoreau wrote a famous essay on civil disobedience,
having practiced it to protest slavery. In the twentieth century,
Mahatma Gandhi achieved world renown for his nonviolent
resistance to unjust laws, first in South Africa, then in his
native India. During the 1960s, Gandhi’s legacy inspired many
members of the civil rights movement in the United States,
especially Martin Luther King, Jr., in the battle against racist
segregation laws in the South. Like Socrates, King
demonstrated a respect for the rule of law and, at the same
time, in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, declared his
readiness to defy unjust laws on the basis of God and
conscience.7 Nonviolent civil disobedience was also effective
in protesting the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa, and
nuclear proliferation. In defending his resistance to the state on
the basis of a superior obligation to obey God, Socrates, like
Antigone, provided a philosophical justification for civil
disobedience.8
 In Antigone, Sophocles created a drama in which two sides,
the indi-vidual and the state, come into tragic collision.
Creon’s opposing authoritarian position, establishing the
conflict with Antigone, becomes clear upon his entrance in the
play. In defense of his edict forbidding Polyneices’ burial,
Creon declares: “No man who is his country’s enemy shall call
himself my friend…. Our country is our life…. Such is my
policy for our commonweal.” Moreover: “Alive or dead, the
faithful servant of his country shall be rewarded.”9 These lines
echo much fifth century B.C. political rhetoric and would later
be regarded by Demosthenes, the Athenian statesman and
orator, as epitomizing the standard of democratic patriotism.10
After Antigone defies his order, Creon continues to champion
himself as the defender of the rule of law. The leader of the
state “must be obeyed to the smallest matter, be it right—or
wrong…. There is no more deadly peril than disobedience;
states are devoured by it, homes laid in ruins, armies defeated,
victory turned to rout…. Therefore, I hold to the law, and will
never betray it.”11 Indeed, Creon’s sentiments are echoed in
Thucydides, when Pericles sets forth the ideal of the
supremacy of the polis and when Cleon, insisting that the
state’s laws must be strictly enforced, asserts: “A state in
which the laws, though imperfect, are inviolable, is better off
than one in which the laws are good but inefficient.”12 Creon’s
position, although he took it to an uncompromising extreme,
struck a responsive chord in those concerned with social
stability. Civilized life depends upon the rule of law. The view
of Creon, initially endorsed by the play’s chorus, and virtually
undisputed by the Greeks, reflected the ideology of the polis,
in which all private loyalties, including those to family and
friends, were subordinated to the community. Nevertheless, as
Creon and the chorus eventually realize, a state that elevates
itself above the higher law of the gods will wreak havoc upon
itself.
Socrates’ threat in the Apology to disobey a court order to
abstain from philosophy and his defiance of the unjust
command of the Thirty Tyrants raise fundamental questions
for a democracy. What are the grounds and limits of political
obligation? Are there any limits to the citizen’s duty to obey
the law? Must a citizen obey laws and commands that violate
conscience? These questions were posed in Athens over two
thousand years ago. The conflicting claims of the individual
and the state pervade Plato’s Apology and the Crito, the former
presenting the case for the individual dissident confronting the
state, the latter offering a rhetorical authoritarian argument for
absolute obedience to the state. But this rhetorical argument,
which constitutes the second half of the Crito, should not be
interpreted as the view of the historical Socrates. Indeed, to
accept literally the argument for absolute obedience presented
by Plato’s Socrates is to destroy the integrity of the historical
Socrates. As we shall argue, the Socrates who rejected Crito’s
plea that he defy the court’s verdict is the same Socrates who
upheld the Athenian constitution in the trial of the generals
and who defied the order of the Thirty to arrest Leon of
Salamis. Socrates, consistent in his principles, refused to
commit any act that he believed to be unjust.
The dramatic setting of the Crito is Socrates’ room in the
city’s jail, shortly before dawn.13 Almost a month has elapsed
since his trial and condemnation. His execution has been
delayed, for no criminal could be put to death, without
polluting the city, until the return of the sacred ship from its
annual voyage to Delos. An offering had to be made at the
shrine of Apollo, commemorating the victory of Theseus, the
Athenian hero and king, over the Cretan Minotaur. The
returning ship has just been sighted off Sunium, indicating that
Socrates would soon be executed. In the time remaining, Crito
attempts to convince his friend Socrates to defy the court’s
verdict by escaping with his family to Thessaly, a province in
northern Greece, or some other foreign haven. All
arrangements had been made. Socrates’ supporters would
provide the money, apparently to bribe the guards, and safe
passage was assured. Crito, who is mentioned twice in the
Apology, gives voice to those Athenians who believed that the
death penalty had been unrighteously imposed upon the
philosopher. Although Socrates agreed that he had been
unjustly condemned, he nevertheless argues in the Crito
against his escape from prison in favor of accepting the death
sentence. If the Apology is Socrates’ apologia pro vita sua, the
Crito may be read as his apologia pro morte sua.14
Scholars generally agree that the Crito, like the Apology,
belongs to the earliest group of Plato’s works; hence, it was
probably written within a decade after the death of Socrates.
As for its historicity, we are on more tenuous grounds than
with the Apology. While Plato attended the trial of Socrates, he
did not visit the philosopher in jail, nor did he witness his
death by hemlock, dramatically re-created in the Phaedo.
Plato, therefore, had to rely on Crito’s testimony of his private
conversation with Socrates to reconstruct the philosopher’s
reasoning. As Leo Strauss observes, while the Apology
represents the public dialogue between Socrates and Athens,
the Crito represents a conversation that occurred in the
strictest privacy.15 Plato’s task was complicated because Crito,
as his conversation in the dialogue demonstrates, was not
gifted with a subtle mind, making it unlikely that he would
have remembered, or even grasped fully, all of the
philosopher’s arguments. And if, as we shall see, the case
Socrates would make for the Laws of Athens is as spellbinding
as Crito concedes, it is unlikely that he was able to convey its
intricacies to Plato. Hence, the Crito is probably more a
product of Plato’s creative genius than it is historical.
Nevertheless, the dialogue does shed light on the historical
Socrates. Xenophon joined Plato in testifying that Socrates
rejected an opportunity to flee Athens.16 In the Crito, Plato
probably constructed arguments from views that he heard the
philosopher express on earlier occasions. As Socrates said to
Crito, unless he found better arguments, he could not abandon
those he lived by in the past simply because he now faced the
death penalty. The past arguments could, of course, have been
supplemented by Plato, in the manner of Thucydides, with
Socrates made to say what seemed “proper to the occasion.”17
As with the Apology, we assume that Plato was careful not to
misrepresent his master’s views at the end of his life.
Scholars have attempted to reconcile an apparent
contradiction between the Crito and the Apology on the issue
of civil disobedience. We affirm that if the Crito advocates
absolute, unconditional obedience to the laws, regardless of
their justness, Socrates must be fundamentally at odds with
himself. The Socrates of the Apology is defiant and
individualistic, in conflict with values that Athenians deemed
essential to the community, while the Socrates at the
conclusion of the Crito appears to be subservient,
compromising, and conformist. Indeed, the credibility of
Socrates is at stake. Having devoted his philosophic mission to
exposing inconsistencies in the positions of a host of
interlocutors, for Socrates to have been guilty of intellectual
and moral inconsistency, especially at the end of his life,
would be a pathetic irony. “I would rather that my lyre should
be inharmonious,” he tells Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, “and
that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided;
or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose
me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself,
and contradict myself.”18
The position Socrates takes in the Apology, declaring that
his obligation to obey God supersedes his obligation to obey
the laws of the state, was more difficult for the average
Athenian to accept than the claim made by the mythical
Antigone. The fundamental difference between Socrates and
Antigone is that whereas she bases her stand against the state
on the superior duties to the family and immutable divine law,
traditional duties recognized by all Athenians, Socrates bases
his stand on a unique personal relationship to the divine that
most Athenians could not fathom. Creon suffers at the end of
Antigone because, while his advocacy of the rule of law is
consistent with Greek values, he extends the claim of the polis
to an extreme, interfering with the divinely sanctioned rites of
burial. Yet, while many Athenians would have sided with
Antigone, who defended her civil disobedience by appealing
to divine law, they would reject Socrates’ more radical
contention that he would disobey a state command to desist
from a philosophic mission that he believed had been
mandated by Apollo.

SOCRATES DISMISSES THE SHAME

CULTURE
The Socrates of the opening pages of the Crito is the same
radical philosopher of the Apology and early Platonic
dialogues. He is committed to reason and to conscience. Crito
begins with the self-serving argument: If Socrates dies, Crito
will not only lose an irreplaceable friend but will also suffer
the public “disgrace” of being thought by “the many” to value
money more than the life of a friend. Socrates responds by
dismissing the view of “the many,” or public opinion. For
good men, “the only persons who are worth considering,” will
know what truly happened.19 To base one’s actions upon
“what people will say” is to confuse social conformity with
personal integrity. Firm in his convictions, Socrates refused to
allow society to dictate his conscience. But this was a dissident
position in ancient Athens. As Arthur Adkins observes: “Until
Socrates, no one takes a firm stand and says ‘let them
mock.’”20
When Crito replies that, on the contrary, the opinion of the
“many” must not be ignored, for they can inflict grave evil
upon those who resist them, Socrates demurs, claiming that
they can do neither good nor evil, “for they cannot make a
man either wise or foolish.”21 Contrary to the values of the
prevailing shame culture, in which self-esteem is dependent
upon the approval of society, Socrates adheres to his
principles, regardless of how he is viewed by others. Indeed,
throughout the Apology, Socrates demonstrated his scorn for
public opinion. If Socrates refuses to escape, Crito argues, he
will not only treat himself unjustly, bringing about the death
his enemies wanted, but will also abandon his obligation to
educate his sons, a shameful dereliction of paternal duty.
Ironically, Crito alleges that in declining to flee Athens,
Socrates, having professed virtue in all his actions, would be
choosing the “easier” rather than the “better and manlier”
way.22 Crito obviously subscribed to a different conception of
virtue than Socrates did. Moreover, Crito claims, Socrates will
endanger the good reputations of his friends, who will be
perceived as lacking the courage and initiative to assist him.
The ancient Greek conception of philia, or friendship,
obligated the sharing of friends as well as enemies.23 The
defeat of Socrates was a defeat for his friends; the humiliation
of Socrates was a humiliation for his friends. Thus the
condemnation of Socrates must be met with retaliation. His
friends, therefore, had no qualms about assisting him to defy
Athenian law by escaping the death penalty. As Arthur Adkins
explains, the good citizen (agathos polītēs) is “able to defend
both himself and his friends, and harm his enemies; … able to
protect his children, his property, and his wife; and when the
city is threatened by an external enemy, able to defend his
city.” Nevertheless, while the city’s preservation remained the
dominant interest for Athenians, “there is nothing in these
standards to prevent the agathos polītēs from attempting to
thwart the laws of the city on behalf of family and friends.”24
As long as the survival of the polis was not at risk, Socrates’
friends believed that aiding him was the courageous and
honorable thing to do.
Crito laments that Socrates could have avoided his fate, and
the ensuing disgrace, had he acted differently from the
beginning. Instead of going into exile, he appeared at court to
offer a defense. In cases where conviction seemed inevitable,
it was not unusual for those indicted to flee instead of enduring
a trial. As was already noted, the majority of the jurors
probably hoped that Socrates would save them the trouble of
convicting him. But the philosopher’s integrity and respect for
Athenian law compelled him to appear in court, whatever the
personal consequences. Having submitted to a trial, Crito
alleges, Socrates might have conducted himself in a manner
that could have secured an acquittal. But he refused either to
compromise his principles or to speak in the manner that
might have ingratiated himself with the jury. He could not
have conducted himself in any other way. As he declared in
the Apology: “I would rather die having spoken after my
manner, than speak in your manner and live.”25 Nevertheless,
Crito and the friends of Socrates remained attached to
traditional values. In a culture that placed a premium upon
success, to be convicted of a crime, especially one resulting in
the death penalty, was a humiliating failure. As R. E. Allen has
observed, “if to fail is to be disgraced, then of all failures
execution as a common criminal is most disgraceful.”26 Now,
Crito avows, if Socrates is executed, he will bring about the
“last act, or crowning folly” of the disgraceful affair.27

JUSTICE AND THE SOUL

While Socrates appreciates Crito’s concern for his welfare, he
insists that, in order to bring about good rather than evil, such
devotion must be directed to the proper end. Crito seems
strangely oblivious to ethical principles that had guided
Socrates throughout his life. Although Socrates welcomes a
discussion of the best course of action, he insists that he “must
be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon
reflection appears to me to be the best,” and not give in to the
public sentiment, or what “the many” think.28 As he explains
to Crito, he must not abandon past principles merely because
he faces death, unless, of course, he finds better principles.
Rather than blindly follow public opinion, deferring to the
praise and blame of the multitude, Socrates proclaims, echoing
the Apology, one’s first concern should be for the health of the
soul. Just as the body is improved by healthy actions and
ruined by unhealthy ones, similarly there is “a principle in
us”—an implicit allusion to the soul—“improved by justice
and deteriorated by injustice.”29
In the first part of the Crito, Socrates offers conscience-
based morality, stressing the improvement of the soul in this
present life, in contrast to the conventional morality of the
Greeks, dependent upon peer approval and material success. In
matters of both the body and the soul, he argues, one should
follow the advice not of the multitude but of the expert, “the
one man who has understanding of just and unjust will say,
and what the truth will say.” If we ignore the advice of the
expert concerning our physical health, Socrates contends, the
body will be ruined and our life will not be worth living.
Similarly, life is not worth living if that “higher part of man,”
the soul, is ruined by unjust actions. Caring for the health of
the soul or true self, one must always act virtuously. Having
spent many years in the philosophic examination of his life
and the perfection of his soul, Socrates would be acting
inconsistently if he committed an injustice. Whether or not he
escapes jail must be determined not on the basis of
expediency, the criterion for the many, but on the basis of
justice. What is most important is “not life, but a good life.”30
And the good life is a life of virtue. As Socrates argued in the
Apology, one’s paramount consideration should not be whether
one lives or dies, but whether one acts righteously. And,
although he does not expressly identify the moral “expert”
whom one must follow instead of public opinion, it is clear
that Socrates is referring to himself, the advocate of reasoned,
philosophical argument.
Socrates was aware that his views, especially his conception
of the soul, constituted a radical challenge to Greek culture.
There can be no “common ground,” he tells Crito, between
those few who hold his ethical creed, rejecting retaliation, and
the many who do not.31 As Gregory Vlastos observed: “What
Socrates says here he never asserts about any other view he
ever voices in Plato.”32 Thus, instead of endorsing
fundamental Athenian values, Socrates chose again to
accentuate his uniqueness. As we have noted, he threatened to
bring about a revaluation of Athenian values, based upon a
reflective or self-conscious view of virtue. Socrates not only
redirected philosophy from the heavens to the moral concerns
of humans living in the city but also turned morals from a
preoccupation with material results and external behavior to an
internal focus on intentions and the soul.
Having established a moral basis for their discussion,
Socrates draws some corollary arguments for the benefit of
Crito. First, one ought not commit harm or injustice. Second,
one ought not retaliate against injustice.33 On the basis of
these propositions, if the law commanded Socrates to commit
an injustice, he would be duty-bound to disobey. According to
Socrates, unless he and Crito are prepared to discard their
former convictions, unjust actions can never be good and
honorable. The conclusion is inevitable. For Socrates to defy
the law and escape, even though the verdict was unjust, would
be to harm his soul by committing a retaliatory injustice. By
this time, Crito, not being among the “few” who can accept
Socrates’ rejection of the law of retaliation, must have
perceived the deep chasm between Socrates and tradi-tional
moral values. Most Greeks believed that wrongs should be
returned for wrongs. According to the traditional honor code, a
war to avenge wrongs is a just war. Failure to retaliate for
injuries, either to one’s city or to oneself, is to invite dishonor.
For Greeks, the highest praise was given to those who did
great good to friends and great harm to enemies. “Zeus grant,”
prayed the lyric poet Theognis, “that I may repay my friends
who love me, and overpower my enemies.” The orator
Isocrates admonished: “Consider it equally shameful to be
surpassed by your enemies in doing harm and your friends in
doing good.”34 In the early sixth century B.C., Solon prayed
that he may be “sweet to friends, bitter to enemies.” Socrates’
young interlocutor in Plato’s Meno defined “manly” virtue as
knowing “how to administer the State, and in the
administration of it to benefit his friends and harm his
enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm
himself.”35 Aristotle taught men how to respond when
wronged: “To take vengeance on one’s enemies is nobler than
to come to terms with them; for to retaliate is just, and that
which is just is noble; and further, a courageous man ought not
to allow himself to be beaten. Victory and honour also are
noble; for both are desirable even when they are fruitless, and
are manifestations of superior virtue.”36
Such reasoning served to justify the genocide almost
inflicted upon Mytilene in 427 B.C., arguments from Athenian
self-interest ultimately prevailing, and actually inflicted upon
Scione in 421 B.C. and Melos in 416 B.C. During the
Peloponnesian War, genocide, what the Greeks called
andrapodismos—the execution of all adult males and the
enslavement of the women and children—became an
instrument of policy.37 Other Greek cities shared the Athenian
passion for vengeance. After Plataea surrendered in 427 B.C.,
the city was utterly destroyed by the Spartans and Thebans. In
417 B.C., the Spartans captured the town of Hysiae, killing all
the free men. Then, in 405 B.C., the Spartans, commanded by
admiral Lysander, inflicted a devastating defeat upon the
Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, the last battle of the
Peloponnesian War, slaughtering three thousand Athenian
prisoners. Soon, Lysander and the Spartans sailed into the
Saronic Gulf and blockaded the Athenian port of Piraeus.
After a six-month siege, Athens, stripped of her ships, money,
and allies, had no choice but unconditional surrender in April
404 B.C. Many Athenians would never forget the sight of the
victorious Lysander sailing into the port of Piraeus, and the
subsequent demolition of the city’s defensive Long Walls
while flute-girls played.38 Xenophon captures the terror that
swept through Athens after the final loss to Sparta. As news of
the disaster arrived, the sound of wailing could be heard first
in the port of Piraeus, then along four-mile distance from the
Long Walls and into the city. “That night no one slept. They
mourned for the lost, but more still for their own fate. They
thought that they themselves would now be dealt with as they
had dealt with others—with the Melians, colonists of Sparta,
after they had besieged and conquered Melos, with the people
of Histiaea, of Scione, of Torone, of Aegina and many other
states.”39 If the Spartans had followed the advice of their allies
in Corinth and Thebes, the surviving adult males of Athens
would have been exterminated. While Greek justice may have
given Athens’ enemies an excuse to treat her most brutally,
Sparta calculated that the destruction of Athens would enable
Corinth and Thebes to become too powerful.
Having secured Crito’s assent to his proposition that one
must never inflict injustice or injury, Socrates offers another
consideration, which Crito likewise grants: One ought to do
what one agrees to do, with the condition that it is just.40 This
essential proviso would rule out blind obedience to the law. At
the same time, the duty to fulfill just agreements obligated
Socrates to abide by the court’s verdict. He must accept
conviction and the death penalty, even though unjust, because
they resulted from a legitimate legal process and because he
had made a just agreement to respect the principle of the rule
of law. The only recourse he would have had, he says, was to
persuade the state to permit him to leave. Not having done
this, he must submit to authority and obey the legal verdict.
The Socrates of the Crito has already failed in his attempt at
his trial to persuade the jury of his innocence and is submitting
to the court’s verdict and the penalty imposed. Having been
found guilty in accord with due process, he could not in
conscience flee Athens.
At this point, the Crito could have concluded. Socrates had
explained his position to his friend, remaining consistent with
the moral principles that had guided his life as a philosopher.
He would do nothing that violated his sense of justice. To
consent to Crito’s plan, Socrates would not be committing
civil disobedience, but engaging in a cowardly evasion and
subversion of the principle of the rule of law. Nevertheless,
having assented to the initial propositions of Socrates, Crito,
facing the prospect of his friend’s imminent death, allowed his
sentiments to overwhelm his reason. He could not bring
himself to draw the obvious conclusion, even though based
upon premises he and Socrates had agreed upon in the past.
Crito was in conflict. The arguments he had submitted to
Socrates at the dialogue’s opening were typical of the
traditional values of the “many,” and stemmed mostly from
emotion. On the other hand, the arguments from reason that
Socrates had induced him to consent to were those of the
“few.” Asked by Socrates whether he would be committing an
injustice and violating a just agreement if, without first
persuading the state, he decides to flee Athens, Crito
effectively bows out of the discussion: “I cannot tell Socrates;
for I do not know.”41 It was as if the rational premises he had
just agreed to had been wiped from his consciousness. He
could not bear the conclusion to which Socrates had been
leading him. Throughout the remainder of the dialogue, Crito
will offer three mere nugatory replies.

