The Trial of Socrates - Bronx High School of Science
HW for Tuesday, Nov. 9: As a juror yourself, prepare a one minute statement on Socrates’ guilt or innocence to help convince others of your point of view.
The Trial of Socrates
There were two charges against Socrates: first, that he had violated the law by "refusing to do reverence to the gods recognized by the city, and introducing other new divinities," and second, "corrupting the youth."
The trial and execution of Socrates in Athens in 399 B.C.E. puzzles historians. Why, in a society enjoying more freedom and democracy than any the world had ever seen, would a seventy-year-old philosopher be put to death for what he was teaching? What could Socrates have said or done that prompted a jury of 500 Athenians to send him to his death just a few years before he would have died naturally? What appears almost certain is that the decisions to prosecute and ultimately convict Socrates had a lot to do with the chaotic history of Athens in the several years preceding his trial.
The heart of your argument will revolve around these questions: did Socrates’ skepticism [doubting attitude] and questioning of Athenian democracy undermine Athenian society? Or did his questioning and criticism make the society healthier and stronger? Should a democracy impose limits on the rights of its citizens when it feels itself at risk?
Questions to guide you as you look through the materials:
➢ Was Socrates impious (against religion)? Had his views caused the gods to turn against Athens?
➢ Was questioning the gods really such a bad thing? Don’t we believe in a spirit of scientific reasoning?
➢ Was Socrates against Athenian democracy? Hadn’t he encouraged tyrants like Alcibiades and Critias?
➢ Since Socrates never held a political position himself, why should he be held responsible for the later actions of some youth who listened to him speak?
➢ Did Socrates’ belief in individualism undermine patriotism to Athens?
➢ Isn’t it the right of every Athenian citizen to express his views? Doesn’t this help rather than harm the state?
➢ Can we allow such an evil man to keep spreading his views and endanger Athens?
➢ Why condemn him now, after a lifetime of speaking out?
Background
Growing to adulthood in this bastion of democracy, Socrates developed a set of values and beliefs that would put him at odds with most of his fellow Athenians. Socrates was not a democrat or an egalitarian, one who believed in equality. To him, the people should not be self-governing; they were like a herd of sheep that needed direction. He denied that citizens had the basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society, instead equating virtue with a knowledge unattainable by ordinary people. Striking at the heart of Athenian democracy, he criticized the right of every citizen to speak in the Athenian assembly.
The reputation of Socrates with his fellow citizens suffered during two periods in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in 411-410 and another slightly longer period in 404-403. The leaders of both of the anti-democratic movements were former pupils of Socrates, Alcibiades and Critias. Athenians undoubtedly considered the teachings of Socrates--especially his expressions of disdain for the established constitution--partially responsible for the resulting death and suffering.
Critias, without question, was the more frightening of the two former pupils of Socrates. I.F. Stone describes Critias as a cruel and inhumane man "determined to remake the city to his own antidemocratic mold whatever the human cost." The Thirty Tyrants oligarchy Critias led confiscated the land of Athenian aristocrats, banished 5,000 women, children, and slaves, and executed about 1,500 of Athen's most prominent democrats.
One incident involving Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants would later become an issue at his trial. The oligarchy asked Socrates to arrest Leon of Salamis so that he might be executed. Socrates refused to do so. Socrates would point to his resistance to the order as evidence of his good conduct. On the other hand, Socrates neither protested the decision nor took steps to warn Leon of Salamis of the order for his arrest--he just went home. While citizens of Athens were being killed right and left, Socrates--so far as we know--did or said nothing to stop the violence.
The horrors brought on by the Thirty Tyrants caused Athenians to look at Socrates in a new light. His teachings no longer seemed so harmless. He was no longer a lovable town eccentric. Socrates--and his icy logic--came to be seen as a dangerous and corrupting influence, a breeder of tyrants and enemy of the common man.
A general amnesty issued in 403 meant that Socrates could not be prosecuted for any of his actions during or before the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. He could only be charged for his actions during the four years before his trial in 399 B.C. It appears that Socrates, unashamed of the antidemocratic revolts, resumed his teachings and once again began attracting a similar band of youthful followers. The final straw may well have been another antidemocratic uprising--this one unsuccessful--in 401. Athens finally had enough of "Socratified" youth.
