Socrates' trial

This conviction of his became more evident than ever after the adverse issue of the trial.

Hermogenes stated that with this resolve Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the gods worshipped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young, and replied:

For he stated that on seeing Socrates discussing any and every subject rather than the trial, he had said:

Again, when he was tried on the charge brought by Meletus, whereas it is the custom of defendants to curry favour with the jury and to indulge in flattery and illegal appeals, and many by such means have been known to gain a verdict of acquittal, he rejected utterly the familiar chicanery of the courts;

I have often wondered by what arguments those who drew up the indictment against Socrates could persuade the Athenians that his life was forfeit to the state.

To me he seemed to deserve honour rather than death at the hands of the State.

And therefore, even if you acquit me now and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that either I ought not to have been brought to trial at all, or since was brought to trial, I must certainly be put to death, adding that if I were acquitted your sons would all be utterly ruined by practicing what I teach—if you should say to me in reply to this:

Now so far as the accusations are concerned which my first accusers made against me, this is a sufficient defence before you;

And it appears that he does not really say this of Socrates, but merely uses my name, and makes me an example, as if he were to say:

Well, then, said he, I will try to make a more convincing defence than I did before the judges.

It happened that the stern of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos was crowned on the day before the trial.

Yes, some one told us about that, and we wondered that although it took place a long time ago, he was put to death much later.

Led by these and like reasons, Socrates neither sought an advocate for his trial on a capital charge, nor was a suppliant to his judges, but maintained a free defiance springing from greatness of soul, not from pride;

This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece:

Justus of Tiberias in his book entitled The Wreath says that in the course of the trial Plato mounted the platform and began:

For Anytus could not endure to be ridiculed by Socrates, and so in the first place stirred up against him Aristophanes and his friends;

Now try in your turn to teach me what part of the right holiness is, that I may tell Meletus not to wrong me any more or bring suits against me for impiety, since I have now been duly instructed by you about what is, and what is not, pious and holy.

Our Athenians, Euthyphro, do not call it an action, but an indictment.

who, seeing my lack of wisdom and that I am corrupting his fellows, comes to the State, as a boy runs to his mother, to accuse me.

Socrates, in the end, was condemned on that side where he had come closer to the truth, by destroying your gods.

For the rest, if we make our challenge on the score of chastity, I read a part of the Attic sentence pronounced against Socrates as a corrupter of youth.

" The same man, too, though he had some perception of the truth in denying the gods, yet at his end ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius — in honour, I suppose, of his father, because Apollo had pronounced Socrates the wisest of all men.

For what clear knowledge could the soul of Socrates have at that time, when the sacred ship had already returned, the hemlock of his condemnation had already been drained, and death was already present — a soul certainly thrown into some agitation, if according to nature, or driven beside itself, if not according to nature?