SOCRATES ARGUES FOR THE LAWS

Finding his friend thus intellectually incapacitated, Socrates
embarks upon a rhetorical argument on behalf of the Laws of
Athens against his escape. But the arguments for the Laws,
offered for Crito’s benefit, should not be confused with the
philosophical arguments Socrates had advocated up to this
point. In fact, as Leo Strauss noted, the Crito contains “two
different logoi leading to the same conclusion.”42 The second
part of the dialogue features the famous prosopopoeia or
personification of the Laws of Athens, in which Socrates
assumes their voice as they make an argument against his
escape. This literary device enables the Laws, who represent
the communal interest of Athens, to present their case, thus
highlighting the conflict of principles between Socrates and
the polis. The device also introduces a subtext, a covert
meaning, which underscores the consistency of Socrates. The
philosopher once again dons the mask of irony, arguing in
support of the Laws under which he had been condemned and
would be executed. Finally, the device presents Socrates in a
dual role, involving an implied dialogue between himself as
philosopher, who refused escape for purely ethical reasons,
and a rhetorical Socrates, who offers a caricature of Athenian
patriotic rhetoric, the same rhetoric that filled the Assembly
throughout the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, the argument
Socrates will present for the personified Laws resembles that
of Sophocles’ Creon and contradicts the argument by Socrates
the philosopher for principled civil disobedience in the
Apology.
The apparent contradiction between the Crito and the
Apology on the question of disobedience to law, which has
long vexed readers, can be reconciled by understanding
Socrates’ view of conventional Athenian rhetoric and
disassociating the Socrates of the Crito‘s first part from the
argument presented by Socrates for the Athenian Laws in the
latter part.43 Historian George Grote was among the first to
allege that such a separation was possible. He held that Plato
composed the Crito as a corrective to the damage done to
Socrates’ reputation by the more historically accurate Apology.
Socrates’ defense speech had displayed a singular lack of
respect for Athenian law and institutions, declaring that he
acted from the higher authority of God. Indeed, the Socrates of
the Apology seemed to confirm that he was a corrupter of the
young as charged. Socrates, argues Grote, is “presented as an
isolated and eccentric individual, a dissenter, not only
departing altogether from the character and purposes general
among his fellow-citizens, but also certain to incur dangerous
antipathy in so far as he publicly proclaimed what he was.”44
Hence, Plato sought to defend Socrates by presenting him in
the Crito as an exemplar of democratic patriotism, making
peace with Athens. Nevertheless, Grote contends, the speech
that Socrates presents for the Laws in the Crito is not a
corollary of the arguments of the philosopher in the first part
of the dialogue, but reflects instead the sentiments common to
patriotic Athenian citizens.45 Socrates’ speech is characterized
by Grote as “a rhetorical harangue forcible and impressive” on
behalf of Athenian law: “His doctrine is one which every
Athenian audience would warmly applaud—whether heard
from speakers in the Assembly, from litigants in the Dikastery,
or from dramatists in the theatre. It is a doctrine which orators
of all varieties (Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Lysias, Isokrates,
Demosthenes, Aeschines, Lykurgus) would be alike emphatic
in upholding: upon which probably Sophists habitually
displayed their own eloquence, and tested the talents of their
pupils. It may be considered as almost an Athenian
commonplace.”46
Although we must differentiate between the Socrates who
argues for the personified Laws in the Crito and the Socrates
of the Apology, restoring Socrates’ tarnished reputation was
not the principal intention of Plato’s Crito. In truth, what
Socrates says in the first part of the dialogue, especially his
disparagement of the opinions of the “many,” is such a blatant
contradiction to fundamental Athenian values that if
reconciling the philosopher to the city had been Plato’s
intention, one must concede that he failed miserably. Instead,
as we have noted, the speech attributed to the reified Laws is
intended to mock typical Athenian patriotic political rhetoric.
As Aristotle would expound, basing his theory upon Athenian
models, the purpose of political rhetoric, the speech of the
Assembly, is to argue the advantage or disadvantage of a
particular proposal for the polis. Just as in Plato’s Menexenus,
where Socrates parodies the Funeral Oration of Pericles by
reciting a similar, but hyperbolic, speech allegedly composed
by Aspasia, Socrates in the Crito gives a speech for the Laws
that the vast majority of Athenians would have found
acceptable. The Socrates of the Crito delivers a set speech in
the style of the Sophists, much like those in the Phaedrus,
where, before condemning conventional rhetoric, he delivers
two successive speeches, one against, the other in praise of,
love. Such set speeches, replete with rhetorical commonplaces,
contrasted starkly with the rhetoric of truth that Socrates
advocated. As with all irony, the key to interpreting correctly
Socrates’ speech for the Laws lies in perceiving the meaning
beneath the literal statement.
The clue that reveals the ironic nature of Socrates’ speech
for the Laws is found in the Crito itself, when Socrates tells
his distraught friend that much could be said “by any one, and
especially a rhetorician,” to protest his defying the court’s
verdict and fleeing to Thessaly.47 Given the unbridgeable
chasm between the conventional thinking of Crito and the
philosophical thinking of Socrates, the rhetorical speech the
philosopher delivers for the Laws is the only kind of logos
Crito can understand. But Socrates the philosopher never says
that the speech he gives for the Laws represents his own
views. Since Crito proves incapable of accepting a
philosophical argument, aiming at justice and the perfection of
the soul, Socrates will substitute a conventional rhetorical
argument reflecting the traditional values of the many.48 He
will provide a rationale for acceding to the court’s verdict that
Crito as an Athenian citizen would accept, if he were not
overcome by emotion. Socrates is represented as saying in the
Gorgias: “The rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or
other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates
belief about them.”49 A master ironist, Socrates in the Crito
will pose as a student of the Laws, ready to believe what
wisdom they impart.
Thus, the speech of the personified Laws, a veritable tour de
force, is a caricature of the deceitful rhetoric of Athenian
democracy, persuasive but not necessarily true, that Socrates
condemned in the opening of the Apology. Moreover, Plato’s
Socrates condemns such rhetoric not only in the Menexenus
but also in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus. We are reminded of
Gorgias’ revelations of the “magical” effects of rhetoric upon
the minds of an unsuspecting audience. Interestingly, the
Socrates depicted in the latter part of the Crito would be more
sympathetic to the authoritarian views of Plato found in the
Republic, and especially in The Laws. The brilliant speech of
the Laws in the Crito, a pastiche replete with pious patriotic
truisms, will persuade Crito to concur with Socrates’ decision
to accept the death penalty, not for the philosophical ethical
reasons Socrates presented earlier in the dialogue, but for the
patriotic and expedient reasons more consistent with Athenian
values.
To identify the historical Socrates with the argument of the
Athenian Laws in the Crito would make him fundamentally
inconsistent. First of all, the Crito itself would be
contradictory, for the Socrates of the initial part of the
dialogue, alleging to live by consistent principles, holds that
one must never commit an injustice, while, in the last part, the
Laws argue that one must obey them absolutely, without
exception. Secondly, equating the historical Socrates with the
Laws’ argument would make the Apology and the Crito
contradictory, the former allowing for principled disobedience
to unjust commands, the latter categorically condemning
disobedience under any circumstances. In effect, a Socrates
who adopted fully the argument of the Laws would be
compelled to retract his bold claim that he would, in obedience
to God, disobey any court order to cease philosophy. If
Socrates the rhetorician of the last part of the Crito, therefore,
is a true portrayal, he would present the pathetic and unheroic
spectacle of one who chose to betray his mission as a
philosopher in his final days. One doubts that Socrates the
philosopher—depicted in the opening of the Crito as enjoying
a peaceful slumber, his conscience at rest—would have been
able to bear his fate with equanimity if he had undermined the
principles that had guided his life.
In the skillful hands of the rhetorical Socrates, the Laws
present their case to the befuddled Crito. Socrates recognizes
that, in order for his speech to be persuasive, at least some of
the arguments must ring true. His speech will contain just
enough truth to conceal its sophisms from the majority. In
rhetoric, plausibility lends verisimilitude. At the same time,
while Socrates the philosopher does not agree with all the
arguments he makes for the Laws, he does accept their
conclusion that it would be unjust for him to escape.
Moreover, consistent with the dialogical view of truth in
Plato’s early works, which offer more than one side of an
issue, the Socrates who speaks for the Laws presents a cogent
argument for the sovereignty of the state that most Athenians
would have applauded. Throughout their harangue, the Laws
assume that if Socrates were to escape, he would present a
moral threat to them by violating the covenant that exists
between the state and its citizens. Since the citizen owes the
state his life, in addition to everything else that is valuable, the
least he can do is respect its laws.
With an argument from expediency that could have come
from Sophocles’ Creon, or any Athenian patriot, the Laws ask
Socrates: “Are you not going by an act of yours to overturn us
—the laws, and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you
imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in
which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside
and trampled upon by individuals?”50 Here the Laws assume
that if citizens disobey them with impunity, the state cannot
endure. To permit individuals to defy verdicts determined by
due process would undermine the rule of law. A viable legal
system demands the enforcement of the judgments of the
courts. Socrates then entertains the claim, which his friends
would have made, that the Laws ought to be disobeyed in his
case because he had been the victim of an unjust judgment.
Like an expert rhetorician, the personified Laws must
anticipate certain plausible objections. While conceding that
errors in legal judgment are possible, they retort that the issue
is not whether Socrates had been judged fairly, but whether the
judgments of the courts are binding. Socrates had agreed to
abide by their verdicts, regardless of their justness. The Laws
then proceed to present a vision of the polis consistent with the
Athenian ideal from the Funeral Oration of Pericles to
Protagoras’ myth of human progress to Plato’s Republic and,
later, Aristotle’s Politics. According to this vision, the polis,
including its laws and institutions, is the nurturer of each
citizen. As Aristotle proclaimed in the Politics, “man is a
political animal,” by which he meant that only in the polis can
human beings attain their natural perfection.51 Aristotle held
that the state is by nature prior to the family and to the
individual, just as the whole is of necessity prior to the part.
The Athenians conceived of the state not merely as a means to
protect life and property, but also as a sacred association that
defined every aspect of their lives. As we have seen, they did
not conceive of the individual in opposition to society.
Individuals were comprehensible only through their
interpersonal relationships within the all-embracing
community.
Accordingly, the Laws expand their case. They claim, first
of all, to be the source of Socrates’ life itself. They have
established the institutions of marriage and the family that
gave birth to him and to every other Athenian. Moreover, they
have educated and socialized him. Like a skilled rhetorician,
the Laws then slip in an authoritarian claim: The Athenian
citizen is not only their “child” but also their “slave.” In
ancient Greece, slaves were mere property. Assuming that
Socrates owes his existence and development to the Laws,
they ask rhetorically: “And because we think right to destroy
you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in
return, and your country as far as in you lies? … Has a
philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is
more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or
father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of
the gods and of men of understanding?”52 More patriotic
words could not have been spoken by Pericles himself. Like
Sophocles’ Creon, who expressed disdain for anyone who
placed the good of a philos, a friend or relative, above the
good of the polis, the Laws claim a superiority over the
family.53 One’s duty to the state must transcend all other
allegiances. “Never was natural place more outrageously
usurped by convention,” concludes Joseph Cropsey, “than in
this astonishing civic assertion of parenthood.”54
Having claimed absolute supremacy, the Laws argue that
Socrates must either “persuade” the polis that its orders are
unjust or obey them. “And when we are punished by her [the
polis] whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is
to be endured in silence.”55 We assume that such “persuasion”
would occur in the conventional forums of either the
Assembly or the lawcourts. At his trial, Socrates attempted to
convince the court of the justness of his philosophic cause.
Having failed to persuade the jury, he submitted to the legal
penalty. As the Crito makes clear, he believed this to be his
obligation. As long as the law did not order him to commit an
injustice, he would accede to its judgment. Although Socrates
agreed that he had a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of
the state and legitimate orders from government officials, he
also believed that this obligation may be overridden in cases
when obedience would involve committing an injustice. As
Ronald Dworkin argues, the general duty to obey the law
“cannot be an absolute duty, because even a society that is in
principle just may produce unjust laws and policies, and a man
has duties other than his duties to the State.”56 Nevertheless,
the personified Laws of Athens make the extreme claim that
citizens have an absolute duty to obey them, which no
circumstance may override.57 As they declare: “And if she [the
polis] leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow
as is right; neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his
rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other
place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or
he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no
violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence
to his country.”58 This sweeping statement, reflecting the legal
positivist view that equates law with justice, demands
universal and unqualified obedience and would obligate the
citizen to submit to any tyrannical regime.
The Laws also offer for their benefit an interesting reversal
to Socrates’ former reasoning. While Socrates in the Apology
argued that he disobeyed the Thirty rather than commit an
“unholy” act, Socrates in the Crito has the Laws argue that
disobedience to them would be an act of “violence” more
impious than an offense against his parents. Hence, if Socrates
escapes, he would merely confirm the indictment’s charge of
impiety. According to the argument presented by Socrates for
the Athenian Laws, the four men who obeyed the order of the
Thirty to arrest Leon of Salamis for summary execution acted
justly and piously, while Socrates, in refusing to arrest him,
acted unjustly and impiously. The only justice that the Laws
are willing to submit to is not the transcendent justice of
Socrates, but the expedient justice of Athens.
 At this point in their argument, the Laws have extended the
plausible claims of the first part of their speech. They had held
that, for the polis to survive, the verdicts of the courts must be
honored. Socrates himself, in refusing to escape prison,
acceded to the court’s verdict, even though he was convinced
that it was unjust. We have noted that if individuals were
permitted to defy legal verdicts, the principle of the rule of
law, and hence the stability of the state, would be undermined.
Yet the Laws have now broadened their prohibition to
encompass disobedience not only to verdicts but also to any
command or law whatsoever. Scholars who have attempted to
reconcile the apparent conflict between the Apology and the
Crito by searching for loopholes in the Laws’ speech ignore
the blanket nature of this prohibition. Like an adept Sophist,
the Laws stretch a plausible claim for the rule of law into a
categorical assertion of their authority that would make the
Socrates of the Apology and of the early part of the Crito
blameworthy for refusing to carry out any command,
regardless of its justness.
Moreover, the Laws argue, since any citizen, on attaining
maturity, has the opportunity to leave the city if dissatisfied,
choosing to remain constitutes an implied agreement to abide
by the city’s laws. A citizen who remains is obligated to “do as
we command him.” Socrates, they contend, had entered into
agreement with them without compulsion or
misunderstanding. Moreover, his long devotion to Athens is
evident. He had spent his entire life in Athens, leaving the city
only to serve in the military during war, and perhaps to attend
the Isthmian games at Corinth. At his trial, he refused exile as
an alternative to the death penalty. And he chose to live in
Athens instead of moving to either Sparta or Crete—“often
praised by you for their good government”—or any other
Greek or foreign state.59 This preference for Athens, the Laws
allege, demonstrates Socrates’ preference for them, since a
city and its laws are inseparable. By implication, the Laws are
confirming Socrates’ preference for the democratic
constitution of Athens.
Socrates permits the Laws to continue to pour arguments
upon him, now of a more expedient nature. If Socrates were to
flee, they claim, his friends will incur the risk of banishment
and confiscation of their property. Furthermore, if he escapes
to well-governed neighboring states, such as Thebes or
Megara, good citizens will regard him as an enemy of the
constitution and a destroyer of their laws. He would thereby
confirm the judgment of the Athenian court, for as a corrupter
of the laws he would be a corrupter of the young. And if he
chooses to flee instead to disorderly Thessaly, living there
under the protection of Crito’s friends, he will suffer
humiliating public commentary, for he will be viewed as an
old man, clinging greedily to life, disrespecting his city’s
sacred laws. What good, moreover, will living in Thessaly, an
alien city, do his children? Indeed, the friends of Socrates who
pledged to care for his children’s education would not neglect
this responsibility if he accepted the death sentence.
Seeking to clinch their argument by enlisting a supernatural
sanction that would strike fear into most Athenians, the Laws
warn that if Socrates escapes, he will not only return an
injustice for an injustice and violate his covenant with them,
thus facing their anger while he lived, but “our brethren, the
laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for
they will know that you have done your best to destroy us.” If
Socrates, therefore, accepts the verdict of the court and the
death penalty, he will bolster his case before the ultimate
tribunal. When he dies, he will do so “in innocence, a sufferer
and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws but of men.”60
With great rhetorical skill, the Laws conclude by conceding
that Socrates was unjustly condemned, but they exonerate
themselves by shifting blame to those who administer the
state.

THE SKILLFUL IRONIST

In his speech for the personified Laws, therefore, Socrates
displays a considerable mastery of rhetoric, utilizing many
symbols and pious platitudes that would warm the hearts of
ardent Athenian patriots. The Laws present themselves as the
supreme nurturers, giving life and forming all citizens like
parents and educators. This view of the supreme importance of
the polis, and the laws that form its basis, was shared by most
Athenians. Respect for tradition and covenants has been
enjoined, and the city has even been singled out for honor
among the gods. Finally, Hades, the world below, is enlisted as
a support, prepared to punish any person who defies the city’s
sacred laws and institutions. Like all patriotic speeches, that of
the Laws would probably only convince those already well-
disposed toward the city, willing to overlook the hyperbole
and flaws in the argument. As Socrates is represented as
declaring in Plato’s Menexenus, it is not difficult to praise
Athenians among Athenians.61
Unlike opponents in other Platonic dialogues, the Laws
would not be subjected to cross-examination by Socrates. For
his imitation of patriotic eloquence to succeed, the ironic
Socrates of the Crito appears to accept arguments that the
historical Socrates would have rejected. Had the philosopher
applied his powerful elenchus to the the Laws, he would have
questioned the validity of the allegation that their relation to
citizens is equivalent to that between a parent and a child.
While Socrates would agree that obedience and affection are
owed to one’s parents, this obligation is not unconditional,
especially after children reach the age of reason and become
responsible for their own decisions. The philosopher would
have also challenged the Laws’ characterization of the citizen
as their slave. The slave is stripped of moral autonomy.
Although the historical Socrates would agree that legal
verdicts must be enforced, he would reject the Laws’ specious
attempt to enlarge their rightful sphere by obligating citizens
to obey them absolutely and blindly, regardless of the moral
consequences. One can imagine Socrates asking the Laws:
“Do you mean that if the state commands a citizen to commit
an injustice, the citizen must obey?” While one may have a
contractual obligation to obey the government, the Laws do
not consider that some state actions, such as commanding a
citizen to commit an unjust act, render the contract void. To
equate the legal with the moral or just might entail one’s
participation in atrocities, including genocide. While, in his
earlier discussion with Crito, Socrates stressed the importance
of adhering to agreements, provided that they are just, the
Laws conveniently omit this crucial proviso, as if to claim that
in agreeing to obey them, one thereby surrenders one’s
conscience. The Laws dodge the question of what the good
citizen must do if ordered to commit an unjust act.
Nor would Socrates have accepted the Laws’ argument that
Athens would be fatally undermined by disobedience. At least
six times, the Laws allege that if Socrates disobeys them, he
would destroy them and the polis as well.62 Indeed, such an
allegation constitutes their final plea for obedience. But this
erroneously assumes that Socrates’ disobedience would be
universalized, that if one person violates the law, others will
follow suit. This argument against civil disobedience is still
offered today by states that wish their laws to be obeyed
without question. And protesters continue to respond that a
state that provokes so much disobedience is in obvious need of
reform. Socrates distinguishes between obeying legal verdicts
and disobeying unjust laws or commands. While he concedes
that escaping the death penalty would inflict a retaliatory
moral harm upon Athens, civil disobedience on the basis of
justice would not cause moral harm. Indeed, such civil
disobedience might morally improve the state. Modern
democracies are willing to tolerate civil disobedience from
individuals, provided that they commit it openly and accept
the appropriate legal penalties. Since, by definition, civil
disobedience cannot be legal, those who disobey the law must
expect to be prosecuted. While Socrates agreed that just laws
must be obeyed and legal verdicts and penalties accepted, the
Apology shows that he would disobey court orders and
government decrees directing him to commit any unjust or
unholy act, such as suspending his divinely ordained
philosophic mission or participating in the unjust arrest and
execution of an innocent individual like Leon of Salamis.
Socrates refused to allow the state to overstep its proper
bounds and order him to violate his conscience. When the
Laws defend their claim to absolute obedience by adverting to
their kinship with the laws of Hades, they are merely
attempting to make divine laws comply with them, whether
just or unjust.
 Had Socrates, therefore, wanted the speech of the
personified Laws to represent entirely his own views, instead
of views merely acceptable to Crito, he would not have left
himself vulnerable to such easy refutation. Notwithstanding
his rhetorical argument for the Laws, Socrates had his own
philosophic reasons for refusing to flee Athens. When
individuals submit to a trial, they must be willing to accept the
verdict, just or unjust. To do otherwise in a fallible world
would be to subvert the social order. If Socrates, convicted
through due process, chose to flee Athens on the grounds that
he had been the recipient of an injustice, he would have
contradicted himself by returning harm for harm, breaking his
prior agreement to obey just legal judgments and evading
rather than openly disobeying the law. To contradict himself in
this way would harm his soul and make a sham of his
philosophic mission. Hence, even though Socrates believed
that the court’s verdict and the death sentence were unjust, he
had no choice but to reject Crito’s plea to escape.

