School
Trial of Socrates
Overview
The Trial of Socrates (399 BC) was held to determine the philosopher's guilt of two charges against the city of Athens: asebeia (impiety) and corruption of the youth. The accusers cited two impious acts: "failing to acknowledge the gods of the city" and "introducing new deities".
The death sentence of Socrates was the legal consequence of asking politico-philosophic questions of his students, which resulted in the two accusations of moral corruption and impiety. At trial, the majority of the dikasts (male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges; then, consistent with common legal practice, they voted to determine his punishment and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates's drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock.
His students offer accounts of the trial and execution in the Apology of Socrates by Plato, the Apology of Socrates to the Jury by Xenophon, and Xenophon's Memorabilia. Modern interpretations include The Trial of Socrates (1988) by the journalist I. F. Stone, Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (2009) by the Classics scholar Robin Waterfield, and The Shadows of Socrates: The Heresy, War, and Treachery behind the Trial of Socrates (2024) by the scholar Matt Gatton.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Now, as regards the trial of Socrates, we have to distinguish two points, the one the matter of the accusation, the judgment of the court, and the other the relation of Socrates to the sovereign people. In the course of justice there are thus these two parts—the relation of the accused to the matter on account of which he is accused, and his relation to the competency of the people, or the recognition of their…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
Opens on Trial of Socrates; names Trial of Socrates.
In former times the Council had full powers to inflict fines and imprisonment and death; but when it had consigned Lysimachus to the executioner, and he was sitting in the immediate expectation of death, Eumelides of Alopece rescued him from its hands, maintaining that no citizen ought to be put to death except on the decision of a court of law. Accordingly a trial was held in a law-court, and Lysimachus was…
Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution
The author is tied to Trial of Socrates in the knowledge graph.
On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to…
Plato, The Republic
The author is tied to Trial of Socrates in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Trial of Socrates
Related ideas
- Socratic dialogue
- Aristophanes
- Phaedo
- Polis
- Technocracy
- Classical Athens
- Meditations
- Crito of Alopece
- The Clouds
- Republic (Plato)
- Marcus Aurelius
- Oligarchy
- Plato
- Pythagoras
- Socrates
- Pythagoreanism
- Critias
- Thirty Tyrants
- Xenophon
- Sparta
- Sicilian Expedition
- Wikisource
- Euthyphro
- Wisdom
Place in the tradition
Part of Ancient Greek philosophy.