THE PROSECUTION OF SOCRATES
[399 B.C.]
Xenophon begins his Memorabilia of his revered master with declaring his wonder how the Athenians could have been persuaded to condemn to death a man of such uncommonly clear innocence and exalted worth. Ælianus, though for authority not to be compared with Xenophon, has nevertheless, we think, given the solution. “Socrates,” he says, “disliked the Athenian constitution. For he saw that democracy is tyrannical, and abounds with all the evils of absolute monarchy.” But though the political circumstances of the times made it necessary for contemporary writers to speak with caution, yet both Xenophon and Plato have declared enough to show that the assertion of Ælianus was well founded; and further proof, were it wanted, may be derived from another early writer, nearly contemporary, and deeply versed in the politics of his age, the orator Æschines. Indeed, though not stated in the indictment, yet it was urged against Socrates by his prosecutors before the court, that he was disaffected to the democracy; and in proof they affirmed it to be notorious that he had ridiculed what the Athenian constitution prescribed, the appointment to magistracy by lot. “Thus,” they said, “he taught his numerous followers, youths of the principal families of the city, to despise the established government, and to be turbulent and seditious; and his success had been seen in the conduct of two, the most eminent, Alcibiades and Critias. Even the best things he converted to these ill purposes: from the most esteemed poets, and particularly from Homer, he selected passages to enforce his anti-democratical principles.”
Socrates, it appears indeed, was not inclined to deny his disapprobation of the Athenian constitution. His defence itself, as it is reported by Plato, contains matter on which to found an accusation against him of disaffection to the sovereignty of the people, such as, under the jealous tyranny of the Athenian democracy, would sometimes subject a man to the penalties of high treason. “You well know,” he says, “Athenians, that, had I engaged in public business, I should long ago have perished, without procuring any advantage either to you or to myself. Let not the truth offend you: it is no peculiarity of your democracy, or of your national character; but wherever the people is sovereign, no man who shall dare honestly to oppose injustice, frequent and extravagant injustice, can avoid destruction.”
Without this proof indeed we might reasonably believe that, though Socrates was a good and faithful subject of the Athenian government, and would promote no sedition, no political violence, yet he could not like the Athenian constitution. He wished for wholesome changes by gentle means; and it seems even to have been a principal object of the labours to which he dedicated himself, to infuse principles into the rising generation that might bring about the desirable change insensibly. His scholars were chiefly sons of the wealthiest citizens, whose easy circumstances afforded leisure to attend him; and some of these, zealously adopting his tenets, others merely pleased with the ingenuity of his arguments and the liveliness of his manner, and desirous to emulate his triumphs over his opponents, were forward, after his example, to engage in disputation upon all the subjects on which he was accustomed to discourse. Thus employed and thus followed, though himself avoiding office and public business, those who governed or desired to govern the commonwealth through their influence among the many, might perhaps not unreasonably consider him as one who was, or might become, a formidable adversary; nor might it be difficult to excite popular jealousy against him.
Meletus, who stood forward as his principal accuser, was, according to Plato, not a man of any great consideration. He was soon joined by Lycon, one of the most powerful speakers of his time, and the avowed patron of the rhetoricians, who, as well as the poets, thought their interest injured by the moral philosopher’s doctrine. But Anytus, a man scarcely second to any in the commonwealth in rank and general estimation, who had held high command with reputation in the Peloponnesian War, and had been the principal associate of Thrasybulus in the war against the Thirty and the restoration of the democracy, declared himself a supporter of the prosecution. Nothing in the accusation could, by any known law of Athens, affect the life of the accused. In England no man would be put upon trial on so vague a charge: no grand jury would listen to it. But in Athens, if the party was strong enough, it signified little what was the law. When Lycon and Anytus came forward, Socrates saw that his condemnation was already decided.