FULFILLING THE WILL OF A

BENEVOLENT GOD
The Crito indicates that Socrates, in refusing to flee jail and
accepting the death sentence, believed that he was fulfilling
God’s will. As he expressed in his moving valedictory to the
acquitting jurors in the Apology, the silence of his divine voice
throughout his trial meant that what had happened to him was
“a good, and that those of us who think that death is evil are in
error.”63 Early in his trial, he told the jury that he would make
a defense, leaving the result not only to them but also to God,
whose will is supreme. Hence, Socrates interpreted the court’s
verdict as a sign of divine providence. When, at the opening of
the Crito, Socrates’ friend informed him that he would soon be
executed, the philosopher replied: “If such is the will of God, I
am willing.” He went on to tell Crito that a dream—
traditionally a means by which the gods speak to humanity—
revealed that he would die not later that day, as Crito had
expected, but the next day. Socrates had dreamt of a beautiful
lady dressed in white, a color often associated with the
supernatural, announcing his death with the following words,
adapted from the Iliad: “Socrates, the third day hence to fertile
Phthia shalt thou go.”64 Thus, death seemed to augur well for
Socrates, returning him to his true home.
With the line from the Iliad, Socrates is linked anew with
the Greek hero Achilles. The line underscores, once again, that
Socrates was a radically different kind of hero. At this point in
the epic, Achilles, dishonored and shamed by Agamemnon,
threatened to return home to peaceful Phthia in Thessaly,
which he could reach in three days, leaving his fellow Greeks
vulnerable to the Trojans. But, as James Redfield makes clear,
Achilles could not go back.65 Trapped in the Homeric honor
code, he had no real choice but to fulfill his warrior role,
which he eventually did. For both Achilles and Socrates, death
was compensated by honor and fame. But whereas Achilles,
the product of a shame culture, achieved renown by
conforming to the vengeful warrior code, Socrates would be
immortalized through the work of Plato for having remained
true to his moral convictions, pursuing virtue and the
perfection of his soul.
The Crito concludes with Socrates declaring, in words that
echo the irony of Plato’s Menexenus, that he was completely
overwhelmed by his own argument for the Laws. In the
Menexenus, we will recall, Socrates claims that he was so
ennobled by the patriotism of Athenian funeral orations that
each time he listened to one, he imagined himself a “greater,
and nobler and finer man than I was before.” He confesses that
“the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears,” and not for
several days “do I come to my senses and know where I
am.”66 Similarly, the Crito concludes with Socrates alleging
that he is utterly incapable of responding to the Laws’
powerful oration. “Like the sound of the flute in the ears of the
mystic,” the voice of the Laws rings so loudly that he cannot
hear any other.67 We recall that Socrates opens the Apology
with an ironic allusion to the prosecution’s rhetoric, so
overwhelming that it almost made him forget who he was. The
Crito ends with Socrates in the guise of a helpless victim,
seized by the magical effect of rhetoric, deaf to any other voice
but that of the Laws.
 To convince his friend Crito to accept the consequences of a
legal verdict, Plato’s Socrates successfully employed sophistic
rhetorical strategies that he had often denounced. But was
Socrates a mere Sophist, manipulating his convention-bound
friend? Although Socrates engaged in persuasive rhetoric, his
speech was directed to a purpose consistent with the moral
principles that had guided his life. Having failed to convince
Crito by philosophical discussion to do what was morally right
and concur with his decision to abide by the law, Socrates
resorted to a characteristic political speech that his friend was
capable of accepting. For the benefit of his friend, Socrates
had set aside his philosophic speech and donned the mantle of
the patriotic rhetorician. Only in this way could Socrates assist
his distraught friend to agree to what was rational and moral.
Had Socrates escaped prison with Crito’s assistance, not only
would the philosopher have contradicted principles that had
long guided his life, but he and Crito would also have inflicted
grave damage upon their souls. Distinct from the political
rhetoric of politicians like Cleon, who advocated genocide,
Socrates’ speech did not encourage immoral action. Nor did
his speech resemble that of Alcibiades, who persuaded the
Athenians to launch the fateful Sicilian expedition. Unlike
Crito, readers amenable to Socrates’ philosophical arguments
do not need conventional patriotic arguments to agree that, in
refusing to escape, Socrates did what was right.68
Prodded by Socrates, Crito, who fails to grasp the irony of
the speech of the Laws he has just witnessed, confesses that he
has nothing more to say. He has no choice but to conclude that
Socrates must reject his plea to escape. Two distinct arguments
oppose Crito: the philosophical argument of Socrates, based
upon a strict view of justice, which Crito is loath to accept,
and the rhetorical argument that Socrates gives for the Laws in
support of the communal interest of Athens, which the
conventional Crito cannot deny. According to the Laws,
Socrates must die because defying a legal verdict would
threaten the stability of the state; according to Socrates, he
must die because, having been legally convicted, evading
punishment would be unjust. Crito accepts the right
conclusion, but for the wrong reason. He was persuaded not by
the just reasons of the philosopher, but by patriotic rhetorical
arguments that reflected his own identification of justice with
expediency.
Nevertheless, Socrates’ refusal to flee is not an endorsement
of Athenian values. While most citizens would have agreed
with the patriotic rhetoric of the Laws, with its demand of
absolute obedience, if placed in Socrates’ situation, many
would have acted in self-interest and fled Athens, defying the
death sentence imposed by their enemies. In light of this,
Socrates’ refusal to escape directly conflicted with the
prevailing view of the good and noble person. Accepting the
death penalty was not an act of conciliation, but Socrates’ final
act of defiance.69 Without his rhetorical “persuasive” mask,
the Socrates of the Crito remains the same radical Socrates of
the Apology.70 Having argued forcefully for philosophy in the
Apology, he was able to switch sides, as it were, in the Crito,
presenting apparently equally compelling community-based
arguments for Athens. That Plato could so effectively depict
Socrates in the guise of the Laws highlights the tragic conflict
between the philosopher and the state, between philosophy and
politics, between the duty-based morality of the soul and the
materialistic morality of the city. Although his sympathies
unquestionably lay with Socrates, Plato allows the philosopher
to speak dialogically, dramatically illustrating cogent
arguments for both sides.
Plato’s Crito thus features three different voices in dialogue:
first, the view of Crito, representing the traditional view of
justice as expediency; second, the moral philosophical view of
justice by Socrates; and third, the view of the Laws, which,
while appearing to speak the language of justice, is, like
Crito’s, the language of expediency. In submitting to death,
Socrates is convinced that he is fulfilling God’s will, the same
God who had instituted his philosophic mission. Dying in the
service of Apollo, Socrates will become a religious martyr.
Crito is induced to follow the course dictated by the Laws,
leaving Socrates “to fulfil the will of God, and to follow
whither he leads.”71 The Crito thus ends with an affirmation,
echoing the Apology, of Socrates’ belief in a benevolent
divinity.
 Chapter 12

CONCLUSION: A
CONFLICT UNRESOLVED

“Socrates himself fell victim to the popular prejudice against philosophy.”

—Leo Strauss1

T
HE TRIAL OF SOCRATES WAS A TRIAL OF PHILOSOPHY. He
died as a result of a tragic conflict between himself and
Athens, each committed to antithetical principles.2
While the Athenians permitted him to conduct his philosophic
life for years, in 399 B.C. Socrates compelled them to choose
between philosophy, with its radical questioning and
uncompromising ethical principles, and the prevailing politics
of the city. Essentially, the conflict was between the good man
and the good citizen. As Aristotle reminds us in the
Nicomachean Ethics, “it would seem that to be a good man is
not in every case the same thing as to be a good citizen.”3 For
Socrates to be a “good citizen,” he would have had to
surrender his moral autonomy to popular notions of justice and
goodness. Both the philosopher and the many Athenians who
opposed him had defensible positions, but each side lacked the
more comprehensive vision that would have enabled them to
coexist with their differences. The struggle was over priorities.
Socrates valued freedom and the community, but when they
conflicted, his principles made him choose freedom. The
Athenians valued the community and freedom, but when
compelled to make a choice, most decided to uphold the
primacy of the community.
Like the protagonists of Sophoclean drama, Socrates
demonstrated what Bernard Knox has called “the heroic
temper”—an unwavering adherence to his principles, even in
the face of death.4 We recall the uncompromising single-
mindedness of characters such as Oedipus, Antigone,
Philoctetus, Electra, and Ajax. The Sophoclean hero, Knox
observes, was characterized by “uniqueness,” a “sharply
differentiated individuality.”5 According to Aristotle, Socrates
was similar to other Greek heroes, such as Achilles, Ajax,
even Alcibiades, in that he exhibited megalopsychia, or high-
mindedness. The megalopsychos was given to carrying heroic
self-assertion to destructive extremes. While high-mindedness,
and the absolute refusal to accept dishonor, drove Achilles to
wrath, Ajax to suicide, and Alcibiades to battle, Socrates was
driven into fatal conflict with his city.6 Throughout his trial,
Socrates displayed a singular moral gravitas, accentuating his
position as an outsider in Athens.
Confronted with the supreme moral crisis of his life,
Socrates, like a Sophoclean hero, defiantly refused to
compromise. He held firmly to his views, even when many
perceived them as incompatible with the welfare of the
community. Committed to a morality of absolute goodness,
Socrates insisted that, like himself, the state must always be
good. Indeed, the same conscientious moral principles must be
applied to both private and public behavior. For Socrates, the
good person took precedence over the good citizen. He was
unwilling to accept the necessity of ethical compromise in
politics. He held absolutely to his sense of moral autonomy,
even if it challenged the state’s legitimate claim to authority.
Hence, the good Socrates became the bad citizen. As Hannah
Arendt wrote: “Throughout history, the truth-seekers and
truthtellers have been aware of the risks of their business; as
long as they did not interfere with the course of the world, they
were covered with ridicule, but he who forced his fellow-
citizens to take him seriously by trying to set them free from
falsehood and illusion was in danger of his life.”7 As we have
seen, the Athenians found their aspiring moral liberator to be
unrelenting. His position assailed by the multitude, Socrates
believed that to compromise would betray the principles that
guided his life. He could not compromise a mission imposed
by God. Like the Greek hero, Socrates seemed to take on
superhuman greatness. “In his deliberate choice of death rather
than surrender,” Knox argues, “he [Socrates] enters the ranks
of the heroes himself.”8
But Socrates was the hero of the inner life, a life based upon
spiritual values, conscience, and the soul. In essence, he
offered the Greeks a new and greater Achilles, a new and
greater Heracles. On the day of his trial, Socrates had,
enshrined in myth, two other examples from the heroic
tradition before him, either that of Odysseus or Ajax. As
related by Homer and dramatized by Sophocles, Odysseus and
Ajax quarreled over which of them should receive the dead
Achilles’ armor as a sign of personal prowess. When
Agamemnon and Menelaus, the two commanders of the Greek
army, awarded the armor to Odysseus, the dishonored Ajax—
after Achilles, the bravest Greek warrior at Troy—became
enraged. The crafty and diplomatic Odysseus had convinced
the Greeks that he, not Ajax, had served them best. As
Sophocles has Odysseus proudly proclaim, “words and not
deeds give mastery over men.”9 When Ajax resolves to avenge
himself by murdering Agamemnon and Menelaus, the goddess
Athena afflicts him with madness, leading him to slaughter a
herd of sheep in the mistaken belief that they are his enemies.
Recovering his sanity, Ajax decides that suicide is his only
escape from dishonor. In the ancient world, taking one’s life
on a matter of principle was regarded as an admirable action.
Unwilling to continue to live in contradiction to his principles,
Ajax falls upon his sword. As he had declared: “Let a man
nobly live or nobly die.”10
Socrates rejected Odysseus’ way of eloquent, but deceptive
speech, directed to an unjust end. Like Ajax, the philosopher
chose to commit suicide once it became clear that the
Athenians would no longer permit him to live according to his
principles. But his death would make him a martyr for the
cause of philosophy. Like Ajax, Socrates was rebuffed by a
tribunal of his peers: Ajax by his fellow warriors, Socrates by
his fellow Athenian citizens. At the conclusion of the Apology,
as we have seen, Socrates linked himself to Ajax, also a victim
of an unjust judgment. Yet, while Ajax’s madness contributed
to his suicide, Socrates remained rational throughout.
Moreover, while Socrates shared with Achilles and Ajax a
commitment to live an honorable life, the philosopher died for
a new conception of honor, determined not by society but by
adherence to conscience. He refused to be controlled by the
values of a shame culture with its primary emphasis upon
property, wealth, and worldly fame. While Achilles died with
public honor, having achieved great fame as a military warrior
devoted to conquest, Socrates died with public dishonor, a
moral warrior devoted to instructing others to care first and
foremost for their souls.
Confronting death is the defining element in the heroes of
all cultures. As the warrior Sarpedon explains to Glaucus in
the Iliad, heroism is intimately related to mortality. The
immortal gods, never facing the prospect of death, could not
be heroes. Faced with a bleak life in the underworld, Greek
heroes had to overcome the fear of death. But Socrates
professed no such fear. Indeed, we find no Aristotelian
catastrophe, no lamentation, in the works of Plato—the
Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo—which recount the last
words of Socrates. Moreover, Socrates the philosopher-hero,
as if to anticipate Aristotle’s analysis of tragedy, disassociated
himself in the Apology from the tragic emotions of pity and
fear. Declining to solicit the jury’s pity, he proclaimed that, for
a good person, death could not be harmful. This departs
radically from the traditional belief, reflected in the Homeric
epics and the Greek tragedies, that no person, bad or good,
was exempt from great harm and suffering.11 Socrates viewed
his death not as a suffering or defeat, but as a triumph. As
Kierkegaard concluded: “To be sure, his was a tragic fate, and
yet the death of Socrates is not essentially tragic … since death
had no reality for Socrates.”12 Unlike the Greek tragic heroes,
he was not the victim of fate, or the jealousy of the gods, but
of his own uncompromising choice as a free and responsible
agent.13 Yet, even if Socrates refused to see his death as
lamentable, many nonetheless perceive the events of his trial
and execution as tragic. The essence of tragedy, as Hegel
understood, lies not in the ending, good or bad, but in the
tragic collision between two positions, each with a claim to
legitimacy.14 For Socrates, obedience to his divinely
sanctioned philosophic mission and conscience made
necessary his transgression of fundamental Athenian beliefs
and values; Athenians, on the other hand, had to defend what
they regarded as the best interests of the community from the
radical challenge of philosophy.
The relentless Socrates brought his philosophic mission into
the courtroom like a dialectical warrior. Compelled to choose
between his personal integrity and his city, he conducted his
trial as he had conducted his whole life. What Cedric Whitman
says of the wrath of Achilles applies to Socrates: “Personal
integrity in Achilles achieves the form and authority of
immanent divinity, with its inviolable, lonely singleness, half
repellent because of its almost inhuman austerity, but
irresistible in its passion and perfected selfhood.”15 Rejecting
the prevailing forensic practices, Socrates adopted an arrogant
confrontational tone. As George Grote observed, Socrates
brought condemnation upon himself by his “offensive self-
exaltation” at his trial.16 Many jurors undoubtedly resented a
defendant who claimed that his beliefs and conduct were
beyond reproach. Hence, the person who invoked God as the
source of his philosophic mission was condemned for impiety,
the person who stimulated his fellow citizens to care for their
souls was condemned for corrupting the young. Having
alienated himself from Athens, taking an uncompromisingly
individualistic stance at odds with the values of the
community, Socrates destroyed himself. The good man
became the renegade.
Socrates answered the charge of impiety with the fantastic
claim of a privileged relationship to the divine, instead of
affirming explicitly his belief in the gods of the polis. He
answered the charge of corrupting the youth with the argument
that his philosophic mission made him the city’s greatest
benefactor. And yet this self-professed savior of Athens denied
that he was a teacher. His opponents could charge that his
critical questioning merely destroyed the accepted convictions
upon which social stability depends, without offering new
doctrines sufficient to replace the old. Moreover, in a city that
valued active participation by citizens in the democratic
process, Socrates reminded the jury that if he had not
deliberately avoided politics, the corrupt Athenians would
have executed him years before. As Socrates’ limited direct
involvement in Athenian politics had made clear, he was
prepared to resist any regime, democratic or oligarchic,
whenever it commanded him to commit an injustice. During
an age when the community was regarded as the arbiter of
morals, his claim of a personal unmediated mission from God
and his sense of conscience were unique.
Socrates, moreover, had the audacity to inform the jury that
if acquitted on condition that he obey an order to cease
philosophizing, he would defy them. To many Athenians, this
threat of civil disobedience was tantamount to a declaration of
war upon the city and its laws. Even though democrats would
have applauded Socrates’ disobedience to the Thirty Tyrants,
most would have probably regarded a similar defiance of a
democratic government or court as treasonous. In the eyes of
many jurors, therefore, Socrates was a defiant, inflexible, self-
righteous criminal, utterly without remorse, whose philosophic
activity endangered the polis. Once convicted, he presented
the Athenians with a dilemma, placing them between the
proverbial Scylla and Charybdis. To kill Socrates meant that
the Athenians, who prided themselves on their value of free
speech, could not bear criticism. They could not tolerate the
idea that all beliefs should be open to question. To acquit
Socrates would bestow legal sanction upon his mission,
permitting the gadfly to persist in his critical activity. To
convict and simply fine Socrates would have also given him
the opportunity to resume his mission. While most opponents
of Socrates probably did not wish to kill him, he seemed to
leave them no choice.
According to Nietzsche, “Socrates wanted to die; not
Athens, but he himself chose the hemlock; he forced Athens to
sentence him.”17 As Nietzsche argues in The Birth of Tragedy,
Socrates and Athens were fundamentally incompatible;
indeed, a harshly critical Nietzsche held that the inordinately
rational Socrates was a veritable “monstrosity,” exerting a
corrosive influence upon the instincts that were the essence of
Greek heroic life. Nietzsche concludes: “In this irresolvable
conflict, when he was brought before the forum of the Greek
state, only one punishment was possible: exile. If they had sent
this puzzling, uncategorizable, inexplicable phenomenon
across the border, posterity could not have accused the
Athenians of a disgraceful act. But Socrates himself seems to
have insisted upon the pronouncement of a sentence of death
rather than exile, with complete clarity of mind and without
any natural awe of death. He went to his death as peacefully
as, in Plato’s description, he left the Symposium at daybreak,
the last of the revellers, to begin a new day.”18
But Socrates could have avoided the death penalty by taking
a more flexible stand, demonstrating sensitivity toward the
city’s values and beliefs. While most would agree that his
position was morally superior— for we are drawn to
individuals who hold tenaciously to their principles, especially
in the face of death—Socrates was flawed by his overbearing
intransigent manner and blindness to the merits of the
Athenian side. As one who alleged to have the best interests of
Athens at heart, Socrates had a responsibility to attempt to
make the jury understand his views without deliberately
offending them. The closeness of the original vote to convict
him indicates that the death sentence was not inevitable.
Indeed, had Socrates been less provocative and more
conciliatory in his defense speech, he might have gained an
acquittal, while still adhering to his principles. He could have
dealt more forthrightly with the charges against him, instead of
turning his trial into a trial of Athens. As a citizen, he had an
obligation to heed Athenian fears in a time of grave civil
crisis. But he lacked empathy. Even his supporters might
charge that, by provoking the jurors to condemn him, he did a
disservice to Apollo by sabotaging his philosophic mission.
Since the Athenians could not become philosophical, Socrates,
in an effort to bridge the chasm between philosophy and
politics, might have become political, in the sense of prudent.
Without violating his conscience, therefore, Socrates might
have tempered his tone and demonstrated respect for
traditional values, even as he criticized and strove to improve
morally his city.
Instead, Socrates’ unyielding stand blinded him to what
Athenians regarded as essential for the survival of the city. He
might have considered that for Athenian youths to lose faith in
traditional values was to lose faith in the polis. Instead of
merely attacking inconsistencies in the thinking of others, he
might have devoted more attention to enunciating positive
doctrines that might have provided more secure guidance than
the vague injunction to perfect one’s soul. He failed to show
adequately the difference between himself and the Sophists.
The Sophists criticized values and traditions on the grounds
that truth is an illusion and everything is relative. Socrates
failed to appreciate that his philosophic method, while
designed to pursue truth by clear and consistent thinking,
merely engendered fear and confusion in many Athenians.
Instead of presenting at his trial an argument designed more
for philosophers, he might have presented an argument more
accessible to citizens.19 Instead of mocking the jurors, he
might have sought to guide them, like he guided Crito, toward
a better understanding of his position. In sum, Socrates failed
in his obligation to convince the majority of jurors that his
philosophic mission was compatible with the welfare of the
community. Indeed, at his trial, he gloried in his role as a
subverter, calling himself an annoying gadfly, when he might
have employed his more benevolent trope—that of an
intellectual midwife. Moreover, he confused the jurors by
subverting while seeming to affirm fundamental values. He
spoke of justice, but in the sense of never doing harm, even to
one’s enemies; he spoke of piety, but in the sense of serving
God by serving others; he spoke of the good citizen, but as one
who avoided politics; he spoke of the hero, but the hero of
knowledge and moral autonomy rather than of violence and
unquestioning acceptance of tradition. In essence, Socrates
attempted to redefine the long-standing values and beliefs
integral to the Athenian polis.
For years, the recalcitrant Socrates had deliberately avoided
the political forums of Athens, the Assembly and the
lawcourts, that frequently made moral compromise necessary.
Three times, the paths of the philosopher and the politicians
collided. First, during the trial of the Athenian generals in 406
B.C., Socrates firmly held his conscientious principles, refusing
to put to a vote a measure that would allow the democratic
Assembly to commit an illegal and unjust act, violating the
Athenian constitution. But this proved unavailing, as the
Assembly rebuffed his gallant effort, voting to execute the
generals without a trial. Socrates reminded the jury that he had
barely escaped arrest himself, so infuriated was the Assembly
by his resistance. In 404 B.C., he confronted the state again
when he committed civil disobedience by refusing to comply
with an unjust command of the Thirty Tyrants to arrest Leon
of Salamis for summary execution. Unwilling to commit an
act of injustice, Socrates was saved only by the overthrow of
the Thirty shortly after. Finally, in 399 B.C., the collision
between philosophy and politics came to a dramatic climax
with Socrates’ trial. Drawn involuntarily by his indictment into
a political forum that he had sedulously avoided, an Athenian
court, Socrates acted according to the same moral principles
that had guided his private life.
The ancient Greeks believed that certain excellent
individuals, such as the mythic heroes, were endowed by the
gods with noble qualitites that surpassed those of ordinary
humans.20 These persons were called theios, like the gods. To
some Athenians, Socrates might have been regarded as
attempting to appropriate such a superior status for himself.
That he would profess a divine mission, based upon an
unverifiable private revelation from Apollo, and that he would
claim to act under the guidance of an equally unverifiable
intuitive divine voice, must have been regarded as the essence
of hubris, the sin of an individual elevating himself above the
community’s legitimate authority. The philosopher’s critics
might argue that if individuals were permitted to disobey
government commands or civil laws on the basis of their
personal understanding of a higher law from God, the state
would be undermined.21 Indeed, to many, Socrates appeared to
claim that he was a law unto himself. Aristotle later wrote of
the individual so superior in virtue to the rest of the citizenry
that he could no longer be considered part of the state. The
rule of law could not justly apply to a person of such
excellence, who “may truly be deemed a God among men.”
For persons of superior virtue, “there is no law—they are
themselves a law.” The proper method for dealing with these
individuals, Aristotle argues, is not expulsion from the
community. Instead, the citizens should happily appoint them
kings for life.22 This would be one way of reconciling
philosophy and politics, for the virtuous person, like Plato’s
philosopher-ruler, would govern the city. But most Athenians
would have rejected Aristotle’s counsel, choosing instead to
condemn their most virtuous citizen to death. At the opening
of his trial, Socrates pleaded that he was a stranger to the
court; at the end of his trial, many concluded that he was a
stranger to the city, devoid of civic virtue. In Renaissance
Florence, Niccolò Machiavelli, steeped in politics, declared
that he loved his native city more than his soul. He would
advise politicians to ignore Christian ethics, if necessary, to
promote the interest of the state. In 399 B.C., many Athenians
concluded that Socrates, the unpolitical man, was guilty of
loving his soul more than his city.
The condemnation of Socrates was in accord with the law.
While the philosopher claimed what amounted to a moral right
to challenge the traditional values of the polis, the jury
concluded that he did not have a legal right to do so. By the
standards of the day, the majority of jurors believed that he
was legally guilty of impiety and of corrupting the minds of
the young. Having expounded beliefs and values regarded as
antithetical to the interest of the polis, Socrates provoked
many to conclude that acquitting him would jeopardize
community life. No society can survive if individuals can flout
its laws and sacred traditions with impunity. To some, Socrates
must have been as grave a challenge as the Peloponnesian
War. The words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Social
Contract reflects a conception of society derived from
classical antiquity, articulate the view of the average Athenian
in 399 B.C.: “Since every wrongdoer attacks the society’s law,
he becomes by his deed a rebel and a traitor to the nation; by
violating its law, he ceases to be a member of it; indeed, he
makes war against it. And in this case, the preservation of the
state is incompatible with his preservation; one or the other
must perish; and when the guilty man is put to death, it is less
as a citizen than as an enemy.”23 At the same time, the
Athenians must bear their share of responsibility for the death
of Socrates. They had essentially three choices before them.24
They could fundamentally reform their lives in response to
Socrates’ mission, pursuing virtue and the perfection of their
souls. They could remain morally as they were, yet tolerating a
gadfly in their midst. Considering Socrates’ advanced age, he
could not have long persisted in his mission. Or they could
silence him, thus enabling themselves to continue their ethical
slumber, living lives that, according to Socrates, were “not
worth living.” The majority chose to silence the philosopher.
Like Socrates, most jurors, representing a cross-section of the
Athenian citizenry, refused to compromise. At a time when the
Athenians wanted their values and traditions validated and the
primacy of the polis affirmed, there stood the dissenter
Socrates. The polis controlled all aspects of Athenian culture
—politics, religion, morality, drama, and athletics—all except
philosophy. Now the city would assert its authority over
philosophy.
In executing Socrates, the Athenians not only violated the
democratic value of free speech but also established
themselves in history as symbols of the tyrannical suppression
of the autonomous individual. While the virtues of democracy
are obvious, those who ignore its potential vices do so at the
peril of a free society. Essentially, Socrates offered the
Athenians what they were unwilling to accept. To those
preoccupied with power and material wealth, he offered a life
dedicated to improving the soul by thinking clearly and acting
rightly. To those with blind attachment to tradition, he offered
an example of one willing to subject every received value to
critical examination. To those who submitted to state authority
without question, he offered the example of one who, on the
grounds of autonomous conscience, would disobey state
commands rather than commit an injustice. Did the
preservation of Athens depend upon the silencing of Socrates?
Was compromise beyond the capability of most Athenians?
Because every society, especially a democratic society,
contains a multitude of viewpoints, often in conflict,
compromise is necessary for the perpetuation of order. Indeed,
as citizens of a direct democracy, the Athenians had to make
concessions each time they met in the Assembly. Ironically,
the inventors of politics seemed to forget that politics is the art
of compromise. To this extent, at least, they were more
culpable than Socrates, the unpolitical man. If Athens was
legally right in condemning Socrates, Socrates was morally
right in condemning Athens. If guilty by law, convicted by due
process of being a dangerous citizen, he was nevertheless
innocent in equity.
We may now revisit David’s masterpiece, The Death of
Socrates, but with a deeper appreciation of the philosopher’s
significance. In essence, the painting reflects both the Crito
and the Apology. While Socrates the citizen does submit to the
death sentence imposed by the state, signified by his reaching
for the cup of hemlock, at the same time, Socrates the
individualist, his finger pointing upward toward the higher
realm of the gods, would never subordinate his conscience to
the state. By his death, Socrates simultaneously fulfilled the
two principles that served as the bases of his life. In refusing to
abandon his philosophic mission, he remained faithful to God
and his conscience; in submitting to the verdict of the court, he
remained faithful to Athens and the principle of the rule of
law. From the viewpoint of the friends of Socrates and those
Athenians who voted to acquit him, his condemnation must
have been considered tragic, the result of a conflict between
antithetical principles; yet, from Socrates’ viewpoint, his death
was a triumph for philosophy. The trial of Socrates, as we have
emphasized, reflected a fundamental antagonism between
philosophy and politics in Athens. Socrates the philosopher
was devoted to the cultivation of virtue and the nonpartisan
pursuit of truth, what Plato termed real knowledge. In contrast,
the politicians, deeply embroiled in what Plato described as
the mere opinion-based, corrupt shadow-world of the cave,
competed among themselves for worldly goods, honor, and
power. The condemnation of Socrates signified the
condemnation of philosophy. The Athenians reaffirmed their
belief that no person should be permitted to threaten the
preeminence of the polis. The supreme irony is that the
attempt to crush philosophy not only resulted in one of the
greatest trials in history but also inspired generations to pursue
a more examined life, pondering the enduring questions that
Socrates raised.
 According to one apocryphal tradition, preserved by
Diogenes Laertius, not long after the execution of Socrates, the
Athenians repented, banishing Meletus and Lycon and putting
Anytus to death. Socrates, the victim of the city’s folly, was
honored with a bronze statue of his likeness.25 The justice of
these civic actions is merely poetic, not historical.
Nevertheless, Socrates left a lasting impression upon his
associates. Xenophon found it beyond his power “to forget
him or, in remembering him, to refrain from praising him.”26
According to Plato, “of all those whom we knew in our
lifetime,” Socrates was the best, the wisest, and the most
just.27
Responding to the failure of Socrates to make philosophy
relevant to the state, Plato would refuse to make any
accommodation to the world of political action. He rejected
politics altogether, turning his attention instead to the task of
making the world safe for philosophy by creating a state
founded upon eternal, absolute truth.28 In the Republic— free
from conflict and change, revolution and factional strife—the
collision between the philosopher and politics would not be
possible. Yet, while Plato found a means to resurrect
philosophy, he did so at the price of betraying the spirit of his
master. For Socrates’ mission, the ongoing pursuit of wisdom
and virtue in an atmosphere of freedom, in which all questions
remain open questions, would be supplanted by the
authoritarian imposition of absolute truth by Plato’s
philosopher-rulers.
Perhaps Aristotle, who inherited the mantle of philosophy
from Socrates through Plato, best expressed what Socrates
signifies for those who cherish the life of the mind:
“There is a life higher than the human level: not in virtue of
his humanity will a man achieve it, but in virtue of something
within him that is divine. … If then the intellect is something
divine in comparison with man, so is the life of the intellect
divine in comparison with human life. Nor ought we to obey
those who enjoin that a man should have man’s thoughts and a
mortal the thoughts of mortality, but we ought so far as
possible to achieve immortality, and do all that man may to
live in accordance with the highest thing in him; for though
this be small in bulk, in power and value it far surpasses all the
rest.”29
By bringing the philosophic mission into the court, Socrates
converted his trial into a moral examination of Athens, sealing
his fate. The trial demonstrated for many Athenians the
incompatibility between philosophy and politics. As
representatives of the city, most jurors refused to subordinate
politics to the morality that philosophy demanded. Socrates
conducted his defense as he had his philosophic life, caring for
his soul as well as the soul of Athens. As he proclaimed to the
jury, a life worth living is guided not by the prospects of life or
death, or by public opinion, but by whether one is doing right
or wrong, acting justly or unjustly. If Socrates committed
crimes that demanded capital punishment, Athens crushed the
one person whose spirit of rational inquiry might have led the
polis to a more enlightened future. Condemned by the city he
loved, Socrates, the philosopher-hero, willingly went to his
death, confident that he had abided by his moral principles to
the very end. Having nourished his soul by cultivating virtue
all his life, the philosopher knew how to die.30
 Notes

