1THE TRIAL
“I CANNOT SAY FOR CERTAIN, fellow Athenians, how you have been affected by the words of my accusers. What I do know is that they spoke so persuasively they almost made me forget who I was.”1
The year is 399 BCE. The philosopher Socrates, barefoot as usual and dressed in his threadbare cloak, has risen to address a jury of several hundred Athenian men crammed into a courtroom before him. They are in the Agora, the city center of Athens. Many of those present can barely contain their rage. What he says next only provokes them further.
“Some of you may think I am joking; I promise you I am not. It is my contention that I gained such a bad reputation among you precisely because of the wisdom I possess.” The courtroom remains quiet, but only because its occupants are momentarily stunned by this remark.
Socrates continues: “The philosophers who preceded me, and to whom I have been falsely compared, laid claim to a superhuman wisdom. They professed to know things that no man knows for certain: concerning the nature of the sun and moon and other such things. The wisdom that I acquired, by contrast, was the sort wholly appropriate to mortals. You have heard me say many times in the past that my own investigations have nothing to do with what is beneath the ground, in Hades, or high above us in the celestial realm of the gods. I am not that sort of philosopher.” With his bulging eyes, snub nose, balding head, and thick lips protruding through his beard, he reminds them of an oafish comedy character, or the bestial satyrs of legend—they don’t like the look of him and don’t trust him. Despite this, he glares at them and speaks with unapologetic self-assurance: “I have concerned myself with something much closer to home: ‘Whatsoever,’ to borrow a phrase from Homer, ‘is good or evil in a house.’ It is in this, the field of knowledge most appropriate to mortal life, that I do indeed call myself wise.”
Enraged jury members press against the railing, eyes blazing, as they noisily spit insults at the accused philosopher. A few even begin fighting among themselves. Socrates, though now in his seventies, is completely unfazed. He must pause, nevertheless, while the court officers, with some effort, restore order. His young wife, Xanthippe, and their children are not present. Nobody was surprised when he insisted they remain at home. Everyone, however, feels the absence of Chaerephon, Socrates’s childhood friend and fellow philosopher, who recently passed away. One of Socrates’s young students, Xenophon, who would go on to make a name for himself, is absent on military service. Most of his other friends are here: Crito, his lifelong companion, a wealthy agriculturalist who grew up in Alopece, the same Athenian deme (suburb) as Socrates; Phaedo of Elis, the beautiful young nobleman whom Socrates had rescued from a life of slavery after he was captured and sold to an Athenian brothel; Plato, one of Socrates’s wealthy young aristocratic students, who would one day become Athens’s most famous philosopher. Each one of them looks deeply concerned at the mounting hostility of the crowd.
A few days earlier, Meletus, a young aspiring poet, unknown to Socrates, with a long nose, unkempt beard, and lank hair, had nervously delivered a verbal summons to him. The streets of Athens were abuzz with talk of the charges. Five hundred jurors, plus one more to prevent a tied vote, had filed into the Heliaia, or supreme court, on the morning of the trial. They took their seats on benches before the litigants, separated from them by a sacred wooden railing, which helped to stop brawling. Hundreds of observers also crammed into the courtroom. The sun bore down cruelly on its occupants through an open roof. Above them, in the distance, atop the Acropolis, a colossal bronze statue of the goddess Athena watches over proceedings from beside the Parthenon, her temple.
The jury was composed only of male Athenian citizens above the age of thirty. Although chosen by lot, and therefore potentially from different walks of life, most were veterans of the Peloponnesian War, grateful for the three obols per day the state paid them to be here. Prayers were made and sacrifices offered to sanctify the proceedings. The air in the building was soon filled with sweet-smelling and musky incense smoke, which lingered throughout the day, reminding everyone of their oath to the gods. It also helped to cover the smell of hundreds of sweating bodies packed close together.
“I will vote according to the laws,” they pledged. “Concerning matters about which there are no laws,” the oath continued, “I will cast my vote according to the most just understanding of things, and not out of favor or enmity.” They promised to give the accusers and defendants equal hearing and to exclude from consideration any matters not bearing on the prosecution’s case. “I swear these things by Zeus, Apollo, and Demeter,” they murmured. In addition, they affirmed that the gods should bless them if they kept their word but curse them if it was broken.
