The Last Days of Socrates

Socrates turns to cross-examining Meletus, one of the men who brought the charges against him, asking him who can make the youth of Athens better men. His answer is everyone except Socrates. Socrates argues that training someone requires specialized knowledge, using horse training as an example. Thus, it cannot be true that just anyone could make the youth of Athens better.

His questioning further shows that it would be self-defeating to corrupt the youth intentionally because depraved people would be dangerous to have around. They would be more likely to do Socrates damage. Thus, Socrates concludes that Meletus’ charges are false. If Socrates has indeed been corrupting the youth, it was unintentional, meaning there are no grounds for court action.

Socrates questions Meletus about the charges concerning the gods. Meletus accuses him of not believing in any. Socrates accuses him of not being credible, since everyone knows that the beliefs Meletus attributes to Socrates are Anaxagoras’s. Further, Socrates points out, Meletus contradicts himself by saying that Socrates believes in new gods and that he doesn’t believe in any gods. He points out that it is not possible to believe in divine things but not divinity. Since Socrates believes in divine things, he must believe in gods. He concludes that Meletus has brought the charges either as a joke or because he could not come up with a credible charge.

Addressing a potential criticism against his behavior and the hatred it has incited, Socrates reiterates that the only consideration guiding a man’s behavior should be “whether his actions are just or unjust” and those of a good or bad man (76). He uses the example of Achilles in the Iliad, who did not consider whether avenging his companion Patroclus would lead to his death. He points out that just as Achilles took orders from his commanders at war, Socrates took orders from the god when he was commanded to live a philosophical life, examining himself and others, regardless of whether it led to his death. In that case, he would have been guilty of being both an atheist and unwise, as he would have been claiming to know things that he does not know.

If the court acquits him on the condition that he no longer continue his practice, he will not stop even if threatened with death because he is obeying what the god commanded him to do, which is to make his fellow citizens better men. They cannot harm him because a lesser man cannot damage a better one. By defending himself, he is defending these men and the city itself, since they will not find another man like him who is willing to prod them to care more for virtue than anything else, even to the point of disregarding his own affairs.

If the assembly finds it strange that he only practices his method as a private citizen, Socrates tells them, this is because he would not have survived long as a public figure and thus would not have been able to benefit men and the city as he has.

He cites two examples of actions he took while serving the city in a public capacity that prove he has never acted out of fear of death but only love of what is just: the court case that resulted in putting to death the generals who lost at the battle of Arginusae in 406 and his refusal to carry out the orders of the Thirty Tyrants to bring a man to Athens for execution.

He asserts that he is the same man in public and private. If he had corrupted youths, surely they or their fathers would have brought charges against him previously. Instead, they sit in the audience ready to defend him.

He asserts that he will not bring his family or young sons to the court or to beg to be acquitted. If he cannot convince the jurors that it is just to acquit him, then it would be wrong for him to be let off. He would be convincing them to break their own oaths. He asks them not to hold that against him, for if he were to use emotional appeals, then he would indeed be behaving impiously and proving himself an atheist, which he asserts that he is not.

After Socrates is found guilty, he gives a second speech in which he professes that his only surprise is that the margin for conviction was so small. Meletus has proposed the death penalty. Socrates addresses what should be done with him, given that he has sacrificed everything most people care about to serve the men of the city.

First, he suggests that his “penalty” should be to be fed at public expense (86). A fine or exile would not be acceptable, the former because Socrates could not pay it, the latter because if his own city does not want him, he has no reason to believe any other would. He would spend his last years as a fugitive.

His friends in the audience pass him a note offering to contribute money for a fine, but he is condemned to death a second time, by a larger margin.

In his final address to court, he asserts that he has been condemned because he refuses to resort to “effrontery and shamelessness” by “wailing and lamenting” (89). He reaffirms that he would not change anything about his defense because he behaved according to what he believes is just. Fear of death does not influence his actions. He predicts that those who have put him to death will be worse off without him because they cannot murder their way out of being reproached for wrong-thinking actions.

He concludes that what has happened to him must be a good thing. If death is like sleep, then eternity and a good night’s sleep will be indistinguishable. If death is moving to an underworld where the great judges and heroes reside, then he will die happily since he will have a chance to continue practicing his examination of men and women.

He concludes that the best way to get back at him and act justly would be to correct his own sons, if they do wrong in the future, as he has corrected the men of Athens.