Chapter 1
Introduction: A Tragic Confrontation
1. Hannah Arendt to Karl Jaspers, July 1, 1956, in
Hannah Arendt-Karl Jaspers Correspondence, ed.
Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner, trans, from the German
by Robert and Rita Kimber (Harcourr Brace
Jovanovich, New York: 1992), 288–9. On the theme of
the relation between philosophy and politics, see also
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing
(Chicago, 1988), 5, 18, and What Is Political
Philosophy? And Other Studies (Chicago, 1988), 32,
92–3, 221–2.
2. The Greek word polis, is usually translated as “city,”
“state,” or “city-state.”
3. The most popular book justifying the execution of
Socrates by Athens for political reasons is I. F. Stone,
The Trial of Socrates (New York, 1988).
4. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Plato’s
dialogues in this book are by Benjamin Jowett. See
Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, 2 vols. (New York,
1937). Note diat there are slight variations in the
wording of the many editions of Jowett’s translations.
In conformity with Jowett, we cite only the standard
Stepharuis pages, omitting the sections (a–e).
Stephanus refers to Henricus Stcphanus, a Latinization
of Henri Estienne (1528–1598), the French scholar and
printer, whose Greek and Latin edition of Plato was
published in 1578.
5. Apology, 29. Although nowhere named in the Apology,
the context here indicates that the “God” is Apollo.
Jowett usually, but not always, translates “God” in the
upper case. The polytheistic Greeks often spoke of
 “God” in the singular, as if each of the gods were
aspects of one God, or the divine. Throughout our
study, the use of “Ckid” in the upper case, which
conforms to several English translations of the
Apology, is not meant to imply that Socrares was
necessarily a monotheist, but to emphasize the
essential role of the divine in his philosophic mission.
While the context usually reveals that the “God”
Socrates is referring to is Apollo, the referent is
sometimes ambiguous. See Robin Water field,
Introduction to Xenuphon: Conversations of Socrates
(Harmondsworth, England, 1990), 44,n.l.
6. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb
(Harmondsworth, England, Penguin Books, 1974), 85.
7. A. C. Bradley, “Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy,” in Oxford
Lectures on Poetry (London, 1941), 72.
8. H. D. E Kitto, The Greeks (Harmondsworth, England,
1957), 153–4.
9. Romano Guardini, The Death of Socrates (New York,
1948), 44.
10. J. B. Bury, A History of Greece (London, 1929), 581;
see also Jean Hatzfeld, History of Ancient Greece
(New York, 1968), 147.
11. J. Peter Euben, “Introduction” in Greek Tragedy and
Political Theory, ed. Ruben (Berkeley, CA, 1986), 23.
12. R. E. Allen, “The Trial of Socrates: A Study in the
Morality of the Criminal Process,” in Socrates:
Critical Assessments, vol. II, ed. William J. Prior
(London: Routledge, 1996), 4.
13. Oddone I ongo, “The Theater of the Polis,” in John W.
Winkler and Froma Zeitlin, eds., Nothing to Do with
Dionysos? (Princeton, 1990), 12–19. According to
Simon Goldhill, to be part of an audience in Athens,
whether in the theater, the Assembly, or the law courts
was “a fundamental and defining political act. Within
the ideology of the shared duties of participatory
 citizenship, to be in an audience is to play the role of
the democratic citizen.” See Goldhill, “Greek Drama
and Political Theory,” in The Cambridge History of
Greek and Roman Political Thought, eds. Christopher
Rowe and Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 62. Goldhill’s italics.
14. William Arrowsmith. “A Greek Theater of Ideas,” in
Ideas in the Drama: Selected Papers from the English
Institute, ed. John Gassner (New York, 1964), 1–41, at
2.
15. Christian Meier, The Political Art of Greek Tragedy
(Cambridge, England, 1993), 5; see also Ruben, Greek
Tragedy and Political Theory.
16. Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Myth and
Tragedy in Ancient Greece (New York, 1990), 24–5;
see also Helen North, Sophrosyne (Ithaca, 1966), 12,
32–84, 150.
17. Edith Hall, “Lawcourt Dramas: The Power of
Performance in Greek Forensic Oratory,” Bulletin of
the Institute of Classical Studies 40 (1995): 39–58.
18. Paul Cartledge, “‘Deep Plays’: Theatre as Process in
Greek Civic Life,” in The Cambridge Companion to
Greek Tragedy, ed. P. E. Easterling (Cambridge,
England, 1997), 3. (Hereafter cited as Greek Tragedy.)
19. Simon Goldhill, “The Audience of Athenian Tragedy,”
in Greek Tragedy, 54; and Rush Rehm, “The
Performance Culture of Athens,” chap. 1 in Greek
Tragic. Theatre (London, 1992), 3–11.
20. Rehm, Greek Tragic Theatre, 3.
21. Cartledge, “‘Deep Plays,’” 15.
22. Simon Goldhill, “The Language of Tragedy: Rhetoric
and Communication,” in Greek Tragedy, 132.
23. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
(Cambridge, MA, 1925), vol.1, III.5–6.
 24. On the effect of Plato’s dialogues on readers, see Jill
Gordon, Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device
and Dramatic Structure in Plato’s Dialogues
(University Park, PA, 1999).
25. On the importance of understanding the literary and
historical context of the works of Plato, see Gerald A.
Press, “Introduction—The Dialogical Mode in Modern
Plato Studies,” in Richard Hart and Victorino Tejera,
eds., Plato’s Dialogues—The Dialogical Approach,
vol. 46. (Lewiston, NY, 1997), 1–28.
26. Friedrich Schleiermacher, “General Introduction,” in
Introductions to the dialogues of Plato (Cambridge,
1836), 14.

Chapter 2
Setting the Stage for the Trial
1. C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution: To
the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1952), 216–
21; and J. W. Roberts, City of Sokrates (london, 1998),
58–9; on rhe Heliaia (Ēliaia), see Coleman Phillipson,
The Trial of Socrates (London, 1928), 227–46; and
Douglas M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens
(London, 1978), 29–35. Although often referred to as
the Heliaia, inscriptions show that the correct spelling
is Ēliaia. See Martin Ostwald, From Popular
Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley,
1986), 10, n.27; 68.
2. Steven Johnstone, Disputes and Democracy: The
Consequences of Litigation in Ancient Athens (Austin,
TX, 1999), 19.
3. Socrates refers to the trial’s public “audience” in
Apology, 24e.
4. MacDowell, Law in Classical Athens, 248; and
Phillipson, Trial of Socrates, 251.
5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, vol.1, II.40. The reader will
note that at Apology, 24, Socrates reverses the formal
 charges, placing the corruption change first. His
remark rhat the prosecution’s affidavit “contains
something of this kind” indicates that he did not intend
to be precise. He apparently regarded corruption as the
root charge. We retain the charges in the order stated
by Diogenes Laertius, corroborared by Xenophon, in
Memorabilia (Cambridge, MA, 1923), I.1.1; unless
otherwise noted, all citations are to this edition.
6. MacDowell, Law in Classical Athens, 237–42; see also
“Procedure Before and at Trial,” in Phillipson, Trial of
Socrates, 247–72.
7. Leo Strauss calls the Apology of Socrates “the dialogue
of Socrates with the city of Athens.” See “On Plato’s
Apology of Socrates and Crito,” in Strauss, Studies in
Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago, 1983), 38.
Strauss’ italics.
8. Only in a few cases have speeches for both the
prosecution and the accused survived. See Michael
Gagarin, “Series Introduction,” in The Oratory of
Classical Greece, vol. 2, Lysias,, trans. S.C. Todd
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), xxii.
9. Mogens H. Hansen, The Trial of Socrates—From the
Athenian Point of View (Copenhagen, 1995), 187.
10. Ibid., 199.
11. Xenophon, Apology [Socrates’ Defence to the Jury]
(Cambridge, MA, 1923), 1. Unless otherwise noted, all
citations are to this edition.
12. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, vol.1, II.40. “Logography,”
the practice of writing speeches for others to be
memorized and delivered at court, began with the
Sophist Antiphon around 430 B.C. See Gagarin, “Series
Introduction,” xii–xiii.
13. Søren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, Judge for
Yourself!, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H.
Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990),
225.
 Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV.viii.4; Xenophon,
14.
Apology, 3–4.
15. St. George Stock, The Apology of Plato (Oxford, 1890;
reprint 1953), 26.
16. Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony
(Bloomington, IN, 1965), 54.
17. Plato is named twice in Socrates’ speech. Apology, 34,
38.
18. C. M. Bowra, Ancient Greek Literature (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1960), 173.
19. Thucydides, I.22. Unless otherwise nored, all
translations of Thucydides are from Benjamin Jowett,
Thucydides Translated into English, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1900).
20. Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral
Philosopher (Ithaca, 1991), 253.
21. A. E. Taylor, Socrates (New York, 1953), 156–7.
22. John Burnet, “Apology: Introducrory Note,” in Plato’s
Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito (Oxford,
1924), 143–4.
23. Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture
(New York, 1939), II, 37.
24. Gregory Vlastos, “The Paradox of Socrates,” in The
Philosophy of Socrates; A Collection of Critical
Essays, ed. Vlastos (Notre Dame, IN, 1980), 3.
25. W. K. C. Guthrie, Socrates (Cambridge, England,
1971), 157–8.
26. Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue
(Cambridge, England, 1996), 88–9, 97. On the
historicity of the Apology, see also Thomas C.
Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Socrates on Trial
(Princeton, 1989), 2–10; R. E. Allen, Socrates and
Legal Obligation (Minneapolis, 1980), 33–6; George
Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates
(London, 1865), Vol. I, 281–2; and C. L. Kitchel,
 Plato’s Apology of Socrates (New York, 1898),10, 34–
5.

Chapter 3
Socrates and Rhetoric
1. George Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece
(London, 1963), 3–4.
2. Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought
(Ithaca, 1982), 49–50.
3. Roland Barthes, The Semiotic Challenge, trans.
Richard Howard (Berkeley: Univetsity of California
Press, 1988), 13–14.
4. Quoted in W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge,
England, 1971), 50.
5. Iliad, 9:443.
6. Odyssey, 8:171–3.
7. On the Sophists, see: Harold Barrett, The Sophists
(Novato, CA, 1987); Guthrie, The Sophists; G. B.
Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge,
England, 1981); and Jacqueline de Romilly, The Great
Sophists (Oxford, 1992).
8. Protagoras, 312, 317–8.
9. Apology, 17.
10. Ibid.
11. As E. de Strycker points out, Socrates uses the word
“truth” four times in the first fourteen lines of the
Apology. See de Strycker, Plato’s Apology of Socrates
(Leiden, The Netherlands, 1994), 39.
12. Paul Friedlander, Plato: The Dialogues First Period
(New York, 1964), 160.
13. Gorgias, Helen, in Readings from Classical Rhetoric,
ed. Patricia P. Matsen, Phillip Rollinson, and Marion
 Sousa (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1990), 33–6.
14. Crito, 45.
15. See Barry S. Strauss, Athens after the Peloponnesian
War (London, 1986), 1, 3, 27–8,89–90,113–4, 171–2.
16. Richard A. Lanham, The Motives of Eloquence:
Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1976), 4–5.
17. Barrett, The Sophists, 27; Guthrie, The Sophists, 38;
and John Poulakis, Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical
Greece (Columbia, SC, 1995), 16–24.
18. On opposition to the Sophists, see Barrett, The
Sophists, 27–33; de Romilly, Great Sophists, 134–61;
and Christopher Rowe, An Introduction to Greek
Ethics (New York, 1977), 23–4.
19. J. V. Muir, “Religion and the New Education: the
Challenge of the Sophists,” in Greek Religion and
Society, ed. P. E. Easterling and J. V. Muir (Cambridge,
England, 1985), 191–3.
20. Apology, 17; see Burnet, Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology of
Socrates, and Crito, 152.
21. Apology, 17–8.
22. Kennedy, Art of Persuasion, 152.
23. Burnet, Plato’s F.uthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and
Crito, 147.
24. Douglas D. Feaver and John E. Hare, “The Apology as
an Inverted Patody of Rhetoric,” Arethusa 14 (1981):
205–16.
25. Gorgias, 486.
26. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, IX.2.46, quoted in Paul
Friedlander, Plato: An Introduction (New York, 1958),
138.
27. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971}, 46.
 28. Phaedrus, 260.
29. Gorgias, 455, 503–4.
30. Ibid., 517–9.
31. Ibid., 521.
32. Republic, 489.
33. Gorgias, 521.
34. Ibid., 480.
35. According to Plutarch, Socrates opposed the invasion
of Sicily. Plutarch, “Alcibiades,” 17, in The Rise and
Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, translated with an
introduction by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Harmondsworth,
England: Penguin Books, 1960), 260.
36. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric (Cambridge, MA, 1926),
III.xvii.18.
37. Ibid., I.ii.2
38. Ibid.,I.i.l4.
39. Ibid., I.3.
40. Ibid., II.1–26.

Chapter 4
Socrates Confronts His Old Accusers
1. Apology, 18.
2. Ibid., 19.
3. Barthes, The Semiotic Challenge, (Berkelely:
University of California Press, 1988), 74.
4. Apology, 19.
5. George Anastaplo, “Human Being and Citizen: A
Beginning to the Study of Plato’s ‘Apology of
Socrates,’” in Human Being and Citizen (Chicago,
1975), 9.
6. On Aristophanes’ Clouds, see: Kenneth J. Dover,
“Socrates in the Clouds,” in Philosophy of Socrates,
ed. Vlastos, 50–77; and Dover, Aristophanic Comedy
(Berkeley, 1972), 101–120. Disappointed that the play
did not win a prize, Aristophanes rewrote the Clouds,
but the new version, the one that survives, was not
presented on stage.
7. See Aristophanes, Clouds, abridged edition, edited
with introduction and commentary by K. J. Dover
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), commentary
on line 830.
8. Quoted in Pierre Hadot, “The Figure of Socrates,” in
Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford, 1995), 148.
9. Symposium, 216–7.
10. Apology, 19.
11. Aristophanes, The Clouds, in Three Comedies by
Aristophanes, trans. William Arrowsmith (Ann Arhor:
University of Michigan Press, 1969), 66.
12. Ibid., pp.112–3.
13. W K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers (New York,
1960), 67.
14. Werner Jaeger, Paideia, vol. II, 28.
15. Phaedrus, 275–6.
16. George Grote, A History of Greece (London, 1869),
vol. VIII, 155.
17. Claude Mossé, Athens in Decline: 404–86 B.C.
(London, 1973), 1–20.
18. A. de Lamartine, Homer and Socrates, trans. Eliza
Winchell Smith (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co.,
1872), 64.
19. Apology, 19.
20. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, vol.1, II.16.
21. Phaedo,96, 99.
 Aristotle, Metaphysics, A6:987b1–4; On the Parts of
22.
Animals, I.l:642a27–30, in Basic Works of Aristotle, ed.
Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941).
23. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations (Cambridge, MA,
1989), V.iv.10–11, 435.
24. Quoted in John Sallis, Nietzsche and the Space of
Tragedy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991),
123. Nietzsche was haunted by Socrates. “Socrates, to
confess it frankly, is so close to me that almost always
1 fight a fight against him.” Quoted in Walter
Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
Antichrist, 4th edition (Princeton: Printeton University
Press, 1974), 398.
25. Apology, 19. See Gary Alan Scott, Plato’s Socrates as
Educator (Albany, NY, 2000), 13–27.
26. Xenophon, Memorabilia, I.vi.13.
27. de Romilly, Great Sophists, 33–4.
28. Apology, 13–20.
29. Protagoras, 316.
30. Simon Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge,
England, 1986), 226–7, 239; Eric A. Havelock, “Why
Was Socrates Tried?” in Studies in Honour of Gilbert
Norwood, Mary E. White, ed. (Toronto, 1952), 95–109;
and Richard D, McKirahan, Jr., Philosophy Before
Socrates (Indianapolis,!994), 373.
31. Vlastos, Socrates, 32.
32. Meno, 96d; Protagoras, 341a.
33. Apology, 20.
34. Grote, History, VIII, 173.
35. Guthrie, The Sophists, 182.
36. de Romilly, Great Sophists, 76.
37. Grote, History, VIII, 174–5.
38. Renato Batilli, Rhetoric (Minneapolis, 1989), viii–ix.
 39. For the nomos-physis antithesis, see: Guthtie, The
Sophists (1971), chap, 4; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement
(1981), chap.10, and Richard D, McKirahan,
Philosophy Before Socrates, chap. 19. See also
Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 239–40.
40. Sophocles, Antigone, 332 ff.
41. de Romilly, Great Sophists, 151.
42. Gorgias, 482.
43. Republic, 338.
44. Thucydides,III.16.
45. Ibid., III.37, IV.21.
46. Ibid., III.36, 40.
47. Ibid., V105.

