Thursday 23 January 2020

Trial and Execution of Socrates - 399 BC

This event at this time concerns one of the most shameful acts that which occurred in Athens, one which could be said to mark the end of its Golden Age: the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC Socrates, Athens most famous philosopher, beloved of Plato, was always asking for trouble. Indeed his very method of philosophical inquiry upset some of the most important people and politicians of Ancient Athens. Someone, a friend of Socrates. once asked the Oracle at Delphi who was the wisest man in all Athens. The Pythia, priestess of the Oracle, answered that it was Socrates. This friend told Socrates what the Oracle had said to him. Socrates set out to try to prove the Oracle wrong. He would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because if anyone knew the answer to that question they must surely be wiser than him. He went around all of Athens. He questioned everyone of note he encountered, but none of them gave him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something when it was clear they did not.  Socrates was the wisest. Why? Because he claimed he knew nothing at all. He knew and admitted that he knew nothing and by his method of logic he could prove it.   Everyone he encountered and questioned always all of them claimed they had knowledge. Socrates made fools of them all. Perhaps it was for this insolence he ended up being tried and executed.

Athens at this time, had just recently suffered defeat in the Peloponnesean war against Sparta and her allies. Socrates was a known Laconophile, an admirer of Sparta, possibly not a popular type to claim to be at this time. Perhaps he liked the certainty that the constitution that Sparta provided her citizens with. Sparta had reintroduced and imposed on Athens a hugely unpopular aristocratic and tyrannical government upon Athens, known as the Thirty Tyrants, one which was more favourable to Sparta. Socrates was a known anti-democrat. He is known to have had personal connections with a number of the tyrants. Socrates praised the Spartans because even though they were simple men and women, they were men and women who, as far as their character was concerned, were better than the Athenians. Socrates did not necessarily praise the Spartan form of government so much as he did the Spartan moral character. Socrates was very critical of some of Athens' leading politicians, especially those who carried out policies that pandered to its masses. He definitely did not like its form of government.

Socrates considered himself as having the mission in life to make people think for themselves. He tried to provide them with the skills for this.  He is often called the Father of Scepticism. He personally despised demagoguery. He wanted people to see through the falsities of  the rhetoric as exploited by the demagogues, how they used its methods for their own selfish purposes.

In 399 BC all this culminated in Socrates trial and execution. Charges were brought against him with the following wording:-

"Socrates does not believe in the gods in whom our city believes, but introduces other new deities; he is corrupting the young. The penalty demanded - Death".

He was over 70 when he was accused of this.

During his trial he is reported to have said the following:

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“I believe in the gods, like none of my accusers do.”

Plato shows him casting doubt on the notion that morality has a divine origin. Socrates never says that there are no gods; only that his fellow citizens misunderstand them (and everything else).

"The profession of one's own ignorance is a necessary first step on the way to the truth."

He was tried in the Council of 500 : 280 found him guilty, 220 found him innocent

Some have argued that Socrates had been a friend of those in power during the period of the Thirty Tyrants, and also of Alcibiades, the traitor. Many of Athens citizens suspected him of conspiring with the Tyrants.

The description of the trial of Socrates and his subsequent execution by being forced to drink the poison hemlock are described in the following of Plato's books:-

Euthyphro
Apology
Crito
Phaedo

References

A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought: Chapter 21 The Trial and Death of Socrates - Google Books

Criminal Procedure in Ancient Greece and the Trial of Socrates

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Euthyphro
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Crito
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phaedo
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Apology_(Plato)

Plato, The Apology of Socrates -SB

Ancient Greek Skepticism

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-ontology/history.html#AnciPhilNatuVersAgre

Ancient Political Philosophy - Socrates and Plato

Sophist - Wikipedia

The Thirty Tyrants - Wikipedia

The Trials of Socrates

Socrates - Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Laconophilia - Wikipedia
Irony - Wikipedia
Socratic method - Wikipedia
The unexamined life is not worth living - Wikipedia
The Clouds - WikipediaTrial of Socrates - Wikipedia
Socrates - Wikipedia
Socratic problem - Wikipedia
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_skepticism

The trial and death of Socrates : Plato - Internet Archive

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates - Internet Archive

Socrates was charged with asebeia punished for lack of reverence due to the gods.  
https://bit.ly/2LgBmJo

James A. Colaiaco (2013). Socrates Against Athens: Philosophy on Trial. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-02493-2.

Xenophon (2001). Memorabilia. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8171-6.

Aristophanes; Peter Meineck (tr) (2000). Clouds. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0-87220-516-9.

Alexander Rubel; Michael Vickers (11 September 2014). Fear and Loathing in Ancient Athens: Religion and Politics During the Peloponnesian War. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-54480-7.

R. E. Allen (1981). Socrates and Legal Obligation. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-5692-9.

Ernst Curtius (1874). The History of Greece. Volume 4. Prosecution and Execution of Socrates: C. Scribner. pp. 158–.

Bettany Hughes (2011). The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4464-1916-8.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary - Greek Rhetoric : Ross, W. D. Ed. - Internet Archive

Ian Worthington (11 December 2006). A Companion to Greek Rhetoric. Wiley. ISBN 978-1-4051-2551-2.

Ancient Greece - Principles of Public Speaking

Adam Parry (20 July 1972). Studies in Fifth Century Thought and Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08305-8.

Xanthakis-Karamanos, Georgia. “The Influence of Rhetoric on Fourth-Century Tragedy.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 1979, pp. 66–76. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/638606

Michael John MacDonald (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies. Chapter 7 - Paul Woodruff - Rhetoric and Tragedy: Oxford University Press. pp. 97–. ISBN 978-0-19-973159-6.

Joseph Roisman; Ian Worthington (2015). Lives of the Attic Orators: Texts from Pseudo-Plutarch, Photius, and the Suda. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-968767-1.

Plato; Aristophanes (1998). Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, and Aristophanes' Clouds. Aristophanes Clouds: Cornell University Press. pp. 115–. ISBN 0-8014-8574-6.

Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric - David Sansone - Google Books

The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies - Google Books

Rhetorical Action in Ancient Athens: Persuasive Artistry from Solon to ... - James Fredal - Google Books

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