Despite the solemn oath they took, one contemporary satirist claimed that many jurors were far too petty-minded to cast their votes dispassionately. They became intoxicated with self-importance, he said, at having the great and good of Athens cowering at their feet, particularly smug intellectuals like Socrates. According to Aristophanes, begging some of these jurymen for mercy would be as pointless as trying to cook a stone.2 He compared them to an angry swarm of wasps, who delighted in being able to inflict great pain. He also claimed that the court officials who oversaw proceedings were easily bribed. Jurors in Athens can’t all have resembled the embittered old busybodies he pours scorn upon, but his caricatures must have been recognizable to the theatergoers who laughed at them. The jurors perhaps also saw something of themselves in the lead character of another of Aristophanes’s plays, The Clouds, who ends up trying to teach Socrates a lesson by burning his school to the ground. From the outset, Athens’s most controversial philosopher was unlikely to receive a fair hearing.
The herald had formally announced the charges. “The following complaint was lodged under oath,” he stated, “by Meletus, son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, son of Sophroniscus of Alopece.” He read aloud the affidavit: “Socrates breaks the law because he does not recognize the gods recognized by the city, and because he introduces other new divinities; and he breaks the law because he corrupts the youth.”3 The jury then listened to Meletus speak, followed by Anytus and Lycon, the witnesses he called for the prosecution. Anytus, the most famous of the three, had inherited a prosperous tannery. Claiming to represent the interests of other craftsmen, he became a leading Democrat politician. As he had been accused of bribing an entire jury in the past, he asked or, according to one source, paid his friend Meletus to file today’s charges in his place. They were aided by Lycon, a rabble-rousing orator—we know little else about this man. Socrates claimed that the witnesses had perjured themselves by bearing false testimony against him. The jury were at last listening to the philosopher speak in his own defense before voting on his guilt and the death sentence that Meletus had officially requested.
Socrates, who had been pacing back and forth on the rostrum, now halts and turns toward the jurymen as he patiently requests not to be interrupted. “Some of you, I can see, are growing angry, but although it may seem like a presumptuous claim, wisdom was not the word chosen by me, but by Apollo, god of Delphi.” As soon as he mentions the god, the courtroom falls silent once more, except for the relentless trickling of the water clock beside the entrance, timing the proceedings. For a while, Socrates becomes motionless, his face frozen, brow furrowed. Lost in contemplation, he gazes into the distance over the heads of the jurymen. It was an expression very familiar to his friends, one that meant he was lost in deep contemplation. Watching him, some of them recalled a scene from decades ago, before an otherworldly temple, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. That was where his story really began, or so he liked to say. His boyhood friend, Chaerephon, was with him at the time, flapping his long, thin arms, as they both spoke excitedly about two famous words, inscribed upon a pillar by the threshold of Apollo’s temple.4
Delphi is several days’ trek northwest of Athens, on the mountain slopes where Apollo, the son of Zeus, had reputedly slain a dragon called Python. According to legend, Zeus had also cast down a great stone there, called the Omphalos or navel, because it marked the very center of the universe. This sacred boulder lay within the precinct of the Delphic temple of Apollo. Greeks from all around the Mediterranean would travel there every four years, to attend the Pythian Games, in honor of Apollo’s victory over the dragon. It was a mysterious place, full of treasures from distant lands. From this hallowed vantage point, in the mountains, worldly troubles seemed relatively fleeting and unimportant. One could almost believe that this was, indeed, the center of the universe. The temple also lay at the very center of philosophy—it was, in a sense, the birthplace of Greek wisdom.
There were two very important maxims inscribed at Delphi. The first, and by far the most famous, said: Gnothi Seauton, “Know thyself.”5 Socrates loved, and often referenced, this inscription, which he’d studied with his own eyes. For centuries to come, books many volumes long would be written by philosophers trying to interpret these two words. Standing at the entrance to the immortal god’s abode, the most obvious meaning was that we should remember that we are mortal and act accordingly—to know yourself is to know that you, unlike the gods, must die.6 Socrates considered philosophy to be, in a sense, a lifelong meditation on death. Having long reconciled himself to his own mortality, he is completely unperturbed by the threat of execution now looming over him.
