Trial of socrates lycon

The trial began with a reading of the formal charges: "Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and he believes in other new divinities of his own. On May , almost 2, years later, the trial of Socrates is repeated. This time Socrates is acquitted in a historical trial which was not a re-enactment but a modern perspective based on current legal framework supplemented with ancient Greek elements and comical theatrics.

The Onassis Foundation found advocates for its venture, top American and European judges and lawyers, who all examined the trial material retrieved from ancient texts by Plato Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Phaedo , Xenophon Memorabilia and Aristophanes The Clouds , as well as the corresponding Athenian law of that time. If you want to enjoy embedded rich media, please customize your cookie settings to allow for Performance and Targeting cookies.

Customize Cookies. Plato's Meno offers some possible clues as to the animosity between Anytus and Socrates. In the Meno , Plato reports that Socrates's argument that the great statesmen of Athenian history have nothing to offer in terms of an understanding of virtue enrages Anytus.

Plato quotes Anytus as warning Socrates: "Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. Anytus had an additional personal gripe with Socrates.

Socrates had a relationship with the son of Anytus. Plato quotes Socrates as saying, "I has a brief association with the son of Anytus, and I found him not lacking in spirit. Anytus almost certainly disapproved of his son's relationship with Socrates. Adding to Anytus's displeasure must have been the advice Socrates gave to his son. According to Xenophon, Socrates urged his son not to "continue in the servile occupation [tanning hides] that his father has provided for him.

Little is known about the third accuser, Lycon. He is described as "an orator," another profession Socrates held in especially low regard. Socrates contended that orators were less concerned with the pursuit of truth than in using their oratorical skills to obtain power and influence. Diogenes Laertius, writing in the third century C. Laertius's use of the word "demagogue" suggests that Lycon may have been a supporter of the common man in Socrates' view, perhaps, a rabble-rouser. As such, he likely perceived Socrates as a threat to the democracy he highly valued.

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 trial of Socrates thus became the most interesting suicide the world has ever seen. Had he wanted to, Socrates could have won an acquittal. The closeness of the vote shows that there was nothing inevitable about his sentence.

If he had been less condescending, less confrontational, less arrogant; if he had argued he was just exercising his basic right of free speech, a right of which Athenians were justly proud, jurors might have been more receptive.

He was uncompromising. He showed no hint of respect for Athens or her institutions in his defense. For Socrates, being a good person came first; being a good citizen was a poor second. As a matter of personal integrity, he made Athenians choose between their love of freedom and their love of community—and, in the end, they chose community. Socrates knew how to die. The manner in which he chose to die enhanced his reputation among his associates and made him the first great martyr for the cause of free speech, a sort of secular saint.

Stone observed, just as Jesus needed the cross to fulfill his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfill his. The Trial of Socrates. Socrates rubbing chin and Plato under tree from a mosaic from Pompeii Writing in the third-century C. Bust of Aristophanes Other plays of the time offer additional clues as to the reputation of Socrates in Athens.

Royal Stoa scene of the preliminary hearing for Socrates The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document: This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities.

Guilt Phase of Trial The trial began in the morning with the reading of the formal charges against Socrates by a herald.