By the course of his life, however, and by the turn of his thoughts for many years, he had so prepared himself for all events, that the probability of his condemnation, far from being alarming, was to him rather matter for rejoicing, as, at his age, a fortunate occurrence. Xenophon says that, by condescending to a little supplication, Socrates might easily have obtained his acquittal. It was usual for accused persons, when brought before the court, to bewail their apprehended lot, with tears to supplicate favour, and by exhibiting their children upon the bema, to endeavour to excite pity. No admonition or entreaty of his friends however could persuade him to such an unworthiness. He thought it, he said, more respectful to the court, as well as more becoming himself, to omit all this; however aware that their sentiments were likely so far to differ from his that judgment would be given in anger for it. Accordingly, when put upon his defence, he told the people that he did not plead for his own sake, but for theirs, wishing them to avoid the guilt of an unjust sentence.
Condemnation pronounced wrought no change upon him. He again addressed the court, declared his innocence of the matters laid against him, and observed that, even if every charge had been completely proved, still altogether did not, according to any known law, amount to a capital crime. “But,” in conclusion he said, “it is time to depart: I to die, you to live: but which for the greater good, God only knows.”
Socrates in Prison
It was usual at Athens for execution very soon to follow condemnation; commonly on the morrow. But it happened that the condemnation of Socrates took place on the eve of the day appointed for the sacred ceremony of crowning the galley which carried the annual offerings to the gods worshipped at Delos: and immemorial tradition forbade all executions till the sacred vessel’s return. Thus the death of Socrates was respited thirty days, while his friends had free access to him in the prison. During all that time he admirably supported his constancy. Means were concerted for his escape; the jailer was bribed, a vessel prepared, and a secure retreat in Thessaly provided. No arguments, no prayers could persuade him to use the opportunity. He had always taught the duty of obedience to the laws, and he would not furnish an example of the breach of it. To no purpose it was urged that he had been unjustly condemned: he had always held that wrong did not justify wrong. He waited with perfect composure the return of the sacred vessel, reasoned on the immortality of the soul, the advantage of virtue, the happiness derived from having made it through life his pursuit, and, with his friends about him, took the fatal cup, and died.
Writers who, after Xenophon and Plato, have related the death of Socrates, appear to have held themselves bound to vie with those who preceded them in giving pathos to the story. The purpose here has been rather to render it intelligible: to show its connection with the political history of Athens; to derive from it illustration of the political history. The magnanimity of Socrates, the principal factor of the pathos, surely deserves admiration; yet it is not that in which he has most outshone other men. The singular merit of Socrates lay in the purity and the usefulness of his manners and conversation; the clearness with which he saw, and the steadiness with which he practised, in a blind and corrupt age, all moral duties; the disinterestedness and the zeal with which he devoted himself to the benefit of others; and the enlarged and warm benevolence, whence his supreme and almost only pleasure seems to have consisted in doing good. The purity of Christian morality, little enough indeed seen in practice, nevertheless is become so familiar in theory that it passes almost for obvious, and even congenial to the human mind. Those only will justly estimate the merit of that near approach to it which Socrates made, who will take the pains to gather, as they may from the writings of his contemporaries and predecessors, how little conception was entertained of it before his time; how dull to a just moral sense the human mind has really been; how slow the progress in the investigation of moral duties, even where not only great pains have been taken, but the greatest abilities zealously employed; and, when discovered, how difficult it has been to establish them by proofs beyond controversy, or proofs even that should be generally admitted by the reason of men.
It is through the light which Socrates diffused by his doctrine enforced by his practice, with the advantage of having both the doctrine and the practice exhibited to highest advantage in the incomparable writings of disciples such as Plato and Xenophon, that his life forms an era in the history of Athens and of man.[b]
It is our great good fortune to possess a long and sympathetic description of the closing scenes of his life in the unsurpassed prose of his disciple Plato. Though told in the form of a dialogue and much too long for quotation in full, the presentation of Socrates is so vivid and veracious that a part of it must be given.[a]