“Most of you here knew Chaerephon,” says Socrates softly, breaking the silence. He turns his gaze once again toward his audience, slowly scanning the room, as he continues. “He had been my friend since childhood. He was your friend too. He went into exile with the people and returned to Athens after the Thirty Tyrants were defeated.” Many nod, and the courtroom remains quiet, although some expressions darken further still. Socrates continues: “A most impetuous man, he made the journey to Delphi and asked—” Several members of the jury abruptly resume their shouting, causing a disturbance and forcing him to wait while order is restored. Again, he politely requests not to be interrupted but has to raise his voice to be heard above the disgruntled murmurs.
“He asked—” Despite more angry cries from the jurymen, Socrates continues: “He asked the Oracle whether anyone was wiser than me. The god Apollo, spoke through the mouth of his priestess, replying that no man is wiser than Socrates.” Some jurymen begin to heckle him but are restrained by others, who urge them to hear the defendant out. Socrates gestures to the gallery. “Although my friend, Chaerephon, is no longer with us, his younger brother, Chaerecrates, is in court today and will confirm that every word I have just said is the truth.” At this, Chaerecrates nods slowly, his gaze fixed on Socrates—his eyes are already tearful because it seems clear to him how the day will end.
“Why mention this?” asks Socrates, leaning forward. He can see that bringing up the subject has upset many in the courtroom. “In order,” he says, lowering his voice and staring directly toward the most enraged, “to explain how I earned such a bad reputation.” Socrates waits for their murmurs to die down before beginning his story …
“When the Oracle’s pronouncement reached my ears, I was puzzled, and immediately asked myself: ‘What can Apollo possibly have meant by saying that I, Socrates, was the wisest of all men?’ That was a riddle to which I had as yet no answer. For I knew that I possessed no wisdom whatsoever, great or small. Nevertheless, Apollo is a god, and so it would go against his nature to speak falsely.” Indeed, as everyone present realizes, it would have been an outrage for Socrates to have stood in court and accused the god of lying.
“After thinking about this for a long time, I came up with a method of testing his answer. I realized that if I could find someone wiser than myself, I would be able to return to Delphi and present the god with contrary evidence. By pointing out an apparent exception to his claim, I would force him to clarify his meaning. Indeed, I would proceed somewhat as one might here, in court, when challenging the testimony of a witness. I would say: ‘You stated that I am the wisest of all men but here is a man who is obviously wiser than me.’7 I therefore went straight to someone who had an outstanding reputation for wisdom, a famous statesman, whose name I need not mention.8 Once I began to talk with him in person, it became impossible for me to believe that he was really wise, although he was thought to be so by a great many people, most of all by himself.
“I tried to show him that though he believed himself to be extremely wise,” says Socrates, “he was mistaken. As a result, he grew to resent me, and his hatred was shared by several of his friends who overheard our conversation. As I left their company, I began thinking to myself that although I could not believe that either of us knew anything genuinely important about ‘the good,’ or the goal of life, I was better off than him. Despite knowing nothing, he mistakenly believed that he knew things of great importance. I, on the other hand, neither knew nor believed that I knew such things. In this regard alone, therefore, I appeared to have an advantage over these sorts of men: I realized that I was ignorant concerning the true nature of goodness, beauty, and other such things.
“So I continued my search, going from one man to another, testing those who had pretensions of wisdom in the same way. As I did so, many others turned against me. Some spread rumors, others berated me, and a few even assaulted me with their fists in the street. All this I endured without complaint. To become angry with my attackers seemed as pointless to me as blaming an ass for kicking me or a dog for barking at me. At first, I was quite concerned about the animosity that my questions provoked. I felt, however, that my only choice was to persevere. The word of Apollo was more important than my own reputation. I was committed to seeking out anyone who appeared to have knowledge, in order to solve the riddle of his oracle.
“These were the mighty Labors of Heracles that I undertook. I wandered from one place to another, in search of a wise man. And I swear by the dog, citizens of Athens, that I must tell you the truth about my mission’s outcome. What I discovered, after much investigation, was that the men with the greatest reputation for wisdom were often the most foolish. Others whom the majority held in lower esteem were, in fact, much wiser and better men.” This draws murmurs from the jury, not all of whom take issue with Socrates’s remark.