Chapter 5
Socrates’ Radical Philosophic Mission
1. Apology, 20.
2. Victor Bers, “Dikastic Thorubus,” in Crux: Essays in
Greek History, P. A. Cattledge and F. D. Hatvey, eds.
(London, 1985), 1–15; Edith Hall, “Lawcourt
Dramas,” 40; and Josiah Ober, The Athenian
Revolution (Princeton, 1996}, 23–6.
3. Thucydides, I.118.
4. Thucydides, II.54, 64; H. W. Parke and D. E. W.
Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, vol. I (Oxford, 1956),
189.
5. Robert Parker, Athenian Religion (Oxford, 1996), 29.
6. Guthtie, Socrates, 85–6; and C D. C. Reeve, Socrates
in the Apology, (Indianapolis, 1989), 21.
7. Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle, I, 30–41. For a
contrary view of the procedure at Delphi, see Joseph
 Fontenrose, Delphic Oracle (Berkeley, 1978), 6–7,
196–228.
8. Apology, 21.
9. Ibid.
10. Fontenrose, Delphic Oracle, 34.
11. Apology, 21.
12. Quoted in G. S. Kirk, J, E. Raven, and M. Schofield,
eds., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History
with a Selection of Texts, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 209.
13. Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 123.
14. On the role of human intelligence in interpreting
oracles, see Simon Price, “Delphi and Divination,” in
Easterling and Muir, Greek Religion and Society, 128–
54, at 146–50.
15. Rollo May, The Courage to Create (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1975), 107–8.
16. Although Socrates’ narration makes it appear that he
examined these groups in strict order, this was, of
course, merely a literary device, enabling him ro divide
the Athenian population into convenient categories of
people reputed to be wise. Socrates obviously
interrogated individuals as he encountered them, in no
particular order. See de Strycker, Plato’s Apology, 68–
9.
17. Apology, 21.
18. Ibid.
19. Gorgias, 515, 518–9.
20. Meno, 92–5.
21. Apology, 21–2.
22. Ibid., 22.
23. Ion, 533–4.
24. Apology, 22.
25. Robett J. Bonner, Aspects of Athenian Democracy
(Berkeley,1933), 102–3.
26. See Richard Robinson, “Elenchus,” in Vlastos,
Philosophy of Socrates, 78–93.
27. Meno, 80.
28. Symposium, 215, 216, 221.
29. Republic, 337.
30. J. A, K, Thomson, Irony: An Historical Introduction
(Cambridge, MA, 1927), 10, Thomson’s italics.
31. Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living (Berkeley,
1998), 49–52. 57, 60, 62–3.
32. Laches, 191e, 201b; Charmides, 176a; Lysis, 223;
Euthyphro, 15.
33. Republic, 394d.
34. Theaetetus, 150.
35. Republic, 518.
36. Plato, The Seventh Letter, 341, in Plato, Phaedrus and
The Seventh and Eighth Letters, trans. Walter Hamilton
(Harmondsworih, England: Penguin Books, 1973),
136. The authenticity of the Seventh Letter, a source of
valuable information on the life of Plato, remains a
subject of controversy. Nevertheless, the majority of
Plato scholars regard the Seventh Letter as genuine.
Ibid., 105.
37. Theaetetiis, 189.
38. Robert Grudin, On Dialogue: An Essay on Free
Thought (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 5.
39. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevski’s Poetics, ed.
and trans. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1984), 110. Bakhtin’s italics.
40. Grudin, On Dialogue, 33–55.
41. Vlastos, “The Paradox of Socrates,” 10.
42. annah Arendt, Life of the Mind, vol. 1: Thinking (New
York, 1978), 174–5.
43. Ibid., 88.
44. Arendt, “Philosophy and Politics,” Social Research 57
(1990): 73–103, at 90–1.
45. Grate, History, VIII, 269.
46. Apology, 23.
47. On the notion of “gaps” or indeterminacies in a text,
calling for interpretation by the reader, see Wolfgang
Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic
Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1978).
48. Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, 95–100;
Mark McPherran, The Religion of Socrates (University
Park: PA, 1996), 223–9; Reeve, Socrates in the
Apology, 24–8; and Vlastos, Socrates, l75–7.
49. For parallels between Socrates and the Hebrew
prophets, See Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Lectures on the
History of the Jewish Church, vol. III, new ed. (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), “Socrates,” 173–
205.
50. Vlasros, Socrates, 175–6.
51. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, 25–6.
52. Apology, 23.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., 18.
55. Meno, 91.
56. Xenophon, Apology, 29–31.
57. Apology, 29.
58. Burnet, note on Euthyphro, 2b9, 89–91. See also de
Strycker, Plato’s Apology, 94–5.
59. Euthyphro, 2.
 60. Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, 29–30.

Chapter 6
The Athenian Polis Ideal
1. Nicole Loraux, The Invention of Athens (Cambridge,
MA, 1986), 1.
2. See, for example, Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg:
The Words that Remade America (New York, Simon
and Schuster, 1992),41–62.
3. C.M. Bowra, Periclean Athens (London, 1971), 274.
4. Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN, 1988),48.
5. Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens (New York, 1991).
143.
6. Thucydides, II.34.
7. Plutarch, “Pericles,” 28, in The Rise and Fall of
Athens: Nine Creek Lives, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert
(Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Bonks, 1960),
194.
8. Thucydides, II.37.
9. Ibid.
10. Victor Ehrenberg, Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford,
1954), 22–50, 167–72; and Guthrie, The Sophists, 121.
11. Thucydides, II.39.
12. Ibid. II. 40.
13. Ibid., II. 41.
14. Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern (Chapel
Hill, NC, 1992), 246, n.95.
15. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans.
Rex Warner (Harmondswortli, England, 1954), II.41,
148.
16. Thucydides, II.41.
17. Ibid., II.42.
18. Simon Goldhill, “The Great Dionysia and Civic
Ideology,” in Nothing to Do with Dionysos?, 110.
19. Thucydides, II.42.
20. According to Plutarch, the teaching of Anaxagoras
enabled Pericles “to rise above that superstitious terror
that springs from an ignorant wonder at the common
phenomena of the heavens…. A knowledge of natural
causes, on the other hand, banishes these fears and
replaces morbid superstition with a piety which rests
on a sure foundation supported by rational hopes,”
Plutarch. “Pericles,” in Rise and Fall of Athens, 6, 170.
21. Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago. 1978), 152.
22. Loraux, Invention of Athens, 277; and Clifford Orwin,
The Humanity of Thucydides (Princeton, 1994), 19.
23. Charles N. Cochrane, Thucydides and the Science of
History (New York, 1965), .55; and Rahe, Republics
Ancient and Modern, 186.
24. On this theme, see Michael Palmer, “Love of Glory
and the Common Good,” American Political Science
Review 76 (1982): 825–36.
25. Thucydides, II.43.
26. Bernard Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (New York, 1971},
74, S. Sara Monoson argues that, according to
Athenian value, Pericles’ erastēs metaphor connoted
more than simple affection for the city, but was highly
erotic and actively sexual, implying that the ideal
citizen was an “active, energetic participant in the
construction” of the city’s greatness. See Monoson,
Plato’s Democratic Entanglements (Princeton, 2000),
64–87, at 87.
27. Ehrenberg, Solon to Socrates, 263.
28. Thucydides, II.43.
29. Ibid., II.45.
 For a discussion of the Athenian view of women
30. during the classical period, see Roger Just, Women in
Athenian Law and Life (London, 1989).
31. Nicole Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman, trans.
Anthony Forster (Cambridge: Harvard Universiry
Press, 1987), 2.
32. Loraux, Invention of Athens, 263–327.
33. Menexenus, 234–5.
34. Loraux, Invention of Athens, 267.
35. Francis M. Cornford, Thucydides Mythistoricus
(Philadelphia, 1971), 206.
36. Plato, The Republic, IX.573.
37. Thucydides, VI. 18.3, Richard Crawley translation,
newly revised, in The Landmark Thucydides: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed.
Robert B. Strassler (New York: Free Press, 1996), 372.
38. Thucydides, VI.24.
39. Ibid., VI.31.
40. Ibid., II.63.
41. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes, 67.
42. Ibid., 102.
43. Strauss, City and Man, 139.
44. Thucydides, I.1.
45. Ibid., II.65.
46. Robert W. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-
Century Athens (Princeton, 1971), 194–5.
47. Ibid., 100.
48. Aristotle, The Constitution of Athens XXVIII.3–4, in
Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy,
trans. J. M. Moore (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1975), 171.
49. Thucydides, II.52.
50. Ibid., III.82.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., III.83–4.
53. Barry Strauss, Fathers and Sons in Athens, (Princeton,
1993), 179.
54. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Homer on Competition,” in On
the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson,
trans, Carol Diethe (Cambridge, England, 1994), 194.
55. Thucydides, VII.87.
56. A.W.H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility (Oxford,
1960), 36.
57. Bruno Snell, Discovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA,
1953), 158.
58. Robert J. O’Connell, S.J., Plato on the Human
Paradox (New York, 1997), 5–6.
59. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN,
1984), 122.
60. Homer, The Iliad, 12.318–28.
61. Alvin Gouldner, Enter Plato (New York, 1965), 42.
62. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Homer’s Contest,” in Portable
Nietzsche, 35–7.
63. Terence Irwin, Classical Thought (Oxford, 1989), 8–
11.
64. Moses Hadas, Humanism (London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1961), 21.
65. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles (New York:
Viking Penguin, 1990), 11.784.
66. Jaeger, Paideia, I,10.
67. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility; Dodds, Greeks and
the Irrational; and Snell, Discovery of the Mind.
68. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 17–18, 28, 43; see
also “Honour and Shame,” in K.J. Dover, Greek
 Popular Morality (Indianapolis, 1994), 226–42.
69. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 17.
70. Gouldner, Enter Plato, 82.
71. Ibid., 83. Gouldner’s italics.
72. Ibid., 84.
73. Hadas, Humanism, 26. See also Jean-Pierre Vernant,
“Introduction,” in The Greeks, J. P. Vernant, ed.
(Chicago, 1995), 18.
74. Philip B. Manville, The Origins of Citizenship
(Princeton, 1990), 148.
75. Ibid., 156.
76. Jaeger, Paideia, I, 108–9.
77. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Society (New York,
1990), 29.
78. Eli Sagan, Honey and the Hemlock (NewYork, 1991),
228.
79. Michael B. Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient
World (New Haven, CT, 1987), 113–14.
80. Joseph M. Bryant, Moral Codes and Social Structure
(Albany, NY, 1996), 92.
81. Gouldner, Enter Plato, 46.
82. Jacob Burckhardt, Greeks and Greek Civilization (New
York, 1998), 56.
83. Jean-Pierre Vernant, ed., The Greeks (Chicago, 1995),
18.
84. R. K. Sinclair, Democracy and Participation
(Cambridge, England), 191.
85. Quoted in G. Glotz, The Greek City (New York, 1965),
143.
86. Citizens who spoke frankly did incur risk, Athenian
law prohibited slander, and citizens conld, by means of
a graphē paranomōn, be prosecuted and fined for
 deceiving the Assembly or for offering advice that
proved to be not for the good of the polis. Monosun,
Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 52, 55, 59.
87. Gorgias, 46l.
88. On the prosecurion of intellectuals for impiety, see
Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 189–93.
89. M. I. Finley. “Socrates and After,” in Democracy:
Anaenl and Modern (New Brunswick, NJ, 1985), 116.
Finley’s italics.
90. M. I. Finley, “The Freedom of the Citizen in the Greek
World,” in Economy and Society in Ancient Greece
(New York, 1982), 77–94, at 92–3; Richard Kraut,
Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1984), 227; and Max
Pohlenz, Freedom in Greek Life and Thought (New
York, 1966), 28.
91. Hansen, Athenian Democracy in the Age of
Demosthenes (Oxford, 1991), 61–2. 80; and Martin
Ostwald, “Shares and Rights,” in Dēmokratia: A
Conversation on Democracies, edited by Josiah Ober
and Charles Hedrick (Princeton, 1996), 55.
92. Victor Ehrenberg, Man, State, and Deity (London,
1974), 34. Ehrenberg’s italics.
93. Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays
(London: Macmillan and Co., 1907), 11–12.
94. Thucydides, II.65.
95. Ostwald, “Shares and Rights,” 49.
96. Oswyn Murray, “Liberty and the Ancient Greeks,” in
The Good Idea: Democracy and Ancient Greece:
Essays in Celebration of the 2500th Anniversary of Its
Birth in Athens, edited by John A. Koumoulides (New
Rochelle, NY, 1995), 44.
97. Aristotle, Politics, I.2.1253a; VIII.1.1237a.
98. Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients
Compared with That of the Modems [1819],” in
Political Writings, trans. Biancamaria Fontana
 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 316,
311.
99. Pohlenz, Freedom in Greek Life and Thought, 28–9.
100. Ehrenberg, The Greek State, 91.
101. Bryant, Moral Codes, 157–8.
102. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago,
1958),38.
103. Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, VIII.5.
104. S. H. Butcher, Some Aspects of the Greek Genius (Port
Washington, NY, Kennikat Press, reissue, 1969), 52.
105. Aristotle, Politics, I.2.1253a.
106. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, 260, 278 n.l.
107. Aristotle, The Politics, III.4; see also W. L. Newman,
The Politics of Aristotle, vol. I, (Oxford, 1887). 234–
40.
108. Aristotle, Politics, III.4.1276b–1277a.
109. Gorgias, 517.

Chapter 7
Socrates Confronts His Present Accusers:
The Interrogation of Meletus
1. Andrea Nye, Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of
the History of Logic (New York: Routledge, 1990), 42–
3.
2. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Twilight of the Idols,” in
Portable Nietzsche, 477.
3. MacDowell. Law in Classical Athens, 241.
4. Apology, 24.
5. de Strycker, Plato’s Apology, 89–90.
6. Strauss. Fathers and Sons, 199–209.
7. On Socrates’ alleged undermining of paternal
authority, see Georg Hegel, Lectures on the History of
Philosophy (New York, 1974), vol. I: 435–40; and
Søren Kierkegaard, Concept of Irony, 209–10.
8. Apology, 24.
9. On the amnesty, see Aristotle, Constitution of Athens,
trans. Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge, England, 1996),
39.6; and Xenophon, Hellenica, trans. Henry G.
Dakyns, in The Greek Historians, ed. Francis R. B.
Godolphin (New York, 1922), vol. 2; for commentary,
see Alfred Dorjahn, Political Forgiveness in Old
Athens (Evanston, IL, 1946); Peter Krentz, The Thirty
at Athens (Ithaca, 1982), 102–4, 115–8; Thomas C.
Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement of 403/402
B.C. in Athens (Stuttgart, 1987); and P. J. Rhodes, A
Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia
(Oxford, 1993),468–72.
10. Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, XL.2.
11. Xenophon, Hellenica, II.4.43, p. 55.
12. Gregory Nagy, “Foreword,” in Mothers in Mourning,
by Nicole Loraux (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1998), xii.
13. Burnet, Plato’s Euthyphro. Apology of Socrates, and
Crito, 105, 180–1; and Taylor, Socrates, 103.
14. Stone, Trial of Socrates, 3.
15. James Beckman, Religious Dimension of Socrates’
Thought (Waterloo, Ontario, 1979), 55–63; see also M.
F. Burnyeat, “The Impiety of Socrates,” Ancient
Philosophy 17 (1997): 1–12; A. B. Drachmann,
Atheism in Pagan Antiquity, reprint of 1922 ed.
(Chicago, 1977), 7, 59; and McPherran, Religion of
Socrates, 120–1.
16. Thucydides, History, VI.27.
17. Ehrenberg, Solon to Socrates, 344.
18. On the rule of the amnesty in the indictment of
Socrates, see Guthrie, Socrates, 61–3.
19. Rhodes, Commentary on Aristotelian Athenaion
Politeia, 472.
20. Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, 74; Dorjahn,
Political Forgiveness, 30–33.
21. Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, Foundations of Socratic Ethics
(Indianapolis, IN, 1994), 16.
22. For an example of the erroneous view that the charge
of irreligion was a mere pretext, see Burnet, Greek
Philosophy (London, 1914), 182–91; and Stone, Trial
of Socrates. Stone underestimates the religious
charges, arguing that Socrates was indicted principally
for his political views.
23. Brickhouse and Smith argue that religion, not politics,
was the real issue in Socrates’ trial. See Plato’s
Socrates (Oxford, 1994), 173–5. See also W. R.
Connor, “The Other 399; Religion and the Trial of
Socrates,” Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of
George Cawkwell 58 (1991): 49–56; Finley, Aspects of
Antiquity (London, 1968), 64–5; and Terence Irwin,
“Socrates and Athenian Democracy, Philosophy and
Public Affairs 18 (1989):184–205. Irwin asserts, at
191: “There is no reason to suppose that the religious
charge was a mere ‘front’ for political hostility.”
24. Eduard Zeller argues that Socrates was condemned
from a combination of religions, political, moral, and
personal motives. See Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic
Schools (London, 1868), 169–86.
25. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, 99.
26. Seventh Letter, 325b–c.
27. Apology, 24–5.
28. Ibid., 25.
29. Ibid.
30. Xenophon, Memorabilia, III.ix.5.
31. David P. Gontar, “The Problem of the Formal Charges
in Plato’s Apology,” Tulane Studies in Philosophy 27
(1978): 96.
32. Kierkegaard, Concept of Irony, 209.
33. Guthrie, Socrates, 130–42.
34. St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans 7:19.
35. Protagoras, 322.
36. Ibid., 322–3.
37. Cynthia Farrar, Origins of Democratic Thinking
(Cambridge, England, 1988), 77.
38. Protagoras, 327.
39. Meno, 92.
40. Ehrenberg, Solon to Socrates, 330.
41. Republic, 492.
42. Laszlo Versenyi, Holiness and Justice (Lanham, MD,
1982), 1.
43. Lysias, “Against Andocides: For Impiety,” 18, in
Lysias, trans. W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1976), 125.
44. On Athenian religion, see Walter Burkert, Greek
Religion (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Robert Garland,
Introducing New Gods (Ithaca, NY, 1992); J. D.
Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (Chapel Hill,
NC, 1983); Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Piety (Oxford,
1948); Martin P. Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion
(New York, 1964); Robert Parker, Athenian Religion
(Oxford, 1996); Harvey Yunis, A New Creed: Polis and
Euripidean Drama (Gottingen, 1988); and Louise B.
Zaidman and Pauline S. Pantel, Religion in the Ancient
Greek City (Cambridge, England, 1992).
45. Charles Freeman, The Greek Achievement (New York,
l999), 132.
46. David Cohen, Law, Sexuality, and Society: The
Enforcement of Morals in Classical Athens
(Cambridge, England, 1991), 204, 206, 210–7; and
Simon Price, Religions of the Ancient Greeks
(Cambridge, England, 1999), 82, 85.
47. Yunis, New Creed, chap. 3.
48. Allen, Socrates and Legal Obligation, l8; and Mogens
H. Hansen, Trial of Socrates, 19.
49. Herodotus, Histories, 3.38, in McKirahan, Philosophy
Before Socrates, 391.
50. Grote, Plato, I, 248–58.
51. Edward Caird, Evolution of Theology (Glasgow, 1904),
vol. I, 76.
52. Euthyphro, 14.
53. Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 121.
54. Nilsson, History of Greek Religion, 232, 242.
55. Euthyphro, 10.
56. Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 32.1
57. According to Eric Csapo and William J. Slater, the
outspokenness of the comic poets was a “liberty not
granted but assumed at a calculated risk when the
political climate seemed to offer a chance of impunity,
not a creation of conscious policy or sacred tradition
but a by-product of the factional struggle between the
democrats and oligarchs at Athens.” See Eric Csapo
and William J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama
(Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1995), 165.
58. Finley, “Socrates and After,” 136.
59. G.S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The
Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 353–4.
60. Guthrie, The Sophists, 234.
61. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, vol. II, IX.56.
62. Finley, “Socrates and After,” 123.
63. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 189; for a view that
casts doubt on the historicity of the heresy trials, see
Kenneth J. Dover, “Freedom of the Intellectual in
Greek Society,” Talanta 7 (1975): 24–54.
64. On the relationship between law and religion in ancient
Athens, see MacDowell, Law in Classical Athens,
192–202.
65. Xenophon, Memorabilia, I.1.2.
66. Joint Association of Classical Teachers, The World of
Athens: An Introduction to Classical Athenian Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 118.
67. McPherran, Religion of Socrates, 122.
68. Waterfield, “Introduction” in Xenophon: Conversations
of Socrates, 34.
69. Snell, Discovery of the Mind, 26–7; see also Cohen,
Law, Sexuality, and Society, 213.
70. Glotz, The Greek City, 252–3.
71. David Cohen, Law, Violence and Community in
Classical Athens (Cambridge, England, 1995), 189.
72. Cohen, “The Prosecution of Impiety in Athenian Law,”
chap. 8 in Law, Sexuality, and Society, 203–17.
73. MacDowell, Law in Classical Athens, 252; see also
Robert J. Bonner, “The Character of Athenian Courts,”
chap. v. in Lawyers and Litigants in Ancient Athens
(Chicago, 1927), 72–95.
74. Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 182.
75. Garland, Introducing New Gods, 145.
76. Cohen, Law, Violence and Community, 190.
77. Apology, 26.
78. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, 85.
79. Apology, 26.
 Indeed, early history reveals that most thinkers
80. regarded as “atheists” were, in fact, not absolute
atheists, but proponents of views about the gods that
contradicted popular belief. See James Thrower,
Western Atheism: A Short History (Amherst, NY,
2000), 17.
81. In the middle of the fifth century B.C., a book trade
(papyrus or parchment rolls} developed in Athens.
Apparently, the writings of Anaxagoras could be
purchased in the agora. See Lesley Adkins and Roy A.
Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece (New
York; Oxford University Press, 1997), 246.
82. Apology, 26–7.
83. Ibid., 20e4, 21a5, 27bl.
84. James Redfield, “A Lecture on Plato’s Apology,”
Journal of Genera! Education 15 (1963): 99.
85. A. E. Taylor, “The Impiety of Socrates,” in Varia
Socratica. First Series (Oxford, 1911), 9.
86. de Strycker, Plato’s Apology, 121.
87. Apology, 24e, 25c, 26e.
88. Euthyphro, 6a.
89. Gregory Vlastos, “Brickhouse and Smith’s Socrates on
Trial,” in Studies in Greek Philosophy, vol. II:
Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition (Princeron, NJ,
1995),27.
90. Apology, 28.
91. Bonner, Lawyers and Litigants, 80.
92. Apology, 28.

