Trial and Execution of Socrates
In 399 BCE the Athenian philosopher Socrates, then aged seventy, was brought to trial before a jury of 501 male citizens on two charges: asebeia (impiety towards the gods of the city) and corrupting the youth of Athens. He was found guilty by a margin of 280 to 221 and, after refusing to propose an acceptable alternative penalty, was condemned to death. He died by drinking hemlock in prison several weeks later. The prosecution was led by three Athenians: Anytus, a democratic politician and tanner; Meletus, a young poet; and Lycon, an orator. The charges had both religious and political dimensions. Socrates had questioned traditional Athenian religious observance and had been associated with oligarchic figures — most notoriously Critias, the brutal leader of the Thirty Tyrants who had ruled Athens during the Spartan-backed interlude of 404–403 BCE. Though an amnesty had precluded direct prosecution for acts committed under the Thirty, hostility towards those who had consorted with them ran deep. Socrates conducted his own defence, as recorded in Plato's Apology. Rather than expressing contrition, he argued that his philosophical questioning was a service to Athens commanded by the god Apollo's oracle at Delphi, which had pronounced no man wiser than Socrates. He cross-examined his accusers and mocked the charges. When invited to propose a counter-penalty, he initially suggested the city owed him free meals at the Prytaneion — the honour given to Olympic victors — before settling on a modest fine. The jury, apparently enraged, voted for death by a larger margin than the original guilty verdict. Socrates' students Crito and others arranged for his escape, which he refused, arguing that to flee would be to undermine the laws whose authority he had always accepted. He spent his final weeks in philosophical discussion with his friends, as described in Plato's Phaedo. The trial's aftermath shaped the entire subsequent history of Western philosophy. Plato — who was present at the trial — left Athens and spent years travelling, eventually founding the Academy partly as a response to the city's capacity to kill its greatest mind. Aristotle, Plato's student, would leave Athens in 323 BCE on analogous grounds ('lest Athens sin twice against philosophy').
- Year: 399 BCE
- Category: Political