On the charge of “refusing to do reverence to the gods”
Piety had a broad meaning. It included respect for the gods, for the dead and ancestors. The impious individual was seen as someone who, if not controlled or punished, might bring upon the city the wrath of the gods--Athena, Zeus, or Apollo. By the end of the 400s, Athens was in intellectual confusion, with all kinds of new ideas and practices being introduced, and there was growing resentment among the general populace towards these intellectuals, some of whom were openly atheist, and the power they held.
This resentment increased after the plague in 430 BC and the city's defeat by Sparta in 404 BC. What was going wrong? Were these intellectuals, with their newfangled religious ideas, to blame? Had the gods deserted Athens? People suspected that the decline in religious standards had actually contributed to Athens losing. Athens' gods had got fed up with it, if you like. They were trying to recreate the kind of religious devotion that they thought had prevailed in times of Athens' success back in the Persian war years and shortly afterwards.
Socrates, for them, got in the way of this project of trying to create a more religious Athens. Whether or not he admits it straight out, Socrates was introducing revolutionary ideas about what it meant to be religious. For him, real piety was about 'goodness,' a revolutionary idea at the time. Furthermore, the way to develop and honor goodness wasn't through sacrifice and ritual, but through philosophy. Any number of words and actions of Socrates may have contributed to his impiety charge. A vague charge such as impiety invited jurors to project their many and varied grievances against Socrates.
On the charge of “corrupting the youth”
If I. F. Stone is right, the most damaging accusation against Socrates concerned his association with Critias, the cruel leader of the Thirty Tyrants. In Stone's view, the central fact remained that in the city's darkest hour, Socrates "never shed a tear for Athens." As for the charge that his teachings encouraged the anti-democratic revolt of Critias and his cohorts, Socrates denied responsibility. He argued that he never presumed to be a teacher, just a figure who roamed Athens answering the questions that were put to him.
I.F. Stone: An Interview on the Trial of Socrates
The Athens of Socrates’ time has gone down in history as the very place where democracy and freedom of speech were born. Yet that city put Socrates, its most famous philosopher, to death. Free discussion was the rule everywhere – in the Assembly, the law courts, the theatre. Free speech was as much taken for granted as breathing. But these people and this city – how could they have condemned this philosopher to death? How could so blatant a violation of free speech occur in a city that prided itself on freedom of inquiry and expression? How do you account for his condemnation?
I believe the case against Socrates was political and that the charge of corrupting the youth was based on a belief – and considerable evidence – that he was undermining their faith in Athenian democracy. Socrates remained in the city all through the dictatorship of the Thirty Tyrants. The Thirty Tyrants ruled only about eight months, but it was a time of terror. In that period they executed 1,500 Athenians and banished 5,000, one-tenth or more of the total population of men, women, children and slaves.
When the Thirty Tyrants took power, they murdered or drove out of the city all who were of the democratic party. Socrates was neither exiled with the democrats nor forced to flee with the moderate oppositionists. Socrates, in Plato’s "Apology," calls himself "the gadfly" of Athens [someone who speaks his mind], but it seems his sting was not much in evidence when Athens needed it most.
Under the Thirty Tyrants, Socrates said, he had also resisted an unjust order. Socrates and four others had been ordered to arrest a wealthy resident whom the dictatorship wanted to kill so they could seize his property. Such executions were common under Critias. Instead of obeying the order, Socrates says, "I simply went home, and perhaps I should have been put to death for it, if the Government had not quickly been put down." But he himself neither helped put it down, nor tried to warn the victim, nor made a protest. Though he was always preaching virtue, he did not, like the Hebrew prophets, call such unvirtuous rulers publicly to account.
Nowhere do we find Socrates resisting the overthrow of the democracy, nor welcoming its restoration. The dictatorship of the thirty Tyrants was the dictatorship of the wealthy landed aristocracy. This was the social circle from which most of Socrates’ followers were drawn. Athens understood this.