Chapter 8
Socrates Brings the Philosophic Mission
into the Court
1. On February 15, 1984, shortly before his death,
Foucault lectured on Plato’s Apology, Crito, and
Phaedo at the Collège de France. For an account of
Foucault’s lecture, see Thomas Flynn, “Foucault as
Parrhesiast: His Last Course at the Collège de France,”
in The Final Foucault, ed. James Bernauer and David
Rasmussen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 102–
18. See also Nehamas, Art of Living, 163–8.
2. Apology, 28.
3. Homer, The Iliad, trans, Richard Lattimore (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 1961),
1.243–4.
4. Apology, 28.
5. On Socrates as “The New Achilles,” see Thomas G.
West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates (Ithaca, NY, 1979),
151–66.
6. Loraux, Invention of Athens, 41.
7. Vlastos, Socrates, 233–4.
8. Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 293–4.
9. Apology, 28.
10. Ibid., 29.
11. George Kateb, “Socraric Integrity,” in Integrity and
Conscience (New York, 1998), 77–112, at 78.
12. Allan Bloom, The Republic of Plato, translated with
Notes and an Interpretive Essay (New York, 1968),
354.
13. EM. Cornford, Before and After Socrates (Cambridge,
England, 1932), 37, 50–1.
14. Snell, “Homer’s View of Man,” chap. 1 in The
Discovery of the Mind; see also A. W. H. Adkins, From
the Many to the One (Ithaca, NY, 1970), 14–5; 34.
15. Bryant, Moral Codes, 191–2.
16. Giovanni Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy,
vol.1, Socrates (1987), 202–3; see also Pohlenz,
Freedom in Greek Life and Thought, 65–6.
17. Alcibiades I, 130. The authenticity of Alcibiades I has
been questioned; nevertheless, W. K. C. Guthrie
believes the dialogue to be a “reliable source for
Socratic teaching.” See Guthrie, A History of Greek
Philosophy, vol. IV, Plato: The Man and His
Dialogues: Earlier Period (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1975), 169, n.2.
18. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, I.xxii.52, p. 63.
19. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 3, The
Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley (New York:
Random House, Vintage Books, 1988), 44.
20. Albin Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, 2nd edition
(New York, 1966), 501.
21. Jaeger, Paideia, II, 40. Jaeger’s italics; see also
Brickhouse and Smith, Plato’s Socrates, 101–2.
22. Snell, Discovery of the Mind, 179–80.
23. Taylor, Socrates, 132.
24. Cornford, Before and After Socrates, 27–8.
25. Matthew 16:25–6.
26. John Burnet, “The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul,” in
Essays and Addresses (Freeport, NY 1968), 157.
Cornford, Before and After Socrates, 50; N. J.
Richardson, “Early Greek Views about Life after
Death,” in Easterling and Muir, Greek Religion and
Society, 63.
27. Apology, 29.
28. Cartledge, “Deep Plays,” in Easterling, Greek Tragedy,
18–9.
29. Eric Voegelin, Order and History, vol.3: Plato and
Aristotle (Baton Rouge, 1985), 11.
30. Søren Kierkegaard, Concept of Irony, 240, 203.
31. Ibid, 206.
32. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy,
vol. I, 409.
33. Hegel, The Philosophy of History (New York, 1956),
269–70. Hegel’s italics.
34. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion,
ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. R. F. Brown, P. C.
Hodgson, and J. M. Stewart with the assistance of H. S.
Harris (Berkeley, 1985), vol. III, 321, n.196.
35. Apology, 29–30.
36. Ibid., 29.
37. Vlastos, “The Paradox of Socrates,” 6.
38. Apology, 29–30.
39. Ibid., 30.
40. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
(Princeton, 1966), vol. I, 189.
41. Ibid., 130
42. Martha Nussbaum, “Socratic Self-Examination,” chap.
1 in Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of
Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1997).
43. Plato, Seventh Letter, 325b–c. See also R. Hackforth,
The Composition of Plato’s Apology (Cambridge,
England, 1933), 73–4.
44. Crito, 52–3.
45. Gregory Vlastos, “The Historical Socrates and
Athenian Democracy, in Vlastos, Socratic Studies
(Cambridge, England, 1994), 87–108.
46. Xenophon, Memorabilia I.ii.9.
47. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, VI.8.1, referring to
Plato, Menexenus 235d.
48. Eva Brann, “The Offense of Socrates: A Re-Reading of
Plato’s Apology,” Interpretation 7 (1978): 1–21.
 49. Xenophon, Apology 1.
50. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Ixxix, 71.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 30–1.
53. Johnstone, Disputes and Democracy, 100–8.
54. Apology, 31.
55. Adkins, Moral Values and Political Behavior (London,
1972), 63.

Chapter 9
The Politics of An Unpolitical Man
1. Apology, 31.
2. Gorgias, 473.
3. L.B. Carter, The Quiet Athenian (Oxford, 1986). On
the absence of legal penalties for abstaining from
participation in politics, see Hansen, Athenian
Democracy (1991), 99; and Sinclair, Democracy and
Participation, 61.
4. Robert J. Bonner, Aspects of Athenian Democracy, 14.
5. Richard G. Mulgan, “Aristotle and the Value of
Political Participation,” Political Theory 18 (1990):
196.
6. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, 198–205.
7. Hansen, Athenian Democracy, Glossary, 359; and
Kraut, Socrates and the State, 115–16.
8. C. C. W. Taylor, “Politics,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 241–
2.
9. Mogens Hansen, The Athenian Assembly (Oxford,
1987), 8.
10. M.I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge,
England, 1983), 73; and Sinclair, Democracy and
Participation, 67, 114–119.
11. Harvey Yunis, Taming Democracy (Ithaca, NY, 1996),
154.
12. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World, 73.
13. Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 366.
14. Burnet, note on Apology, 32b1, at 210–1.
15. Apology, 35.
16. Ober, The Athenian Revolution, 24–5.
17. Yunis, Taming Democracy, 12.
18. John R. Wallach, “Socratic Citizenship,” History of
Political Thought IX (1988): 394–413.
19. Stone, Trial of Socrates, 104.
20. Bloom, The Republic, 307–11; see also “The
Philosopher versus the Citizen: Arendt, Strauss, and
Socrates,” chap. 7, and “Arendt and Socrates,” chap. 9,
in Dana R. Villa, Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays
on the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1999); also “Prelude to the
Philosophic Trial: The Apology,” chap. 1 in Jacob
Howland, The Paradox of Philosophy: Socrates’
Philosophic Trial (Lanham, MD, 1998), 23–38.
21. Republic, 607b.
22. Leo Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1966), 311–4.
23. Bloom, The Republic, “Interpretative Essay,” 307.
24. Apology, 31.
25. Ibid., 31d.
26. Euthyphro, 3.
27. Xenophon, Memorabilia, I.i.2–4; and Apology, 12; see
also Ehrenberg, Solon to Socrates, 369.
28. Guthrie, Socrates, 84.
29. James Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece
(Edinburgh, 1908), 321.
30. Republic, 496.
31. Reale, History of Ancient Philosophy, 233.
32. Apology, 33.
33. Xenophon, Apology, 12–13; Memorabilia, I.i.1–9;
IV.viii.1–2.
34. See, for example, Jungian analyst Edward Edinger, The
Psyche in Antiquity, Book One, Early Greek
Philosophy, ed. Deborah A. Wesley (Toronto, Canada:
Inner City Books, 1999), 54–5.
35. Burkert, Greek Religion, 109.
36. Gorgias, 481.
37. Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic,
trans. Eugene Rolfe (Boston: Shambhala Publications,
1990), 39, 67.
38. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: First
Part, in Portable Nietzsche, 135–6.
39. Quoted in Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the
Politics of Transfiguration (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1975), 112.
40. Quoted in Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher,
Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1974), 398.
41. Apology, 31–2.
42. Gregory Vlastos, “The Historical Socrates and
Athenian Democracy,” 93.
43. Brickhouse and Smith argue that Socrates was neither
a partisan democrat nor a partisan oligarth. See Plato’s
Socrates, 157–66.
44. J. Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief
in Immortality among the Ancient Greeks, trans. W. B.
 Hillis, 8th ed. (Chicago: Ares Publishers Inc., 1980),
162–3.
45. On the trial of the generals, see Macdowell, Law in
Classical Athens, 186–9.
46. Bonner, Aspects of Athenian Democracy, 12.
47. Xenophon records that Socrates had been chosen by lot
to serve for a day as the epistates, or “president,” of the
prytaneis. Memorabilia 1.1.18; IV.4.2. If Socrates was
indeed president, he would have presided over any
meeting of the Council or the Assembly that day,
making him, in effect, president of the polis.
48. Xenophon, History of My Times, trans. Rex Warner
(Harmondsworth, England, 1979), 1.7.12–13, p.88.
49. Xenophon, Memorabilia, 1.1.18.
50. Apology, 32.
51. Donald Kagan, Fall of the Athenian Empire (Ithaca,
NY, 1987), 374.
52. According to Brickhouse and Smith, “all the ancient
sources agree that a clear majority of Athenians had
later changed their minds about what had been done.”
Socrates on Trial, 177.
53. Xenophon, History, II.4.21–22, p. 129.
54. John V. A. Fine, The Ancient Greeks: A Critical
History (Cambridge, MA, 1983), 521.
55. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, XIV.5.1–3.
56. Lysias, Against Eratosthenes, XII.5, in Lysias, 229.
57. Guthrie, Socrates, 60.
58. Xenophon, Memorabilia, I.ii.31.
59. Roslyn Weiss, Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of
Plato’s Crito (Oxford, 1998), 14–5. In disobeying the
command of the Thirty, Socrates did not actually
violate a law, or nomos, of Athens, as the Assembly
had done in the trial of the generals; instead, like
 Sophocles’ Antigone, he disobeyed what might more
accurately be termed a psēphisma, a command or
decree. While the distinction was not rigid, a law was
regarded as more fundamental and universal than a
decree, which was adapted to a particular situation.
According to Macdowell: “A law made a general rule
about some activity, a decree specified action to be
taken in a particular case.” See Law in Classical
Athens, 45.
60. Apology, 32. See also Reeve, Socrates in the Apology,
110.
61. Apology, 32.
62. Ibid., 32–3.
63. Yunis, Taming Democracy, 153–61.
64. Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” in Civil Disobedience
and Other Essays (New York: Dover Publications), 3.
Thoreau’s italics.
65. Reeve observes that Socrates was “political in private.”
See Socrates in the Apology, 155–60. See also, Terry
Penner, “Socrates,” in The Cambridge History of Greek
and Roman Political Thought, eds. Christopher Rowe
and Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge, 2000), 183.
66. Arendt, Life of the Mind, vol. 1: Thinking, 192.

Chapter 10
The Trial Concludes: Socrates
Condemned
1. Apology, 23.
2. Ibid., 33.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 34.
5. Arendt, Life of the Mind, vol. 1: Thinking, 176.
6. Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations:
A Lecture,” Social Research 38 (1971): 26.
7. A. R. Burn, Pelican History of Greece
(Harmondsworth, England, 1974), 257; Kitchel, Plato’s
Apology, 142.
8. Johnstone, Disputes and Democracy, 122–5.
9. Apology, 34.
10. Odyssey, XIX.163; Iliad, XXII.126.
11. Apology, 28.
12. Ibid. 34–5.
13. Just, Women in Athenian Law and Life, 156–7.
14. Apology, 35.
15. Ibid.
16. Burnet, Plato: Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito,
230–1; Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, 106 n.47.
17. MacDowell, Law in Classical Athens, 253.
18. Apology, 36.
19. Carter, Quiet Athenian, 185.
20. On the Prytaneum, see Stephen G. Miller, The
Prytaneion: Its Function and Architectural Form
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).
21. Apology, 36.
22. In ancient Athens, while individuals might be detained
pending a trial or awaiting execution, imprisonment
was not usually used as a penalty. MacDowell, Law in
Classical Athens, 156–1.
23. Apology, 30.
24. A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens, vol. II
(Indianapolis,1998), 171; MacDowell, Law in
Classical Athens, 74–5, 256.
25. Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek
Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley: University of
 California Press, 1979), 64–5; on the pharmakos, see
also Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara
Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981),
128–34.
26. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet, Myth and Tragedy, 135.
27. N. D. Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City
(Baltimore, 1980), 199.
28. Apology, 38.
29. Xenophon, Oeconomicus, II.3.
30. Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, 227; Reeve,
Socrates in the Apology, 173–4.
31. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, vol. I. II. 42.
32. Grote, History, VIII, 286.
33. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 2.1.4.
34. Xenophon, Apology, 14–6.
35. Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 227.
36. Apology, 38.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., 39.
39. Ibid., 24e, 26d.
40. de Strycker, Plato’s Apology, 34.
41. Apology, 18.
42. Ibid., 19.
43. Ibid., 40.
44. Phaedo, 84–5.
45. Parker, Athenian Religion, 135.
46. Apology, 41.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
 49. Simon Goldhill, “The City of Words,” in Goldhill,
Reading Greek Tragedy, 76–7.
50. Apology, 42.

Chapter 11
Socrates and Civil Disobedience: The
Crito
1. On the parallel between Socrates and Antigone, see
Grote, Plato, I, 301–2, note m;. See Terry Penner,
“Socrates,” 184; also Allen, Socrates and Legal
Obligation, 102–3,105–6. According to Allen (at 106):
“The Apology is very like the philosopher’s Antigone.”
2. Sophocles, Antigone, trans. E. F. Watling, in The
Theban Plays (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin
Books, 1947), 138.
3. Apology, 29.
4. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.13.1373b; see also Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics, V.vii.1–3.
5. 1 Peter 2:13.
6. Acts 5:29.
7. For a discussion of King, civil disobedience based on
an appeal to a higher law, and the “Letter from
Birmingham Jail,” see James A. Colaiaco, Martin
Luther King, Jr.: Apostle of Militant Nonviolence (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988; paperback edition,
1993), 77–95.
8. See Kraut, Socrates and the State, 13–17; Penner,
“Socrates,” 184; and Reeve, Socrates in the Apology,
115–17.
9. Sophocles, Antigone, 131–2.
10. Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione, 246–7; see also
Bernard Knox, Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient
Theater (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1979), 167.
11. Sophocles, Antigone, 144.
12. Thucydides, III.37.
13. On the Crito, see Allen, Socrates and Legal
Obligation; Kraut, Socrates and the State; Weiss,
Socrates Dissatisfied; and A. D. Woozley, Law and
Obedience: The Arguments of Plato’s Crito (Chapel
Hill, NC, 1979).
14. J. Adam, ed. Plato, Crito (London: Bristol Classical
Press, 1988), xii.
15. Strauss, “Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito,” 54.
16. Xenophon, Apology, 23.
17. Thucydides, 1.22.
18. Gorgias, 482.
19. Crito, 44.
20. Adkins, Merit and Responsibity, 155.
21. Crito, 44.
22. Ibid., 45.
23. Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and
Harming Enemies: A Study of Sophocles and Greek
Ethics (Cambridge, England, 1989), 26–59, at 47.
24. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, 231.
25. Apology, 38.
26. Allen, Socrates and Legal Obligation, 69.
27. Crito, 45–6.
28. Ibid., 46.
29. Ibid., 47.
30. Ibid., 48.
31. Ibid., 49.
32. Vlastos, Socrates, 195.
33. Crito, 49.
34. Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, 29.
35. Meno, 71.
36. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, (Cambridge, MA. 1926),
trans. J. H. Freese, I.ix.24–5.
37. N.G.L. Hammond, History of Greece (Oxford, 1986),
418, 506; and Eli Sagan, Honey and the Hemlock, 235–
6.
38. Xenophon, History of My Times, trans. Rex Warner,
II.2.23.
39. Ibid., II.2.3.
40. Crito, 49. Italics added.
41. Ibid., 50.
42. Strauss, “Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito,” 66.
43. For a cogent argument that Socrates supported and
committed civil disobedience, disassociating him from
the rhetorical argument he presents on behalf of the
Laws in the Crito, see Francis Olsen, “Socrates on
Legal Obligation: Legitimation Theory and Civil
Disobedience,” Georgia Law Review 18 (1984): 929–
66. See also Mitchell Miller, “The Arguments I Seem
to Hear’: Argument and Irony in the Crito,” Phronesis
41 (1996):121–37; and Weiss, “Especially an Orator,”
chap. 5 in Socrates Dissatisfied, 84–95.
44. Grote, Plato, I, 303.
45. Ibid., 304.
46. Ibid., 302.
47. Crito, 50.
48. Allen, Socrates and Legal Obligation, 11.
49. Gorgias, 455.
50. Crito, 50.
51. Aristotle, Politics, 1.2.1253a
52. Crito, 50–1.
53. Antigone, 182–3.
54. Joseph Cropsey, Plato’s World (Chicago, 1995), 171.
55. Crito, 51.
56. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1978), 186.
57. On the distinction between a prima facie and an
absolute duty to obey the law, see Richard A.
Wasserstrom, “The Obligation to Obey the Law,” in
The Duty to Obey the Law: Selected Philosophical
Readings, ed. William A. Edmundson (Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 17–47, at 19–21.
58. Crito, 51. Italics added.
59. Ibid., 51–2.
60. Ibid., 54.
61. Menexenus, 236a.
62. Crito, 50b, 50d, 51a, 52d, 53b, 54c.
63. Apology, 40.
64. Crito, 43–4.
65. James M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad:
The Tragedy of Hector, expanded ed., (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1994), 105.
66. Menexenus, 235.
67. Crito, 54.
68. Weiss, “A Fool Satisfied,” chap. 8 in Socrates
Dissatisfied, 146–60.
69. Olsen, “Socrates on Legal Obligation,” 946–7, 950.
70. Weiss, “Restoring the Radical Socrates,” chap. 9 in
Socrates Dissatisfied, 161–9.
71. Crito, 54.
Chapter 12
Conclusion: A Conflict Unresolved
1. Leo Strauss, What Is Political Philosophy?, 93.
2. On the antithetical positions of Socrates and Athens,
see Willmoore Kendall, “The People Versus Socrates
Revisited,” in Kendall, Willmoore Kendall Contra
Mundum (New Rochelle, NY, 1971), 149–67.
3. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham
(Cambridge, MA, 1934), V.ii.11.
4. Bernard Knox, “Introduction to Antigone,” in
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, trans. Robert
Fagles (Harmondsworth, England, 1984), 51.
5. Knox, The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean
Tragedy (Berkeley, 1964), 8, 38; on the Sophoclean
hero as an individualist guided, like Socrates, by an
inner law, see Cedric H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study
of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, MA, 1966),
especially at 7–9, 202, 232.
6. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 97b15–26; also
Christopher Gill, Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy,
and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 316–18.
7. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future
(Harmondsworth, England, 1968), 229.
8. Knox, Heroic Temper, 58.
9. Sophocles, Philoctetes, line 99.
10. Sophocles, Ajax, 1. 479.
11. Martha C. Nussbaum, “Tragedy and Self-Sufficiency:
Plato and Aristotle on Fear and Pity,” in Essays on
Aristotle’s Poetics, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 263.
12. Søren Kierkegaard, Concept of Irony, 288.
13. Helmut Kuhn, “The True Tragedy: On the Relationship
between Greek Tragedy and Plato, II, in Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology LIII (1942): 52–3.
14. See Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr., Tragic Posture and Tragic
Vision (New York, 1994), ch. 2: “Hegel’s Tragic
Vision,”23. 71–127; and 213.
15. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition
(Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 182.
16. Grote, History, VIII, 300.
17. Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Problem of Socrates,”
Portable Nietzsche, 479. Nietzsche’s italics.
18. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun
Whiteside (Harmondsworth, England, 1993), 67.
19. Strauss, What Is Political Philosophy?, 93.
20. C. M. Bowra, The Greek Experience (Cleveland,
1957), 199–200.
21. On the difficulty of justifying civil disobedience on the
basis of a higher law, see Carl Cohen, Civil
Disobedience: Conscience, Tactics, and the Law (New
York, 1971), 105–20.
22. Aristotle, Politics, III. 13.1284a.
23. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans.
Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin
Books, 1968), 79. Rousseau’s italics.
24. Kendall, “The People Versus Socrates Revisited,” 165.
25. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, I. 2.43.
26. Xenophon, Apology, 34.
27. Phaedo, 118.
28. See Arendt, Between Past and Future, 107–16; see
also, Sheldon S. Wolin, “Plato: Political Philosophy
versus Politics,” chap. 2 in Politics and Vision
(London, 1961), 28–68.
29. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham
(Cambridge, MA, 1934), X.vii.8.
30. Phaedo, 61.
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 Index

