The Trial of Socrates

Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death,” so said Plato in The Republic. In his thought experiment, Plato’s Cave, Plato spoke of a prisoner who gets enlightened, but nobody listens to this prisoner, and they even threaten to kill him if he decides to enlighten anyone else. To Plato, this prisoner was Socrates and he was put to death for doing the same: spreading his beliefs and trying to enlighten Athens. Plato was not the only who felt this way about Socrates, for over time, people around the world have also begun to feel this way. Socrates, a brilliant philosopher and creator of the Socratic irony and Socratic Method, was put to death for his views on morality, politics, and religion. What is surprising is the fact that he was sentenced to death by a democratic government governed by the people. Over time, people have begun to understand the lack of justice involved in the sentence and to provide sympathy for the plight of Socrates, sympathy he was denied during his time.

To understand the trial of Socrates, one also needs to understand the criminal procedures in Athens. In democratic Athens, there was no public prosecutor. Judicial hearings could be initiated by any citizen, as was in the case of Socrates. A citizen would deliver an oral summons to an accused. Then, the accused would appear before a legal magistrate to answer his charges. Once the legal magistrate determined, after having listened to both the accuser and the accused, that the lawsuit was permissible under Athenian law, a date was set for the preliminary hearing. The preliminary hearing began with the reading and answering of the charges. The magistrate would then question both the accuser and the accused and following that, they were allowed to question each other. The last part of the preliminary hearing consisted of the magistrate reading the formal charges and a date was set for the public trial.

The public trial took place in the people’s court in front of a jury anywhere from 500 to 1501 volunteers. The Athenian thought was: Who could afford to bribe so many people? Members of the jury were required to take an oath where they swore by the gods of Zeus, Apollo, and Demeter. The trial itself began with the reading of the charges and then the prosecution presented its evidence, though there were little formal rules of evidence. After the prosecution’s argument, the defendant had three hours to answer the argument in what was called an “apology.” Following the arguments, the jurors then had to make their decision. Considering the size of the jury, it would be very hard to obtain a unanimous decision. Instead, the jurors voted on the guilt or innocence of the defendant, with a majority vote being necessary for conviction. If the defendant is convicted, as was in the case of Socrates, then the phase of punishment commenced. The prosecution and the defendant each proposed a punishment and the jury chooses between the two punishments (This is still part of the apology). Thus, this was how a trial in Athens got carried through.