Xenophon reports that "the accuser" said Socrates "taught his pupils to look down upon the established laws” by criticizing the method of filling many minor offices in Athens by lot, and by teaching them that government should be left to experts instead of being determined by popular debate and vote in the assembly. The "accuser" said Socrates thus led the young "to despise the established constitution and made them violent." The question was what kind of politics Socrates taught Critias. From everything we learn elsewhere in Plato and Xenophon, it was an antidemocratic politics.
The accuser had charged that Socrates used certain passages from Homer to teach his young aristocratic followers to be violent and tyrannical. Homer said that the common people had no right to be heard. There could be no more sensitive point with the Athenian democrats. The right to speak freely in the assembly was the foundation stone of Athenian democracy. In their eyes, this episode in Homer would seem to justify the violent tyranny they had so recently overthrown. Athens felt that Socrates was still instilling disrespect for its democratic institutions, and feared an attempt to overthrow the democracy again.
The Trial
Criminal trials in Athens were unlike those we are familiar with. Any citizens could bring a criminal accusation against another citizens and act as “prosecuting attorney.” (There were certain safeguards to prevent baseless accusations). The trial of Socrates took place over a nine-to-ten hour period in the People's Court, located in the agora, the civic center of Athens. The jury consisted of 500 male citizens over the age of thirty, chosen by lot. Most of the jurors were probably farmers. The trial began in the morning with the reading of the formal charges against Socrates by a herald. The prosecution presented its case first. The three accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, presented their argument for guilt. Socrates gave a defiant speech. He seemed to invite condemnation and death.
When the 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.
TIMELINE
460 B.C.E. Pericles rises to prominence as a leading statesmen of Athens. Approximate date for the beginning of "The Golden Age of Greece": under Pericles' leadership democracy and culture flourish and the Greek empire spreads.
432 B.C.E. Socrates participates in a battle against a defecting colony (Potidaea). During the battle, he saves the life of Alcibiades, a former student who would later become known for his deceit and treason.
431 B.C.E. Peloponnesian War begins between Sparta and Athens. Athenians retreat within their city walls in hopes that their navy will win the war. Socrates serves as a hoplite (a heavy infantryman armed with a shield, a spear, and a sword), winning praise for his bravery.
430 B.C.E. A terrifying plague begins in Athens. It will last for about four years and kill over one-third of the population of Athens. Pericles is blamed for the war and its resulting misery; he is deposed.
429 B.C.E. Pericles is reinstated, but soon dies from the plague. The political structure of Athens is in ruin. The plague seems also to have had a devastating effect on morals.
416 B.C.E. Athenian forces besiege Melos. When Melos surrenders, Athenian forces nonetheless kill all the men, enslave the women and children, and open the island to settlement by Athenians. Socrates remains silent about this barbarism.
414 B.C.E. Aristophanes's play Birds is performed for the first time. In the play, Aristophanes refers to pro-Spartan youth as "Socratified."
411 B.C.E. Alcibiades, Socrates's favorite Athenian politician, is a prime mover in the overthrow of democracy in Athens. The dictatorship of the Four Hundred takes power.
410 B.C.E. After four months in power, the dictatorship of the Four Hundred is deposed and replaced with a democratic regime: the Council of Five Thousand.
404 B.C.E. Athens falls to Sparta, led by Lysander, who imposes the harsh, oligarchic Rule of the Thirty Tyrants. Critias, a former pupil of Socrates, leads the Rule of the Thirty with an iron fist. Socrates and four others are ordered to arrest Leon of Salamis, a democrat. Socrates refuses and simply “goes home.” Leon is arrested and put to death.
403 B.C.E. Democracy is restored in a violent overthrow of the Rule of the Thirty. The Amnesty of Eucleides is passed completely revising Athenian law and pardoning all prior offenses.
401 B.C.E. Another attempt (after the successful attempts of 411 and 404) is made to overthrow Athenian democracy. This one, in which young men associated with Socrates play a prominent role, is beat back.
399 B.C.E. Socrates is charged with "corrupting the youth" of Athens and "not believing in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings."
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