We have two competing accounts of Socrates’ trial, one from Plato and one from Xenophon. Both authors were followers of Socrates; both were aristocrats who had little sympathy for the common people or their concerns. Both wrote extensively about their mentor after his death, and both gave reports, or at least versions, of Socrates’ defense speech at his trial. As far as we can tell, the two followers from the same socio-economic background despised each other and ignored each other as far as possible. And they give different accounts of Socrates’ speech and his motivation in giving it.
Plato seems to have written his account not long after the trial, and gave what purports to be a complete account. Only in this dialogue (or monologue, with one bit of dialogue in which Socrates confronts his accuser, Meletus) does Plato claim to have been present as an eyewitness.
Xenophon, meanwhile, was far away, having been on the expedition of prince Cyrus, in what turned out to be an attempted coup against the Persian Empire. He played a key role in rescuing the Greek forces who accompanied Cyrus after the prince was killed in battle. He then was involved in some further campaigns in Asia Minor, at the time when Socrates was tried and executed. Xenophon’s account was written significantly later than the events it describes, and admittedly at second hand, allegedly on the basis of information supplied by Hermogenes. Xenophanes does not offer a complete account of Socrates’ defense speech, but just some excerpts.
According to Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates addresses the charges made against him and attempts to refute them. According to Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates to the Jury, Socrates goes out of his way to offend the jury so as to ensure his condemnation. (The term ‘Apology’ in the titles comes from the Greek ‘apologia’ and means ‘defense,’ not ‘apology.’) So who is right?
Two important studies in the late 1980s presented Socrates’ speech as a serious defense of his life and work: Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith’s Socrates on Trial (1989) and C. D. C. Reeve’s Socrates in the Apology (1989) provided commentary on Plato’s Apology of Socrates that took the arguments of the speech as replies to the official accusations, and the slanders that seemed to support those accusations.[1] Robin Waterfield has argued against this approach, calling the books in question “brilliant, but flawed” in his article “Xenophon on Socrates’ Trial and Death” (2012: 277), based on his previous book, Why Socrates Died.[2]
According to Xenophon, whom Waterfield takes seriously, Socrates entered the trial wishing to end his life before old age caught up with him. His aim to was to commit suicide by jury.[3] Waterfield contrasts Xenophon’s account with Plato’s. He sees that the debate about Socrates’ aim and motivation cannot be decided by an appeal to facts. But he does note that Socrates’ “talking big” (megalēgoria) or boastfulness is attested by both Plato and Xenophon.[4] It is true that, for once, Plato portrays Socrates as presenting himself as the best thing that ever happened to Athens, the one person who has a divine mission to reform it citizens. Waterfield observes, “… surely such megalēgoria is inconsistent with mounting a true defence. It is sheer provocation,” and consistent with Socrates’ having a suicidal inclination (275).
There were three accusations brought against Socrates by his prosecutors: 1) Socrates did not worship the gods of the city, 2) He introduced new gods of his own, and 3) he corrupted the youth. According to Waterfield, Socrates in Plato’s Apology does not seriously address the first, and he gives inadequate answers to the second and third (277-78). Furthermore, the books of Brickhouse and Smith, and Reeve that portray Socrates as defending himself “display a certain lack of historical awareness” (278). There are political issues underlying the charges that they fail to consider.
Waterfield brings up the important issue of the Amnesty worked out after the overthrow of the government of the so-called Thirty Tyrants in 403 BCE (281-87). According to this agreement, no citizen would be prosecuted for deeds done under the oligarchy, since many citizens had been coerced into collaborating with the government. This fact did not, however, seem to preclude bringing up bad behavior of citizens in the course of a trial. Socrates, notably, had refused an order by the Thirty to arrest Leon of Salamis. But he did have associations with the Thirty and its officers, notably with Critias and Charmides. Anytus, one of the accusers, must, Waterfield believes, have brought up that association and Socrates’ critical attitude towards democracy. But in Plato’s account, we hear nothing of the political basis of the trial.