“My labors caused me to acquire enemies, many of whom were influential men, and this is the sole reason for my current predicament. I am called ‘wise’ by those who imagine that I possess the wisdom I find lacking in others. The truth is, however, that only God is wise. What Apollo meant to show through his pronouncement was that the wisdom of men is of little or no value by comparison. When he used my name it was as an example of a more general truth, as if he were saying, ‘He is the wisest, who, like Socrates, realizes that his apparent wisdom is worth nothing.’ After all these efforts, therefore, I was forced to conclude that the Oracle’s pronouncement could not be refuted, but I also believed that I was closer to understanding its meaning.”
Socrates was not behaving as a man on trial was expected to behave. These words, in particular, rubbed many jurors the wrong way, as he appeared to have called into question their own wisdom. Since there were no judges in Athenian courts, everything had to be addressed to the jurymen. Socrates went against convention by referring to them simply as his fellow Athenians rather than more formally as “men of the jury”—he did not seem to regard them as his judges.
“So I go about the world, in obedience to the god,” he continues, “searching for signs of genuine wisdom in those, whether citizens or foreigners, who appear to be wise. If they are shown to be lacking in wisdom, the oracle is vindicated. This calling has consumed my life so much that I have no spare time for any matters of public interest, or any private concerns of my own. In fact, I find myself living in poverty because of my devotion to philosophy and my service to Apollo.”
Socrates had a way of striding around, fixing his gaze intently on those to whom he was speaking, which made some of the jurymen feel like sprats being stalked by a hungry pelican. Many were aggrieved by the sense that they were the ones being placed on trial by the accused. Despite their hostile looks, he continues: “Some of you will say: ‘Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have followed a path in life that is bound to lead you to an untimely death?’ You are mistaken, though, if you believe that a good man should make his decisions by calculating the chances of living or dying. He ought to consider only whether he is doing right or wrong. Otherwise, by your standard, we must suppose Achilles and the other heroes who fell at Troy to have been worthless individuals. For they risked their lives, according to Homer, despising dishonor more than they feared danger. Indeed, wherever a man’s place is, whether through his own choice or at the behest of his commander, there he ought to remain. Even in the hour of greatest danger, he should stand his ground, paying heed only to his honor and not, for one moment, fearing death.
“I was ordered, along with the other soldiers, to remain at my post and look death in the face by the generals you elected to command us at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis. Would it not be strange, therefore, men of Athens, if I now did the opposite and fled from danger? Apollo has ordered me, as I understand it, to follow the mission of a philosopher rather than that of a soldier. The path of philosophy has led me to this courtroom, where I now face the threat of execution. It would be both strange and contradictory of you to praise me for facing death in order to protect our city but blame me for doing so in order to preserve the character of its citizens. Of what value, indeed, are the city walls if the men within them are no good?
“The truth,” he continues, “is that if I had disobeyed the oracle of Apollo, by abandoning my philosophical calling out of the fear of facing a death sentence, you might have arraigned me for impiety with greater justification. For then I would indeed have been laying claim to godlike knowledge, fancying that I was wise in areas where I was not. The greatest of man’s fears, the fear of death, is, after all, a pretense of wisdom. It cannot be real wisdom because it falsely lays claim to knowledge of the unknown. Nobody is even certain whether death, which the fearful assume to be life’s greatest evil, may not, in fact, be our greatest good. This is the worst sort of ignorance, which I call double ignorance. For, ignorant of his own ignorance, man conceitedly takes himself to know what he does not know.
“Those who make an exhibition of themselves, begging teary-eyed for your mercy, behave as though they will suffer something dreadful upon dying. They act as though they could somehow be immortal if only you allowed them to continue living. In one key respect I consider myself to differ from, and perhaps to be wiser than, these and other men. Although I know very little about Hades, the world below, I do not pretend to know anything about it, nor do I expect to live forever. I do know, however, that injustice is an evil and that disobedience to one’s better, whether god or man, is both foolish and dishonorable. Never, therefore, will I fear what is possibly good more than I fear what is certainly evil.
“Suppose you were to say to me, ‘Socrates, we will turn a deaf ear to your accusers. You may go free, as long as you abandon philosophy, but if you are ever caught doing it again you shall be executed.’ I would reply, ‘Men of Athens, I honor you, and I love you, but I shall obey the god Apollo and not you. While I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice of philosophy, and I shall continue to exhort anyone I meet to do the same.’” He turns toward the audience and glares at them, in his notorious fashion, from under his thick eyebrows. “‘You are my friend,’ I shall say, ‘a citizen of the great city of Athens. Are you not ashamed of heaping up money and reputation, while caring so little about wisdom and the improvement of your soul?’
