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Socrates' Times and Trial

The Athenian philosopher Socrates is a cultural hero in Western civilization. Tried in 3991 on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth, convicted and put to death, he is seen by his admirers, and even by his critics, not as a criminal but as a martyr on behalf of free speech and the unfettered pursuit of truth. If philosophy made saints, he would be considered a saint. The ancient Roman orator and philosophical writer Cicero credited him with changing the course of Western philosophy. Before Socrates, philosophy was primarily concerned with the explanation of nature. Socrates, said Cicero, "was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods and evils" (Tusculan Disputations V.10). Socrates made philosophy, we would say today, relevant to human life. These claims alone make Socrates worthy of study.

Socrates the Man: His Life and Times

Socrates was both a creature of his times and a shaper of those times. In order to understand his philosophy we must understand the events that shaped his life. Socrates was born in about 469, and he was an Athenian citizen. His father Sophroniscus was a stone­cutter, who would surely have passed on his trade to his son. We do not see Socrates practicing this trade in Plato's dialogues, though he does refer to the legendary sculptor, Daedalus, as his ancestor at Euthyphro 11b-c. His mother Phainarete, whose name means something like "brings virtue to light," was a midwife. It is his mother's trade to which he refers as being similar to his own at Theaetetus 149a-151b. Socrates grew up in a period of Athens' greatest power and glory, and experienced her downfall in his adulthood. The rise to power of Athens is described by the Greek historian Herodotus. In 490 the Athenians at the battle of Marathon defeated an invading force sent by the Persian king Darius. In 480, under the leadership of the Athenian statesman Themistocles, a Greek fleet, made up primarily of Athenian ships, defeated another, much larger, Persian fleet under the command of Darius' son Xerxes at the battle of Salamis. In the following year, the Persians were defeated again in battle and expelled from Greece. The leading Greek military power at the time was Sparta, with whom the Athenians fought in coalition against the invading Persians. Following the defeat of the Persians the Athenians organized an alliance of Greek city-states in the area around the Aegean Sea to prevent another Persian invasion. This alliance became an Athenian empire, and Athens became the leading naval power in the eastern Mediterranean. The rise of Athenian power threatened the Spartans, and tensions grew between Athens and Sparta throughout the fifth century, culminating in the Peloponnesian War (431-404), the story of which is told by Thucydides (down to 411) and Xenophon (after that date). This war led to the complete defeat of Athens and the loss of her empire.

Socrates was born following the great victories of the Persian Wars, and lived as an adult during the Peloponnesian War. Plato tells us that he served in the Athenian army in three campaigns; two characters in Plato's dialogues, the general Laches and Alcibiades, praise him for his courage. Following the Athenian defeat in 404 the Spartans imposed on Athens, which had been the leading democracy in Greece, an oligarchic government known as "the Thirty." This government was so hated and feared by most of the citizens of Athens that it acquired the name, "the Thirty Tyrants." The Thirty ruled in Athens only briefly, from 404 to 403, but their rule was a reign of terror, in which many innocent Athenians were put to death and their fortunes confiscated. Many partisans of democracy went into exile. In 403 the democratic exiles defeated the forces of the Thirty in battle and restored the democracy. Socrates remained in Athens throughout this time, which may have caused some resentment among the exiles. The restored democracy passed an amnesty for all who might have participated in the crimes committed prior to or during the rule of the Thirty, except for the Thirty themselves and their associates.

The Intellectual Revolution of the Fifth Century

The latter half of the fifth century was a period of intellectual ferment in Greece, and especially in Athens. Numerous Greek city-states, following the lead of Athens, established democratic governments, supplanting older monarchies and oligarchies. Ancient Greek democratic government was direct, not representative. That is, the citizens of a democracy did not elect representatives to vote on laws for the state; rather, they met in assemblies themselves to vote. These public meetings could be tumultuous. A great premium was placed in a democratic government on the ability of a speaker to express his views clearly and persuasively. This gave rise to a group of teachers who traveled among the city-states, especially the democratic ones, offering courses on rhetoric, the art of public speaking. Some of these teachers also taught other subjects as well, including in some cases mathematics, natural science, and political theory. These itinerant teachers were known collectively as "Sophists," a term that literally means "wise men." In Plato's dialogues we meet several of these Sophists. Plato contrasted Socrates strongly with the Sophists, and he had a rather low opinion of them as a group. As a result the term "sophist" has acquired a negative connotation. To some extent this negative view of the Sophists could be found among the ordinary citizens of Athens. The Sophists taught people how to argue persuasively; some people charged that they made the worse or weaker argument appear the better or stronger. That is, they thought the Sophists were guilty of some form of intellectual chicanery. In the minds of many Athenians Socrates was indistinguishable from the Sophists. Plato, of course, thought this confusion completely unjustified, but not many Athenians knew Socrates as well as he did.

Though some Athenians distrusted the Sophists, what they promised - the ability to speak persuasively in public - was highly prized, and the Sophists commanded large fees for their teaching. Socrates was an exception to this practice; he did not charge his associates2 for conversing with him, and he denied being a teacher. The Sophists brought new ideas, and not just ideas concerning rhetoric, wherever they went. The most famous member of the group, Protagoras, professed agnosticism about the traditional gods, and famously declared that "man is the measure of all things." These new ideas prompted much discussion, both in public and in private, as new ideas continue to do today. In the latter half of the fifth century the Sophists and Socrates, with the help of a few philosophers of nature, such as Anaxagoras, brought an intellectual revolution to Athens.

The best "snapshot" of this intellectual revolution may well be found in the opening pages of Plato's dialogue, the Protagoras. The dramatic date of this dialogue is usually thought to be just before the start of the Peloponnesian War. In this dialogue Socrates narrates a conversation he has just had with Protagoras, "the wisest man alive" (309d).3 His narration begins with an account of a visit to Socrates' home from a young man named Hippocrates, who desires an introduction to Protagoras. Hippocrates wants to study with Protagoras, to acquire his wisdom, and he is willing to pay dearly for it, though it turns out that he has no idea what Protagoras teaches. After a warning from Socrates about receiving into his soul the teachings of the Sophists without having them tested by an expert, Socrates and Hippocrates go to the house of Callias, one of the richest Athenians and a man noted for spending money on the Sophists. After eventually gaining entrance, they are greeted with a sight that Socrates describes, complete with echoes of Homeric poetry. First there is Protagoras, walking back and forth followed by a group that parts ways when he changes direction; then Hippias of Elis, answering questions on physics and astronomy; and Prodicus, in a former storeroom and still in bed, speaking to others with a deep, reverberating voice that obscures what he says. Other intellectuals, some familiar from other Platonic dialogues, are present in attendance on these teachers. No doubt Socrates' description, with its Homeric overtones, is somewhat ironic, but the impression it gives is that of an assemblage of intellectuals, conversing freely on matters that might engage a university audience today. For a lover of such conversation, it must have seemed like heaven; and Socrates, however much Plato wants to distinguish him from the Sophists, is right at home in it. This account is a Platonic description of an assemblage that may never in fact have occurred, but the atmosphere of free discussion and inquiry is one that, he wants to tell us, characterized this period of Athenian life.

The loss of the Peloponnesian War produced a backlash against this intellectual revolution. Part of the evidence for this backlash is the trial of Socrates. The kind of free thought that the Sophists and other intellectuals, such as Anaxagoras, displayed toward traditional religion came to be seen by some as undermining Athenian values. The ability...