Socrates was not sympathetic either to democracy or to the oligarchy of the Thirty. He favored a rule by political experts rather than by the Many or the Few. This fact made him dangerous to the restored democracy (288-94). In the end he may have thought it best to sacrifice himself for the good of Athens, consistent with Xenophon’s assessment (298-301).
Waterfield gives us a well-researched and thoughtful assessment of Socrates and the role his trial played in history and in his life. I concur that politics played a big, if covert, role in the trial that is not always appreciated. But I think there is a better interpretation of what was going on and why.
That Socrates’ prosecution has a political agenda is established by the mere fact that Anytus is on the team. Anytus was arguably one of the two most powerful men in Athens after the restoration of the democracy.[5] Why is he not the accuser of record? The main accuser is Meletus, a political nobody.[6] The accusation is violations of religious and educational norms. Why not a political accusation? Because, as Waterfield rightly notes, of the Amnesty, which if it does not forbid, at least seriously complicates political prosecutions. In any case, Socrates is not known as an enemy of democracy. The savvy politicians think that Socrates is vulnerable to an attack on his religious and pedagogical reputation. They can draw on rumors and slanders on this score to stir up the Many against Socrates. Meletus is the designated accuser, a hired gun to make the prosecution look like the initiative of a concerned citizen.
What about Socrates’ boastful claim to be God’s gift to Athens? If Plato is right, this is not an effort to insult the Athenians, but a disclosure of his “mission” from the god. He is using the bully pulpit to claim that his educational activities are aimed, not at the youth, but at the citizens of Athens themselves, and he undertakes to improve their character and focus them on their moral responsibilities. (If you wish to impute the content of the speech to Plato rather than Socrates, then what we have here is Plato’s claim that Socrates is the best thing that ever happened to Athens.)
It is true that Socrates slights the religious accusations against himself in his speech. But he certainly portrays himself as devoted to the god (Apollo?—though he never names him) as a zealous proselytizer for morality. And by putting his promoting his mission at the expense of his own welfare, he shows that for him moral and religious principles are more important than self-preservation. That, at least, is what Plato show us. Whether Plato gives an accurate report or a free invention is a question for another time, though I tend toward the former interpretation. In either case, if Plato genuinely wishes to defend the memory of Socrates, he needs to reveal to us who Socrates really is, as far as Plato is able to understand him.
One last thought: Waterfield in reviewing Socrates’ politics emphasizes his hostility toward democracy. But one thing he seems to overlook is Socrates’ deep commitment to rule by law, visible both in the way he conducted the Trial of the Generals on the day he presided,[7] and in his submission to the Laws of Athens seen in Plato’s Crito. One of the serious deficiencies of Athenian democracy was its tendency to override its own laws in the heat of the moment (a trend documented by Thucydides).
Socrates’ speech in Plato’s Apology may fall short as a piece of judicial rhetoric designed to save his life, but it succeeds remarkably as a justification of his life and work.
[1] Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, Princeton: Princeton U. Press; Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, Indianapolis: Hackett.
[2] In Fiona Hobden and Christopher Tuplin, eds., Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 269-305. Waterfield gives a fuller account in Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (New York: Norton, 2009). The 2012 article is more polemical, and focuses more on Xenophon’s interpretation of Socrates
[3] Xenophon Apology 5-9; this actually overstates what Socrates allegedly said to Hermogenes, but Socrates does seem to welcome his impending death.
[4] Xenophon Apology 1; Plato Apology 20e.
[5] Isocrates Against Callimachus 23, pairing Anytus with Thrasybulus, leader of the rebellion against the Thirty. Waterfield recognizes the importance of Anytus (2009: 193-95): Brickhouse and Smith downplay his importance (27-29).
[6] Plato Euthyphro 2b.
[7] Plato Apology 32b-c; Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1.18; 4.4.2.