“If he replies that he does care, I will cross-examine him thoroughly. If I think he has no wisdom or virtue in him, but only says that he has, I will rebuke him both for undervaluing the most important things in life and for overvaluing less important things. I shall continue telling this to everyone I meet, young and old, Athenian or foreigner, but especially to the citizens, as they are my kinsmen. For I do nothing but go around persuading you all, old and young alike, not to worry about your reputation or your property but to make it your greatest concern to achieve the greatest improvements possible in your own character. Moral wisdom is not acquired through money. On the contrary, such wisdom is a source of true wealth and everything else that is good for man and for the city. I do this at the command of Apollo, and I am confident that no greater good has ever befallen Athens than my pursuit of philosophy, in his service.
“No man here can deny that this is my teaching. If you believe that this doctrine corrupts the youth, then you may perhaps conclude that I am a criminal. What puzzles me, however, is how you could believe that any man would deliberately intend to make his own city worse. In doing so he would, of course, harm not only others but also himself. Perhaps you might assume that I am so foolish that in attempting to teach wisdom and virtue, despite my best efforts, I accidentally achieve the opposite. Yet our law does not punish one for doing harm unintentionally, but only for doing so deliberately. Whether or not you find me guilty, and even if you sentence me to death, as my accusers desire, understand that I shall never turn my back on philosophy, even if you were able to execute me many times over.”
Upon hearing these brazen words of defiance, the jury erupts. Hundreds of bodies, crowded into the court, press forward, yelling, arms flailing, while others try, with difficulty, to pacify or at least restrain the outraged mob. Socrates pauses briefly, amid cries of “Step down! Step down!” peppered with coarse insults. He stares directly into their eyes. Again, he asks the members of the jury to calm themselves and be patient. They had agreed to hear him until his time was up on the water clock, and a few minutes still remain. “Men of Athens, please do not interrupt me,” he says. “I have one more thing to say, which may cause you to cry out loud, but I believe that to hear it will be good for you, so I beg you to listen.
“If you kill a man such as I am,” he says, “you will injure yourselves far more than you injure me. Nothing you can do will ever injure me. My accusers, indeed, cannot harm me. For, as I shall explain, nature will never permit a bad man to injure one who is good. They may, of course, have me killed, or driven into exile, and even confiscate what little property is mine. They may imagine, as others will, that they are inflicting great harm on me by doing so. There we must disagree. For, in truth, the evil of wrongly taking a life, or inflicting any other form of unjust punishment, is far greater than the evil of suffering it.”
Moments before, nothing could be heard in that court above the roar of the indignant mob. Now the room has become very still and quiet once again. The water clock is beginning to run out. Socrates ends the silence, turning to face his fellow Athenians. “Anytus and Meletus may kill me,” he says, “but they cannot harm me.”
THE PRACTICE OF DEATH CONTEMPLATION
HOW ARE WE TO REMEMBER who we really are when, throughout our lives, powerful and often eloquent voices seek to persuade us of something else? We can begin from the simple premise that what appears to be true may turn out to be false. Socrates developed a method to help us distinguish between appearance and reality and expose the conceit of wisdom in ourselves and others. Those who believed themselves most wise were typically the ones who left his company feeling most foolish. Some people believe that philosophy can be learned by reading books, memorizing the best parts, and repeating what they have read. Socrates believed that this leads not to real wisdom but to the illusion, or appearance, that you possess wisdom—opinions rather than knowledge.
Philosophy, for Socrates, was a practice and a way of life. The Socratic method begins with a negative revelation: the insight that we cannot acquire wisdom from books in the same way that we acquire onions from a greengrocer. Wisdom cannot be purchased, at any price, from the labor of other people. It can only come from our own efforts. The Socratic method is an active process of thinking. Its constant refrain is “Yes but…,” because it happily seeks out one exception after another to our definitions, assumptions, and other verbal rules. It forces us to think for ourselves by continually placing in question our most important assumptions and values, such as our goals for self-improvement.
Copyright © 2024 by Donald J. Robertson