Abednego, 188
Achilles, 36, 40, 76, 133, 170, 175, 181, 184, 216, 217; and
honor, 92–93, 98; and rhetoric, 24; and Socrates, 40, 132–
134, 136–138, 175, 181, 211, 216–219
Acropolis, 14, 59, 96, 140
Acts (of the Apostles), 189
Adam, James, 157–158
Adkins, Arthur W.H., 93, 150, 193, 194
Aeacus, 184
Aegina, 198
Aegospotami, 198
Aeschylus, 14, 24, 52, 99, 140, 141
Agamemnon, 123, 132, 184, 211, 217
agathos, 92, 174
agathos polītēs, 103, 152, 194
agōn, 6, 24
agōn tēs dikēs, 6
agōn timētos, 173
agōnes, 7, 93
agora, 13, 15, 30, 99
aidōs, 94
Ajax, 98, 184, 216, 217–8
akrasia, 116
Alazōn, 66
Alcibiades, 40, 65, 86, 111, 113, 135, 167–8, 171, 212, 216
Alcibiades I (Plato), 137, 238n. 17
Allen, R.E., 195, 241n. 1
Ameipsias, 39
amnesty (Act of Oblivion) of 403 B.C., 13, 72, 108–13, 125
Amphipolis, 135
anakrisis, 16, 106, 126
Anaxagoras, 50, 82, 109, 122, 127, 129, 172, 237n. 81
Andocides, 73, 109, 110, 119
andrapodismos, 197
andreia, 170
Andromache (Euripides), 57
Antenor, 40
Antigone, 6, 24, 141, 188–90, 193, 216, 240 n. 59
Antigone (Sophocles), 6, 52, 87, 140, 161, 187–9, 193
Antilogies (Protagoras), 50
Antiphon, 25, 50, 52, 230 ch.2, n. 12
Anytus, 17, 18, 130, 139, 148, 163, 172; allegedly executed by
the Athenians, 226; animosity toward Socrates, 61;
characterized in Plato’s Meno, 73; chief instigator of
indictment of Socrates, 15; leader of the democratic
resistance to the Thirty, 73; and polis as educator, 118; as
representative of the politicians, 72
Aphrodite, 158
apolis, 176
Apollo, 56–63, 123, 125, 135, 158, 172, 176, 182, 184; central
role in the Apology, 129; sides with enemies of Athens, 57;
and Socrates’ philosophic mission, 60–1, 157, 177, 185,
193, 213, 223; on Socrates’ wisdom, 56–8, 70–1; and
Trojan War, 123, 132
Apollodorus, 178
Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Newman), 36
Apology (Plato), 8–11, 14, 26, 34, 41, 105, 145, 148, 160, 180,
186, 190, 191, 192, 195, 201, 202, 203, 210, 213, 218,
225; on acting righteously, 196; Ajax and Socrates, 217;
Apollo’s central role in, 129; apparent conflict with the
Crito, 206; and civil disobedience, 200, 209; on conflict
between Socrates and Athens, 104, 170; and conventional
hero, 136; as drama, 141; on duty to God, 193; as forensic
rhetoric, 36, 179; historicity of, 17–21; and image of
Athens, 85; as a monologue, 16; and philosopher facing
danger, 69; and power of speech, 84; on public opinion,
94; and radical Socrates, 133; as re-creation of Socrates’
trial, 2; religious tone of, 157; and rights, 100; on the soul,
138–139, 183; as tragic irony, 32; on tyranny of the
majority, 146; on the unexamined life, 177
Apology (Xenophon), 17, 18, 73, 181
Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 189
Archelaus, 45
Arendt, Hannah, 1, 69–70, 102, 165, 168, 216
Areopagus, 52, 95, 96
aretē, 47, 76, 92, 117, 132, 144, 150, 155, 174
Argave, 158
Arginusae, 160
argumentum ad misericordiam, 169
argumentum ad populum, 180
Aristophanes, 14, 28, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 57, 122, 127, 129,
140, 156, 171, 231n. 6
Aristotle, 106, 146–7, 153, 155, 180, 201, 204, 215, 223, 226–
7; on amnesty of 403 B.C., 108; on Antigone, 188; on
Cleon, 88; on democracy, 101; on forensic (judicial)
rhetoric, 38, 179; on good man and good citizen, 103–4,
215; on megalopsychia, 216; on rhetorical persuasion,
three modes of, 36; on Socrates’ role in the Greek
intellectual revolution, 45; on the state, 102; on vengeance
as justice, 197
Arrowsmith, William, 6
asebeia, 118
Aspasia, 85, 169, 201
Assembly (ekklēsia), 23, 25, 53–4, 79, 88, 105, 114, 121, 125,
152–5, 161–2, 187
Athena, 52, 99, 120, 217
Athena Nike (Victory), Temple of, 14, 120
Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin), 14
Athena Polias, 96, 123
Athenian democracy, 1, 2, 5, 37, 78–9, 88, 95–104, 117, 146,
161; and the individual, 2, 78–9, 99–104; and ostracism,
101, 153; radical, 88, 96; and tyranny of the majority, 2,
101, 130, 146, 163
Athens, Acropolis, 14, 59, 96, 140; agora, 13, 15, 30, 99;
amnesty (Act of Oblivion) of 403 B.C., 13, 72, 108–13,
125; Areopagus, 52, 95, 96; Assembly, 23, 25, 53–4, 79,
88, 105, 114, 121, 125, 152–5, 161–2, 187; Athena Nike
(Victory), Temple of, 14, 120; Board of Ten, 108; citizenry,
4, 5, 6, 79, 91, 96; and the civic hero, 81, 84, 91, 94–8;
compared with Sparta, 79–80; Council of Five Hundred,
79, 96, 108, 114, 125, 153, 155, 161; Council of Four
Hundred, 95; and Delian League, 34; and demagogues,
87–8; and democracy, see Athenian democracy; the
Eleven, 108; Eliaia (Heliaia), 13, 95, 229n. 1; and empire,
9, 13, 14, 34, 44, 53–4, 77–8, 81, 82, 86, 154; Erechtheum,
14, 120; and free speech, 1, 11, 29, 43, 99–100, 121–2; and
genocide, 29, 35, 51, 54, 85, 155, 197, 209, 212; and Great
Dionysia, 39, 40, 82, 90, 140, 175, 185; and Hermae,
mutilation of, 111, 123; and ideal of freedom, 79; impiety
statute, 125–6; jurors (dikasts), 3, 14, 17, 36, 125–6, 154,
171–2, 180–6; law revision and recodification, 109, 125–6;
lawcourts, 6–7, 23, 29; Long Walls, 13, 14, 198; and
Melos, 29, 35, 54, 90, 103, 155, 197, 198; and Mytilene,
36, 53–4, 90, 103, 155–6, 197; and OedipusTyrannos, 86–
7; and oligarchic revolution of 404 B.C., 15, 44, 111; and
oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C., 15, 44, 111–12, 161; and
 ostracism, 101, 153; Parthenon, 14, 96, 120; People’s
Courts (dikasteria) 13, 154; Piraeus, 14, 108, 111, 198; and
Pisistradid tyrants, 96; and the plague, 44, 57, 89, 101,
152; Pnyx, 152–3; and polis ideal, 75–104, 204; Porch of
the Maidens (Caryadids), 14; and power politics, 9, 51;
Propylaea, 14; prytaneis, 153, 161–2, 239n. 47;
Prytaneum, 174, 178; and religion (piety), 118–26; and
rhetoric, 23–25; and role of the theater, 6–7, 140–1; Royal
Stoa (Stoa Basileios), 15, 16, 109, 126; as “school of
Hellas,” 5, 80, 85; and Sicilian invasion, 29, 35, 44, 82, 86,
91, 111, 123, 140, 212, 231n. 35; and Sophists, 25, 28–9,
42, 47–8, 105, 112; Ten Governors (of Piraeus), 108; and
Theater of Dionysus, 8; and Thirty Tyrants, 13, 27, 44, 57,
72, 108, 112, 163–4, 187, 190–1, 206, 220, 222, 240n. 59;
Tholos, 153, 163; and trial of the generals, 153, 160–2,
164, 187, 222; trial procedure, 15–17, 55, 106, 112, 125,
173; and tyranny of the majority, 2„ 101, 130, 146, 163;
and “unwritten laws,” 79, 82; and women, 83–4, 171, 184
Augustine, Saint, 119

Bacchae (Euripides), 158

Bakhtin, Mikhail, 68
Barthes, Roland, 24, 38
Before and After Socrates (Cornford), 139
bema, 152
Birth of Tragedy, The (Nietzsche), 220
Bloom, Allan, 136, 156
Board of Ten, 108
Boeotia, 135
Bonner, Robert J. 151, 161 bouleuterion, 153
Bowra, C.M., 76
Bradley, A. C., 4
Brasidas, 40, 62, 135
Brickhouse, Thomas C., 236n. 23; 239nn. 43, 52
Briseis, 132
Burckhardt, Jacob, 98
Burnet, John, 20, 31, 236n. 22
Bury, J. B., 5

Caird, Edward, 120

Callias, 49
Callicles, 31, 52, 111, 159, 192
Callicrates, 88
Callixenus, 161–2
Cartledge, Paul, 141
Chaerephon, 57–8, 71
charis, 148–9
Charmides, 110–11, 164, 167
Charmides (Plato), 67
Chryses, 132
Cicero, 45, 66, 138, 147
Cimon, 33, 34, 61, 101
Cleisthenes, 96, 154
Cleon, 36, 53, 87–8, 135, 190, 212
Cleophon, 88
Clouds (Aristophanes), 28, 39–44, 57, 112, 127, 129, 156, 171
Cohen, David, 125
Confessions (St. Augustine), 119
Connor, W. Robert, 87–8
Constant, Benjamin, 102
Constitution of Athens (Aristotle), 88
Corax, 25
Corcyra, civil war in, 90
Corinth, 198, 207
Cornford, Francis, 86, 137, 139
Coulanges, Fustel de, 176
Council of Five Hundred, 79, 96, 108, 114, 125, 153, 155, 161
Council of Four Hundred, 95
Cratinus, 39
Creon, 24, 188–90, 193, 200, 205
Crete, 207
Critias, 110–11, 113, 163–4, 167–8, 171
Crito, 4, 178, 191–203, 207, 209–13
Crito (Plato), 2, 4, 8–11, 85, 146, 190–213, 218, 225
Critobolus, 178
Croesus, king of Lydia, 59
Cropsey, Joseph, 205
Csapo, Eric, 236–7n. 57

daimon, or daimonion, see divine voice

David, Jacques-Louis, 3–4, 225
Death of Socrates, The, (David), 3, 225
Defense of Palamedes (Gorgias), 48
Delian League, 34
Delium, 39, 135
Delos, 191
Delphi, 56, 95
Delphic oracle, 56– 63, 70–1, 95
demagogues, 87–8
deme (demes), 14, 96
Demeter, 125
Demetrius Phalereus, 18
Democritus, 103
demokratia, 78
demos, 51, 78, 88, 162
demos-hater, 88
demos-lover, 88
Demosthenes, 75, 125, 190
Diagoras of Melos, 39, 119, 122
dikaiosune, 103
dikasteria, see People’s Courts
dikastai, 182
dikasts, see jurors
dike, 95
Diodorus Siculus, 163
Diodotus, 36, 53, 156
Diogenes Laertius, 8, 15, 45, 122, 178, 226, 229n. 5
Diomedon, 162
Dionysus, 8, 40, 122, 158
Dionysus, theater of, 8
Diopeithes, decree of, 121, 122
divine voice (daimonion) of Socrates, 110, 129, 157–60, 172,
183, 185, 210
Dodds, E.R., 93–4, 122
Dover, Kenneth, 181, 237n. 63
Dworkin, Ronald, 205
dysnomia, 96
Ehrenberg, Victor, 83, 101, 102, 111
Eiron, 66
eironia, 66, see also irony, Socratic
eisangelia, 161
ekklesia, see Assembly
Electra, 216
elenchus, 63–5, 105, 107, 145, 208
Eleusinian mysteries, 39, 111, 118, 119, 122
Eleusis, 39
eleutheria, 79
Eleven, The, 108, 175
Ēliaia (Heliaia), 13, 95, 229n. 1.
entheos, 158
Ephialtes, 96
epistates, 239n. 47
epitaphios logos, 75
erastai, 83
Erechtheum, 14, 120
Eros, 82–3, 85–6
ethos, and rhetorical persuasion, 36, 39, 179–80
Eucleides, 108 Eumenides, 99, 141
Eumenides (Aeschylus), 52
eunomia, 96
Eupolis, 39
Euripides, 14, 57, 90, 140, 158
Euryptolemus, 161
eusebeia, 118
Euthyphro, 121
Euthyphro (Plato), 16, 67, 73, 120, 121, 129, 157
Evenus, 49

Finley, M.I., 100

Foucault, Michel, 131, 138, 237n. 1
Founding Fathers (US), 189
Friedlander, Paul, 26
Frye, Northrop, 32
Furies, 99, 141

Gandhi, Mahatma, 189

Garland, Robert, 126
Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche), 92
Gettysburg Address (Lincoln), 35, 75
Glaucus, 218
gods, Olympian, 121, 123, 129;
chthonic, 38
Goldhill, Simon, 229n. 13
Gorgias, 25, 26–7, 33, 47, 48, 49, 50
Gorgias (Plato), 31, 33, 34, 35, 61, 84, 99, 104, 151, 159, 192,
202
Gouldner, Alvin, 94
graphē paranomōn, 235n. 86
Great Dionysia, 39, 40, 82, 90, 140, 175, 185
Greek Enlightenment, 14, 51, 122, 123
Grote, George, 43, 51, 70, 179, 200–1, 219
Grudin, Robert, 68
Guardinii, Romano, 5
Gulf of Corinth, 56
Guthrie, W.K.C., 20, 157, 164, 238n. 17

Hadas, Moses, 93
Hades, 38, 122, 137, 184, 208, 209
Hebrew prophets, 71
Hector, 132, 170, 181
Hegel, G.WE, 4–5, 142–4, 218
Helen of Troy, 26, 48
Heliaia (see Ēliaia)
Heliastic oath, 125
hemlock, 3, 191
Hera, 129
Heracles, 62, 175, 217; and Socrates, 133, 136, 172
Heraclitus, 58, 93
Hermae, mutilation of, 111, 123
Hermes, 111, 117
Hermogenes, 18
Herodotus, 24, 25, 51
Hesiod, 25, 52, 184
Hestia, 174
Hippias, 25, 47, 49
Hippolytus (Euripides), 158
Histiaea, 198
Histories (Herodotus), 51
History of Greece (Grote), 51
History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides), 19-20, 53, 82
Homer, 25, 62, 81, 92, 134, 136, 137, 170, 184, 217
homo rhetoricus, 28
homo seriosus, 28
hoplite, 97, 134, 153
hubris, 82, 91, 95, 136, 137, 147, 223
Hyperides, 119
Hysiae, 198

idiōtēs, 102, 152

Iliad (Homer), 36, 81, 91, 92, 123, 132, 134, 136, 170, 210,
218
Ion (Euripides), 57
Ion (Plato), 63
Ionia, 50
irony, Socratic, 26, 28, 45, 181, 185, 208-10; complex, 48; and
the interrogation of Meletus, 113–4; and Socrates’
character, 32; and Socrates’ speech for the Laws, 200, 202
Irwin, Terence, 236 n. 23
isegoria, 99
Iser, Wolfgang, 233n. 47
Isocrates, 25, 98, 119, 197
isonomia, 79
Isthmian games, 207

Jaeger, Werner, 20, 42, 93, 97, 138

Jefferson, Thomas, 189
Jesus, 138, 139, 143
Jowett, Benjamin, 10, 228nn. 4, 5
jurors (dikasts), 3, 14, 17, 36, 125–7, 154, 171–3, 180–6
Kagan, Donald, 76

Kahn, Charles H., 21

kakos, 92
Kendall, Willmoore, 242 n. 2
Kierkegaard, Srren, 18, 115, 141, 218
King Archon, 15, 17, 106–7, 112
King of Persia, Great, 183
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 36, 189, 241n. 7
Kitto, H. D. R, 4
kleos, 93
klepsydra (waterclock), 17, 167
“Know thyself,” 56, 66, 70, 137, 138
Knox, Bernard, 86–7, 216–7
kratos, 78

Laches, 66
Laches (Plato), 66
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 44
Lanham, Richard, 28
Laws (Plato), 202
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Hegel), 143–4
Leon of Salamis, 163, 187, 191, 206, 209, 222
Lesbos, 53
Lesky, Albin, 138
Letter from Birmingham Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr.), 36,
189, 241n. 7
Lincoln, Abraham, 35, 75
Locke, John, 189
logography, 230, ch.2, n. 12
logos (argument), and rhetorical persuasion, 36, 179–80, 202
logos (speech), 23, 103
Long Walls, 13, 14, 198
Loraux, Nicole, 83, 85, 133
Lycon, 15, 17, 72, 73, 172, 226
Lycurgus, 75
Lydia, 59
Lysander, 62, 163, 198
Lysias, 18, 111, 119, 163
Lysis (Plato), 67
Lysistrata (Aristophanes), 140

MacDowell, Douglas M., 240, ch. 9, n. 59; 240, ch. 10, n. 22

Machiavelli, Niccolo, 223
Maclntyre, Alasdair, 76, 92
Marathon, battle of, 34, 77, 78, 98
May, Rollo, 59
megalēgoria, 147
megalopsychia, 147, 174, 216
megalopsychos, 216
Megara, 207
Meier, Christian, 6
Meletus, 15, 17, 55, 148, 157, 168, 172, 179, 181; accuses
Socrates of atheism, 126–8; allegedly banished by the
Athenians, 226; described in Plato’s Euthyphro, 73;
interrogated by Socrates, 105–16, 125–30; possibly the
same Meletus who indicted Andocides, 73; representative
of the poets, 72
Melos, Melians, 29, 35, 54, 90, 103, 155, 197, 198
Memorabilia (Xenophon), 18
Menelaus, 217
Menexenus, 84–5
Menexenus, (Plato), 84–5, 201, 202, 208, 211
Meno (Plato), 61, 64, 73, 118, 197
Meno, 61, 64, 118
Meshach, 18
Metaphysics (Aristotle), 43
miasma, 119
Mill, John Stuart, 2, 3
Miltiades, 33, 34, 61, 93
Milton, John, 189
Minos, 184
Minotaur, 136, 191
Monoson, S. Sara, 234n. 26
Moralitat (Hegel), 142
Mosaic Law, 144
Mount Parnassus, 56
Musaeus, 184
Muses, 63
mythos, 116
Mytilene, Mytileans, 36, 53–4, 90, 103, 155–6, 197

Nagy, George, 108

Nebuchadnezer, 189
Nehamas, Alexander, 66
Nestor, 40
Neumann, Erich, 159
Newman, John Henry, 36
Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 215
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 46, 91, 92, 93; on the Apology, 160; on
Athenian hubris, 91; haunted by Socrates, 231, ch. 4, n.
24; on incompatibility between Socrates and Athens, 220;
on Socrates’ new agōn, 106; on Socrates’ physical
appearance, 40; on Socrates as radical reformer, 159–60
Nilsson, Martin, 120
nomizein, 123–4
nomos, 51–2, 120, 124
“nothing to excess,” 56, 95
Nous (Mind), 45

Ober, Josiah, 154

Odysseus, 91, 170, 184, 217
Odyssey (Homer), 91, 184
Oedipus, 216
oligarchic revolution of 404 B.C., 15, 44, 111
oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C., 15, 44, 111–12, 161
Olsen, Francis, 241n. 43
Olympia, 175
On the Gods (Protagoras), 122
On Liberty (John Stuart Mill), 3
On the Original Condition of Mankind (Protagoras), 116
On Truth (Antiphon), 50
Oresteia (Aeschylus), 14, 52, 99, 141
Orpheus, 184
Orphics, 137
ostracism, 101, 153
ostrakon, 101

Palamedes, 49, 184

Panathenaea, 175
Paris, 26, 48, 181
parrhēsia, 99, 131
Parthenon, 14, 96, 120
pathos, and rhetorical persuasion, 36, 179–80
Patroclus, 93, 132, 133, 181
Paul, Saint, 116
Peitho, 24, 99
Peleus, 76, 93
Peloponnesian War, 2, 13, 29, 54, 57, 76, 97, 123, 135, 140,
141, 143, 160, 163, 173, 188; and Athenian patriotic
rhetoric, 200; and the civic hero, 81; effect on Athenian
population, 152; effect on Hellenic world, 86; and
genocide, 197–8; and instability in Athens, 37, 111; moral
effect of, 9, 21, 27, 44, 46, 52, 85, 87–90, 103, 169; and
power equated with justice, 51
Penelope, 170
People’s Courts (dikastēria), 13, 154
Pericles, 5, 33, 53, 61, 65, 77, 86, 90, 96, 98, 102, 152, 154,
165, 169, 190, 233n. 20, 234n. 26; Age of, 13, 34, 120,
145; as Athenian demagogue, 87; and the Athenian
empire, 77, 86; dies from the plague, 57, 89, 101; Funeral
Oration, 24, 35, 52, 75–87, 89, 91, 98, 150, 185, 201, 204;
and the gods, 81–2; removed from office, 101
Pericles, the Younger, 162
Persephone, 38, 39
Persia, Persians, 34, 57, 59, 77, 97, 101
Peter, First Epistle of, 189
Phaedo (Plato) 3, 45, 49, 139, 183, 191, 218
Phaedra, 158
Phaedrus, 32
Phaedrus (Plato), 32, 43, 49, 84, 201, 202
Phaenarete, 14
phalanx, 97
pharmakos, 176
Pheidippides, 40–1
Phidias, 14
philia, 194
Philoctetus, 216
philo-polis, 88
philos, 205
philosophy, conflict with politics, 1, 6, 8–11, 16, 156, 159,
171, 178, 213, 221, 222, 225–7
philotimia, 93
phronēsis, 152
Phthia, 210–11
physis, 51–2
Pindar, 120
Piraeus, 14, 108, 111, 198
Pisistratid tyrants, 96
plague, 44, 57, 89, 101, 152
Plataea, 197
Plato, 2, 7–10, 16, 34, 40, 49, 52, 63, 64, 66, 67, 73, 84, 85,
101, 116, 118, 120, 136, 137, 141, 146, 156, 157, 158, 178,
190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 208,
211, 213, 223, 226
pleonexia, 82
Plutarch, 77, 231n. 35, 233n. 20
Pnyx, 152–3
Pohlenz, Max, 102
polis, 1, 228n. 2
polītēs, 151
politeuesthai, 151
Politics (Aristotle), 103, 204
Polus, 151
Polycrates, 18
Polyneices, 188, 190
polypragmōn, 63
Popper, Karl, 146
Porch of the Maidens (Caryadids), 14
Potidaea, 135
Praise of Helen (Gorgias), 26, 48
Prodicus, 25, 47, 49
Prometheus, 116
Propylaea, 14
Protagoras, 14, 25–6, 47, 82, 116–18, 122, 204
Protagoras (Plato), 25, 49, 116
Proteus, 171
prytaneis, 153, 161–2, 239n. 47
Prytaneum, 174, 178
psēphisma, 240n. 59
psychē, 137, 138
Pythagoras, 25
Pythia, 56–8
Quakers, 189
Quintilian, 32

