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Aristophanes —ca BCE. Plato — BCE. Xenophon — BCE. Corrupting the Youth of Athens. Ancient History and Latin Expert. Gill is a Latinist, writer, and teacher of ancient history and Latin.
Updated September 17, Any number of words and actions of Socrates may have contributed to his impiety charge. Preoccupied with his moral instruction, he probably failed to attend important religious festivals.
He may have stirred additional resentment by offering arguments against the collective, ritualistic view of religion shared by most Athenians or by contending that gods could not, as Athenians believed, behave immorally or whimsically.
Xenophon indicates that the impiety charge stemmed primarily from the contention of Socrates that he received divine communications a "voice" or a "sign" directing him to avoid politics and concentrate on his philosophic mission.
A vague charge such as impiety invited jurors to project their many and varied grievances against Socrates. Dozens of accounts of the three-hour speech apologia by Socrates in his defense existed at one time. Only Plato's and Xenophon's accounts survive. The two accounts agree on a key point. Socrates gave a defiant--decidedly un apologetic--speech.
He seemed to invite condemnation and death. Plato's apology describes Socrates questioning his accuser, Meletus, about the impiety charge. Meletus accuses Socrates of believing the sun and moon not to be gods, but merely masses of stone.
Socrates responds not by specifically denying the charge of atheism, but by attacking Meletus for inconsistency: the charge against him accused him of believing in other gods, not in believing in no gods.
If Plato's account is accurate, Socrates could have been seen by jurors offering a smokescreen rather than a refutation of the charge of impiety. Plato's Socrates provocatively tells his jury that he is a hero. He reminds them of his exemplary service as a hoplite in three battles. More importantly, he contends, he has battled for decades to save the souls of Athenians--pointing them in the direction of an examined, ethical life.
He reportedly says to his jurors if his teaching about the nature of virtue "corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. Stone is right, the most damaging accusation against Socrates concerned his association with Critias, the cruel leader of the Thirty Tyrants.
Socrates, in Plato's account, points to his refusal to comply with the Tyrants' order that he bring in Leon of Salamis for summary execution. He argues this act of disobedience--which might have led to his own execution, had not the Tyrants fallen from power--demonstrates his service as a good citizen of Athens. Stone notes, however, that a good citizen might have done more than simply go home to bed--he might have warned Leon of Salamis.
In Stone's critical view, the central fact remained that in the city's darkest hour, Socrates "never shed a tear for Athens. He argues that he never presumed to be a teacher, just a figure who roamed Athens answering the questions that were put to him. He points to his pupils in the crowd and observes that none of them accused him. Moreover, Socrates suggests to the jury, if Critias really understood his words, he never would have gone on the bloody rampage that he did in Hannah Arendt notes that Critias apparently concluded, from the message of Socrates that piety cannot be defined, that it is permissible to be impious--"pretty much the opposite of what Socrates had hoped to achieve by talking about piety.
What is strikingly absent from the defense of Socrates, if Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be believed, is the plea for mercy typically made to Athenian juries. It was common practice to appeal to the sympathies of jurors by introducing wives and children. Socrates, however, did no more than remind the jury that he had a family. Neither his wife Xanthippe nor any of his three sons made a personal appearance. On the contrary, Socrates--according to Plato--contends that the unmanly and pathetic practice of pleading for clemency disgraces the justice system of Athens.
When the three-hour defense of Socrates came to an end, the court herald asked the jurors to render their decision by putting their ballot disks in one of two marked urns, one for guilty votes and one for votes for acquittal. With no judge to offer them instructions as to how to interpret the charges or the law, each juror struggled for himself to come to an understanding of the case and the guilt or innocence of Socrates.
When the ballots were counted, jurors had voted to find Socrates guilty, jurors for acquittal. Penalty Phase of Trial. After the conviction of Socrates by a relatively close vote, the trial entered its penalty phase.
Each side, the accusers and the defendant, was given an opportunity to propose a punishment. After listening to arguments, the jurors would choose which of the two proposed punishments to adopt. The accusers of Socrates proposed the punishment of death. In proposing death, the accusers might well have expected to counter with a proposal for exile--a punishment that probably would have satisfied both them and the jury.
Instead, Socrates audaciously proposes to the jury that he be rewarded, not punished. According to Plato, Socrates asks the jury for free meals in the Prytaneum, a public dining hall in the center of Athens. Socrates must have known that his proposed "punishment" would infuriate the jury.
Stone noted that "Socrates acts more like a picador trying to enrage a bull than a defendant trying to mollify a jury. The only answer, Stone and others conclude, is that Socrates was ready to die. To comply with the demand that a genuine punishment be proposed, Socrates reluctantly suggested a fine of one mina of silver--about one-fifth of his modest net worth, according to Xenophon. Plato and other supporters of Socrates upped the offer to thirty minae by agreeing to come up with silver of their own.
Most jurors likely believed even the heftier fine to be far too slight of a punishment for the unrepentant defendant. In the final vote, a larger majority of jurors favored a punishment of death than voted in the first instance for conviction. According to Diogenes Laertius, jurors voted for death, for the fine.
Under Athenian law, execution was accomplished by drinking a cup of poisoned hemlock. In Plato's Apology , the trial concludes with Socrates offering a few memorable words as court officials finished their necessary work.
He tells the crowd that his conviction resulted from his unwillingness to "address you as you would have liked me to do. Finally, as he is being led off to jail, Socrates utters the memorable line: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live.
Which to the better fate is known only to God. There are no records suggesting that Athenian practice allowed defendants to speak after sentencing. Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens jail. The ruins of the jail remain today. The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system.
Most scholars see the conviction and execution of Socrates as a deliberate choice made by the famous philosopher himself. If the accounts of Plato and Xenophon are reasonably accurate, Socrates sought not to persuade jurors, but rather to lecture and provoke them. The University's news digest summarises news from and about the University of Cambridge. Enter your email address, confirm you are happy to receive our emails and then select 'Subscribe'.
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Research at Cambridge. Home News Socrates was guilty as charged. Socrates was guilty as charged.
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