Since soon after the fall of the Thirty an amnesty had been in force. The citizens of Athens, the Thirty and their chief officers excluded, could not be accused for any actions they took during the reign of the Thirty.[1] This measure put a stop to the internecine conflict between partisans of oligarchy and partisans of democracy. It did not erase resentments and grievances between individuals, but legally, at least, it put the past behind the Athenians and tacitly recognized that under the oligarchy many acts were performed under duress. As Plato himself observed, the new democratic government on the whole handled itself with admirable restraint.[2] Indeed, one feature of the restored democracy was an effort to codify the jumble of Athenian laws, and to provide a greater authority to established laws than to ephemeral decrees. The new reverence for law was meant to protect against excesses such as had occurred in the trial of the generals after the Battle of Arginusae. The rule of law had to take precedence over the impulses and caprices of the Many.[3]
The law courts were restored with large juries of the people to decide cases. If the Amnesty protected citizens from actions they performed under the Thirty, it did not protect them from reprisals for other alleged infractions. Indeed, trials in democratic Athens had always been occasions for political action in the guise of enforcing the laws of the state. Politicians looked for the weakest members of their opponents’ factions and looked for areas in which those individuals were most vulnerable. After the Amnesty, accordingly, a couple of important trials focused on religious infractions of certain citizens. Andocides, who had confessed to complicity in the desecration of the herms in 415 (see ch. 17*)—in return for immunity—had returned from exile and taken a prominent role as a religious leader. In 400 he was brought to trial for his admitted impiety, notwithstanding the previous immunity.[4] Nicomachus, one of the legal scholars responsible for codifying the laws of Athens, was accused of omitting traditional religious sacrifices and introducing new ones in 399.[5] Callias son of Hipponicus, who is portrayed as the host of Plato’s Protagoras, seems to have been an accuser in both trials.[6] Religion now provided a safe pretext for political payback.[7]
At about the same time as these other trials for impiety took place in 399, an accuser brought formal charges against Socrates for impiety and corrupting the youth. This was the first time Socrates had ever faced trial—a remarkable record, given his visibility in the community and his controversial activities in the most litigious of cities. His accuser, the young Meletus, had to accost Socrates in public, accompanied by two witnesses, and deliver a formal summons to appear before the appropriate magistrate on a certain day to answer the charges. At the preliminary hearing Socrates and Meletus met before the king archon, the Athenian magistrate responsible for regulating religious affairs in the city, at the Royal Stoa, an office building with a colonnade bordering the Agora.[8] The accuser presented the charges against Socrates. The formal charges were duly filed in the state archives, in the Metroön, where the Gallic philosopher and orator Favorinus found them in the second century AD. They read, “This indictment was registered and sworn to by Meletus son of Meletus of Pitthus against Socrates son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods the city believes in and of introducing other new deities; he is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The death penalty is demanded.”[9] At the preliminary hearing, the king archon verified that the appropriate persons were present, that the accusation was admissible, that the accused would dispute the charges, that all legal formalities were satisfied. He then would waive the court fees (which were not assessed for accusations of impiety) and set a date for a preliminary examination (anakrisis).[10]
[1].The process is more complex than has often been assumed. See now Carawan 2013, who argues for a contractual settlement between the warring factions which evolved into a set of legal procedures for reconciliation rather than a blanket amnesty. The effect, however, was to shield citizens who had stayed in Athens during the junta from reprisals for acts they may have been coerced into committing for the oligarchy. See also Nails 2002: 219-222.
[2].Plato Letter VII, 325b.
[3].See Munn 2000: 258-280 on the historical and legal background of Socrates’ trial. On the Amnesty and related laws and decrees, see Andocides On the Mysteries 73-91; Ostwald 1986, ch. 10. On the development of the rule of law, see Ostwald 1986, Munn 2000: 264-272. On the peculiar features of Athenian law, see Cohen 2005. On reforms on the laws and legal practices, see Wolpert 2002: 35-42.
[4].Andocides On the Mysteries.
[5].Lysias Oration 30 Against Nicomachus.
[6].See Munn 2000: 274-280; cf. Nails 2002: 68-74.
[7]. See n. 30* below.
[8].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 57.2.
[9].Diogenes Laertius 2.40. Note the similarity to the informal statement of charges in Plato Apology 24b-c, and Xenophon Apology 11-12, 19.
[10].Harrison 1969-1971, 2: 85-94; MacDowell 1978: 238-240; Todd 1993: 125-126; Nails 2009.