Redfield, James, 211

Reeve, C.D.C., 71, 240n. 65
Republic (Plato), 7, 34, 52, 66, 67, 118, 136, 156, 158, 202,
204, 226
Rhadamanthys, 184
rhētor (rhētores), 154–5Rhetoric (Aristotle), 35, 179
rhetoric, deliberative or political, 35, 76, 155; epideictic or
ceremonial, 35, 76; forensic or judicial, 26–36, 147;
philosophical, 31–3, 147, 164, 201
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 224
Royal Stoa (Stoa Basileios), 15, 16, 109, 126

Salamis, battle of, 34, 59, 78, 98

Samos, 45
Sarpedon, 92, 218
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 10
Scione, 197, 198
Sermon on the Mount (Jesus), 138
Seven Sages, 25, 95
Seventh Letter (Plato), 68, 113, 146, 233n. 36
Shadrach, 188
shame culture, 91–4, 194; contrasted with guilt culture, 94
Sicilian invasion, 29, 35, 44, 82, 86, 91, 111, 123, 140, 212,
231n. 35
Silenus, 40, 176
Simonides, 118
Sisyphus, 184
Sisyphus (Critias), 111
Sittlichkeit (Hegel), 142
Slater, William J., 236– 7n. 57
Smith, Nicholas D., see Brickhouse, Thomas C.
Snell, Bruno, 92, 93, 124, 137, 138
Social Contract, The, (Rousseau), 224
Socrates, and Achilles, 40, 132–4, 136–9, 172, 175, 181, 211,
216–19; and Antigone, 6, 187–9, 193; argues for the Laws,
199–210; and Aristophanes’Clouds, 37–44; and atheism,
38–9, 126–8; and Athenian constitution, 11, 162, 222; and
Athenian democracy, 145–6; and avoidance of politics,
151–65, 219; charges against, 1, 15, 39–41, 42, 106–7,
110, 121, 131–2, 179, 219; and civil disobedience, 2–3, 11,
104, 140, 144, 164, 172, 187–93, 200, 203, 205, 206, 209,
220, 222, 223; compared to Silenus, 40, 176; compared to
a stingray fish, 64; condemned to death, 178; and conflict
with Athenian values, 1–2, 4–5, 11, 27, 30, 36–7, 43, 99,
104, 139, 141–4, 147, 149–50, 159, 172, 192, 196, 201,
215–19, 222, 224; and conscience (moral autonomy), 1–2,
132, 144, 149, 156, 158, 162, 172, 193, 199, 209, 215–6,
218, 225; and corrupting the young, 1, 15, 26, 39–40, 72,
106–7, 113–15, 123–32, 167–9; on death, 132–6, 183; and
Delphic oracle (Apollo), 56–8, 60–3, 70–1; disclaims
knowledge of natural science, 44–6; his divine voice, 110,
129, 157–60, 172, 183, 185, 210; duty to God, 1–3, 71,
104, 135, 140, 180, 187, 193, 200, 210–13; examines the
craftsmen, 63; examines the poets, 62–3; examines the
politicians, 60–1; and family, 123, 169–70; and Funeral
Oration of Pericles, 145, see also Menexenus; as gadfly of
Athens, 37, 48, 111, 147–50, 158, 159, 160, 165, 172, 176,
222, 224; and “God,” 228n. 5; good man but bad citizen,
103–4, 145, 215–6; and Greek heroic tradition, 133, 136,
172, 175, 181, 184, 185, 211; and the Hebrew prophets,
71; and Heracles, 62, 133, 136; historical, 9, 10, 17, 20, 21,
 66, 68, 121, 146, 191, 192, 202–3, 208; and impiety, 1, 15,
38, 107, 110, 119–25, 146; as intellectual midwife, 67; and
irony, see, irony; and Jesus, 138, 139, 143–4; and Meletus,
interrogation of, 105–116; member of the prytaneis, 153,
161–2, 239n. 47; and new conception of freedom, 103; and
old accusers, 16, 37–50, 127; and parrhēsia, 131; as
philosopher-hero, 7, 9, 10, 21, 132, 136, 174–5, 184, 218,
227; philosophic mission of, 1–4, 21, 27, 30, 36, 37, 43–4,
48, 60–1, 63, 71, 94, 99, 104, 110, 123, 131–50, 157, 165,
170, 173, 174, 175, 187, 192, 210, 213, 218–19, 222, 223;
and philosophical rhetoric, 31–3, 147, 164, 172, 201; and
philosophy as a radical activity, 69–70, 149; physical
appearance of, 39–40; places Athens on trial, 72, 147–8,
173, 183, 227; and poverty, 42, 71, 150–1, 155; practices a
private politics, 165, 180; professes ignorance, 42, 64–7,
69, 172; pronounced guilty, 172; proposes a counter-
penalty, 16–17, 172–8; refuses to flee Athens, 199;
revolutionizes Greek view of piety, 71; and rhetoric, 23–
36; and role of politics in indictment, 112–3; and the rule
of law, 2, 4, 11, 38, 195, 198–9, 210; as scapegoat, 21,
176; service in Peloponnesian War, 14, 134–5, 149; and
skepticism, 42; and the Sophists, 38–9, 42–3, 46–50, 56,
68; and the soul, 1, 3, 15, 131, 135, 137–9, 144, 168, 173,
195–6, 211, 219, 221, 227; on teaching, 48, 49, 149, 167–
9, 219; and trial of the generals, 153, 160–2, 164, 187, 222;
his trial as a trial of philosophy, 156, 215; and the
“unexamined life,” 177; and virtue as a form of
knowledge, 49, 115–6
Solon, 24, 25, 95–6, 103, 197
Sophists, 25, 105, 112, 118, 221; and epistemological nihilism,
50; and Greek intellectual revolution, 45; and moral
collapse of Athens, 28–9, 42; and political education of
Athenians, 47–8
Sophocles, 6, 14, 52, 62, 87, 140, 161, 187–9, 217
Sophroniscus, 14
sōphrosunē, 82
Sparta, 2, 9, 13, 27, 28, 29, 57, 65, 79–80, 82, 102, 123, 145,
198, 207
stasis, 7, 95
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 233n. 49
Stephanus (Henricus Estienne), 228n. 4
Stoa Basileios, see Royal Stoa stoa, 100
Stone, I.F., 110, 113, 155, 236n. 22
stratēgos, 77, 153
Strauss, Leo, 82, 87, 192, 199, 215, 230n. 7
Strepsiades, 40–1
Strycker, E. de, 230, ch. 3, n. 11; 232, ch. 5, n. 16
Sunium, 191
Suppliants (Euripides), 99
Symposium (Plato), 40, 65
Syracuse, 48

Taylor, A.E., 20, 139

Ten Governors (of Piraeus), 108
Theaetetus (Plato), 67, 68
Theater of Dionysus, 14
Thebes, 198, 207
theios, 223
Themistocles, 24, 33, 34, 59–60, 93, 101, 176
Theodectes, 18
Theognis, 197
Theophrastus, 18
Theramenes, 161, 163
Theseus, 62, 99, 136, 191
Thessaly, 191, 202, 207, 211
Thetis, 132
Thinkery, 40–1
Thirty Tyrants, 13, 27, 44, 57, 72, 108, 110, 112, 163–4, 187,
190–1, 206, 220, 222, 240n. 59
Tholos, 153, 163
Thomson, J.A.K., 66
Thoreau, Henry David, 2, 165, 189
thorubus, 56
Thrasybulus, 57
Thrasyllus, 162
Thrasymachus, 52, 66, 111
Thucydides, 9, 19–20, 24, 54, 57, 75, 76, 77, 85–7, 89–90,
103, 156, 190; on civil war in Corcyra, 90; on the effect of
war on human behavior, 89; on Funeral Oration of
Pericles, 77; Melian dialogue, 54, 103; Mylilenean debate,
36, 53–4, 90, 103, 155–6; on the Sicilian invasion, 91;
skeptical view of gods and oracles, 82
timē, 92, 94, 132
Tisias, 25
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 2
Topics (Aristotle), 106
topoi, 82
Torone, 198
trial of the generals, 153, 160–2, 164, 187, 222
Triptolemus, 184
Trojan War, 90–1, 132, 218
Trojan Women (Euripides), 90–1
Troy, 26, 48, 81, 92, 132, 211, 217
tyranny of the majority, and democracy, 2, 101, 130, 146, 163
Vernant, Jean-Pierre, 7, 24, 97–8, 176
Vlastos, Gregory, 20, 48, 69, 71, 129, 134, 146, 160, 196
Voegelin, Eric, 141

Wasserstrom, Richard, A., 241–2n. 57

waterclock (klepsydra), 17, 167
Whitman, Cedric, 219, 242n. 5

Xanthippe, 170
Xenophon, 17, 18, 19, 46, 73, 115, 123, 129, 135, 146, 147,
157, 158, 161, 163, 178, 181, 192, 226

Yunis, Harvey, 119

Zeller, Eduard, 236n. 24

Zeus, 38, 41, 118, 122, 125, 129, 197
Zeus Agoraios, 99
Zeus Polieus, 123
Socrates against Athens: Philosophy o... https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/socrates-a...

Socrates against Athens: Philosophy on Trial

Colaiaco, James A., Socrates against Athens: Philosophy
on Trial, Routledge, 2001, 266 pp., $22.95 (pbk), ISBN
0-415-92654-8

Reviewed by Nicholas D. Smith , Lewis & Clark College

2002.02.12

This book is intended to help general readers understand

the arguments Plato gives to Socrates in the Apology and
Crito, in part by situating them within their historical,
cultural, and political contexts. Unlike most of what has
been written about this subject, Colaiaco has steered clear
of what has to most scholars seemed inevitable: a choice between condemning Socrates again,
by upholding the verdict of the Athenian jurors, or condemning the jurors (and the prosecutors
of the case, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon), and thus, in effect, the entire Athenian legal system,
of having condemned to death not only an innocent man, but (as Plato puts it in the last words
of the Phaedo) a man who was “the best, the wisest, and the most upright of all those we have
known” (Phaedo 118a). Plato’s works certainly have the tendency to make a choice between
these two condemnations inevitable.

Following Hegel and others (about which, Colaiaco is admirably forthright—see 4-5), however,
Colaiaco sees the trial of Socrates as “the result of a tragic collision between two defensible
positions” (4): Socrates’ position is likened to those of Ajax (217), and Antigone (6, 187) in
ancient myth, and to Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King in modernity (189). Although I
personally find each of these comparisons either strained or seriously misleading, what they are
supposed to reveal, in Colaiaco’s view, is a Socrates who, precisely because of his superiority of
virtue, reserved all final moral judgment to himself (a “law unto himself”—223), and thus
refused to allow himself to be subject to any authority—including most importantly civil
authority—other than divine authority. Athens, on the other hand, saw in Socratic “no-holds-
barred” (and no-doctrines-beyond-critical-scrutiny) philosophizing a genuine threat to the
survival of the city. Both points of view, in Colaiaco’s understanding, have some merit. The
picture of Socrates, upon which this Hegelian balancing act is hinged, is developed carefully in

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the first ten chapters of Colaiaco’s book, which roughly follow Socrates’ three speeches in the
Apology. In the eleventh chapter, however, Colaiaco confronts the Crito, in which we find
Socrates refusing to escape from prison, explaining that to do so would be wrong because “one
must obey the commands of one’s city and fatherland, or persuade it as to what is really just”
(the famous “obey or persuade” doctrine—Crito 51b-c). Colaiaco recognizes that it can’t be that
Socrates puts himself above the law, and also that Socrates counts himself as subject to the law.

How to escape this conundrum? Colaiaco’s answer to this is most disappointing: Socrates
doesn’t really mean it, according to Colaiaco, when he pronounces the doctrine of obedience to
Crito. Because, Colaiaco contends, Crito is “intellectually incapacitated” (199), Socrates’ old
and dear friend is in no condition to follow proper logic. Unable to convince his friend by
philosophical argument, Socrates “resorted to a characteristic political speech that his friend
was capable of accepting” (212), putting a very high-sounding (but, according to Colaiaco, most
un-Socratic) speech into the mouth of the personified Laws of Athens that served more
adequately to persuade poor benighted Crito that Socrates must stay in prison and take the
hemlock.

Something has gone wrong here. In Colaiaco’s view, rhetorical puffery turns out to be a better
way to persuade at least some people of what Socrates is confident is the right view. If such a
tactic was acceptable for use with Crito, why would it not also be acceptable to use on his
jurors, whom he characterizes as putting him to death precisely because he insisted upon only
speaking the truth in court, despite the fact that the future of his philosophic mission was at
stake (see Ap. 17c, 38d-e)? Indeed, does this not actually serve to convict Socrates of “making
the worse argument the stronger,” as his “first accusers” put it (which Socrates proclaims he
does not do (Ap. 19b-c, 23d)? Moreover, the idea that Crito is such an unfit intellectual partner
for Socrates leaves Socrates’ lifelong maintenance of their friendship inexplicable. And what
are we to make of Socrates’ plain statement when he announces (in his own voice) at the end of
the dialogue that he strongly believes the arguments that his old friend, Crito, is at a loss to
refute (54b)?

Colaiaco is forced to reject as “irony” (212) so much of the Crito because what he finds there
does not square with his view of the Apology. Colaiaco misinterprets the Apology, however,
because he supposes that there are at least two instances in that dialogue in which Socrates
signals a willingness to disobey legal authorities. One of these cases—where Socrates tells of
when he disobeyed the command of those who overthrew Athens’ democracy (Ap. 32c-e)—
Colaiaco understands as an actual instance of disobedience to legal authority: “The Thirty’s
command was unjust, but legally valid under positive law” (164). Having long ago shown that
there is absolutely no reason to regard the Thirty’s command as legally valid,1 I see no reason to

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rehearse the same points over again here.

But of course the most important text for Colaiaco’s reading is Socrates’ hypothetical vow to
disobey the jurors if they offered to let him go on the condition that he gives up philosophizing
(Apology 29c-d). Now, Colaiaco realizes that as a matter of legal fact, there was simply no way
for an Athenian jury to stipulate such a condition. “Even though the court apparently did not
have the authority to issue such an order, he [Socrates] wishes to make clear that nothing will
stand in the way of his divinely appointed mission” (140). Not pausing to attend to the
consequence of the legal fact—namely, that logically it places the hypothetical vow to disobey
outside the scope of the “obey or persuade” doctrine of the Crito (since no such disobedience
could, as a result, be disobedience of any valid legal command), Colaiaco rushes on to insist
that it is nonetheless just obvious that what Socrates says here commits him at least in principle
to disobedience of law. Colaiaco unfortunately misses the fact that only a few sentences before
making this hypothetical vow, Socrates had reminded the jurors that he felt duty-bound to abide
by the commands of his military superiors at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium (28e), risking
death (and thus the end of his “divinely appointed mission” in Athens) by so doing, without
(implausibly) suggesting that his obedience had always been conditioned upon his own
considered personal judgment of the rightness of whatever these generals happened to
command. In fact, several times in the Apology, Socrates insists both that he must, and that the
jurors must, obey the law in performing their functions in the court (see, for examples, at Ap.
19a, 35c). In all of these cases, Socrates certainly looks and sounds like he believes that one
must always “obey or persuade” the laws of the state.

But Colaiaco is not the only scholar who has managed to read all of these passages and come
away nonetheless convinced that Socrates would certainly break laws in his pursuit of his
“mission.” Suppose we take this conviction a bit more seriously, then, despite the lack of textual
support. Colaiaco says, “nothing will stand in the way of his [Socrates’] divinely appointed
mission” (140). But this can’t be right. Does Colaiaco suppose that Socrates could (or should!),
for example, forcibly restrain and kidnap some recalcitrant interlocutor, who might otherwise
slip away from an unpleasant discussion with Socrates? Obviously not—and so Socrates’
pursuit of his mission plainly recognizes limitations. As I have said, he also seems prepared at
least temporarily to set that mission aside (and in jeopardy) for military service. What else, we
might reasonably wonder, could deter Socrates from his mission?

But couldn’t the Athenian Assembly simply pass a law against philosophizing? And if they did,
surely Socrates would have disobeyed it!2 But it is not at all obvious to me that such a scenario
really is conceivable in late 5th-century Athens. The Athenians might outlaw the kinds of
“philosophizing” that Socrates’ accusers alleged he was guilty of—”scientific” speculation

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about “the things beneath the earth and in the heavens” (Ap. 19b, see also 23d). Socrates may
well have actually lived in Athens when exactly this sort of law was in effect, at least for a
time.3 But Socrates says that he does not engage in this sort of “philosophizing” (Ap. 19c).
What he does do is to talk with people about justice and the other virtues, and all of the other
“most important things” (Ap. 22d) about which he finds himself and others lacking in
knowledge. The claim that Socrates would violate a legally valid law proscribing
philosophizing must first provide an explanation of how such a law might be worded in a way
that both makes such a law conceivable in democratic Athens and would also force Socrates
either to violate that law, or to stop philosophizing in the way that he did. At any rate, Colaiaco
never explains how this could be.

The most natural understanding of Socrates’ “obey or persuade” doctrine, I contend,4 simply
establishes which individual or body is given the responsibility of making final judgments,
when there is intractable disagreement between some members or political institutions within
the state. In Athens’ democracy, if the citizen disagrees with some law or policy of the state,
according to Socrates, the citizen is invited to persuade the state. If a citizen becomes
sufficiently disgruntled, moreover, he can always simply pack his belongings and leave. But
because the state is provided the final responsibility for judgments, if the citizen’s and state’s
disagreements cannot be resolved by persuasion, the “obey or persuade” doctrine also puts the
burden of any negative consequences of responsibility onto the entity that is given the positive
responsibility to make final decisions. In other words, when the state commands a citizen to do
something, and the citizen had no role in formulating the command, then if the judgment is an
unjust one, the injustice that gets done is the state’s responsibility (and not the citizen’s)—even
if, as part of the state’s command, the citizen is commanded into being the instrument of the
state in carrying out the command. If this is right, then the very idea—which is fundamental to
Colaiaco’s interpretation— that Socrates would suppose that he must disobey any law he
supposed was unjust, lest he become infected with that injustice, is simply a mistake.

We do not, moreover, simply have to contest this issue on purely intuitional or theoretical
grounds; for Plato’s dialogues actually provide us with two cases in which citizens become
recruited as instruments of the state in carrying out unjust legal judgments made by the state.
The most obvious of these, of course, is the case of Socrates himself, who assists the state in his
own execution by lifting the poison cup to his own lips. In Colaiaco’s interpretation, it seems,
by doing so Socrates became implicated in the jury’s injustice. I find it noteworthy—and
wrong-headed—that Colaiaco says, “the philosopher chose to commit suicide” (217). Less often
noticed is the case of Socrates’ jailor, whom we meet in the Phaedo (116b-d).5 Socrates’ jailor
characterizes his prisoner as “the noblest, gentlest, and the best man who as ever come here”

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(116c), and although this may seem faint praise under the circumstances, the jailor goes on to
note that he is only “obeying orders” (116c) and reassures himself that Socrates will not hold
the jailor responsible for what he must do, but will understand that it is others who are really
responsible (116c). After the jailor leaves, weeping, Socrates has kind words to say about the
poor man, and notes that the two have had several occasions to converse during the time he was
in prison (116d5-7). It is, as the jailor wished, quite obvious that Socrates does not blame him
for carrying out his orders. We may even suppose that the jailor is personally entirely convinced
that Socrates was innocent and—had justice prevailed—should have been acquitted.
Nonetheless, Socrates was convicted and sentenced by the jury to be executed. The jailor was
then ordered to oversee and carry out the execution. Saddened by the thought that an innocent
person will be killed, the jailor nonetheless does as he was ordered by the court.

It is certainly true that Plato wants us to think that an injustice was committed in the execution
of Socrates, and there can be no doubt that the jailor played a causal role in that injustice. It is
also true that the jailor’s role was voluntary. He participated, knowing what he was doing. He
was not coerced. It seems clear that he believed that the state had convicted and condemned an
innocent person. Yet, it is plain that Socrates did not at all hold the jailor morally responsible for
the injustice. If responsibility is to be placed rightly, it lies with the prosecutors, and with the
jury members who arrived at the wrong decision. They are the ones who have been unjust. What
this shows us is that willful, fully voluntary participation in an unjust act commanded by legal
authority is not sufficient for saying that the agent has acted unjustly. This is all the “obey or
persuade” doctrine requires, and there is nothing embarrassing or otiose about such a
requirement, nor does it in any way conflict, as I have argued above, with anything we get—
explicitly or even implicitly—in Plato’s Apology.

My frequent co-author and partner in Socratic studies, Thomas C. Brickhouse, is quoted on the
back cover of this book as proclaiming, “Socrates against Athens is a welcome addition to the
literature on Socrates’ trial and imprisonment.” Given the way in which Colaiaco manages to
misconstrue several of the most fundamental doctrines and statements in Plato’s Apology and
Crito, I find I cannot agree with my partner’s statement. There are already books available and
in print that do not make such errors. It may be the best book available for general audiences,
assuming that general audiences are incapable of reading more careful scholarship; but the same
limitation, we must hope, does not apply to scholars themselves. And if general audiences do
read and accept Colaiaco’s book, they will end up being misled and confused about much of
what Plato has tried to show us in these dialogues. In particular, by denying that Socrates (and
thereby, by implication, Plato) really accepts the arguments he puts into the mouth of the
personified Laws of Athens in the Crito, Colaiaco’s book actually manages to defeat Plato’s

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purpose and to silence Plato’s philosophical voice in these most important pages.

SOURCES CITED

Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith. 1989. Socrates on Trial. Oxford University
Press and Princeton University Press.

Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith. 1994. Plato’s Socrates. Oxford University
Press.

Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith. 2000. The Philosophy of Socrates. Westview
Press.

Kraut, Richard. 1983. Socrates and the State. Princeton University Press.

Endnotes

1. In Brickhouse and Smith 1989, 173-193Although Colaiaco cites this work in some of his
notes, he makes no response to it in making his claims about the command of the Thirty.

2. See, for an example of this sort of claim, Richard Kraut 1983, 13-17.

3. The psephism of Diopeithes, under which Anaxagoras was prosecuted in 430 B.C.E.,
apparently made such activities illegal. Some scholars, however, have doubted that reports of
this-and of the trial of Anaxagoras-were historically reliable. For discussion, see Brickhouse
and Smith 1989, 32-33.

4. The general view I merely sketch in what follows is explicated in much greater detail in
Brickhouse and Smith 1994, 141-155 and Brickhouse and Smith 2000, 200-216.

5. I am indebted to Chris J. De Marco for calling my attention to this case.

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