399 BC
In which Socrates faces a hostile jury in a courtroom for the first time and turns the tables.
On the seventh of Munychion in the year that Laches was the archon of record,[1] the infamous trial took place. The prosecution had presented its case. The presiding officer, called the King Archon, signaled to the herald, who announced that the defendant would now speak. The herald nodded to the timekeeper, who unstopped a bronze tube at the bottom of a large urn full of water set on a table. A thin stream flowed into a similar urn on the floor. The defendant had until the water was gone from the water-clock to make his defense, after which the jury would, without deliberation, cast their votes to decide his fate on the capital charge.[2]
The defendant arose slowly and stalked to the center of the platform. Despite his gray hair and stooped shoulders, his robust frame and confident demeanor commanded attention. He paused for a moment to study the crowd before him. He stared through thick eyebrows, his bulging eyes sweeping around the rectangular stone building lined with colonnades surrounding an unroofed courtyard. The audience could detect no fear in his countenance, no trembling in his frame. The man studied the audience and seemingly searched their souls. His gaze settled on the friendly faces of his supporters—Crito, Critobulus, Lysanias, Antiphon, Nicostratus, Paralius, Adeimantus and his brother, Plato, Acantidorus, and Apollodorus.[3]
Standing on the platform in the corner of the rectangular building, he confronted five hundred jurors seated on benches set into the colonnades on his left and right, jurors chosen that morning by lot.[4] They were all male citizens, thirty years of age or more,[5] wearing short beards and dressed in similar clothing, a tunic covered by a cloak. Whether rich or poor, they looked remarkably alike, for shows of wealth were regarded as gauche and undemocratic.[6] The jurors for their part were interested mostly in the spectacle—the man was famous after all—and eager for the three obols’ pay (minimum wage) they would earn.[7] In the unroofed courtyard before him stood friends and enemies, as well as the idle and curious, present to lend their support, register their hostility, or satisfy their thirst for entertainment.[8]
A hush fell over the crowd. The man himself was about to speak. Socrates, son of Sophroniscus of the borough of Alopece, the famous wise man, the busybody, the man who could talk your ear off about philosophical poppycock and make fools of the smartest men in Athens, was about to defend himself before the people. He stood in the courtroom in the center of the town square,[9] the roof of the colonnade shading his deeply tanned, leathery skin, his satyr-like face with receding hair, his snub-nose and thick lips, for once without his throng of followers. Just one man against a city. He and his clever new ideas had escaped the wrath of their community until now, but today he would account for his misspent life.
“How you, citizens of Athens,” he began, “have been affected by my accusers I have no idea. But as for me, I was almost carried away, so convincingly did they speak. Yet not one word of truth, if I may say so, have they uttered. Of all their lies, the most outrageous was their warning you not to be fooled by my expert speaking ability. That strikes me as the most brazen falsehood of all, as if they’re not afraid to be refuted by the facts as soon as I open my mouth and show how awkward I am at public speaking — unless by ‘expert speaking ability’ they mean telling the truth. If that’s what they mean, well, I would admit to being a speaker quite unlike them.”[10]
Socrates faced a hostile jury the prosecution had done their best to inflame. Prejudice had been building against him for at least a quarter of a century and now he had only as long as the water lasted to tell his story.[11]
“These men,” he said, pointing to his accusers, “have said little or nothing true. But you’ll hear from me the whole truth and nothing but the truth — not, by Zeus, in fancy language like theirs . . . decked out with polished words and phrases. No, you’ll hear me speaking off the cuff with whatever words come to mind — because I’m relying on the truth of my message — so don’t you expect anything else.”[12]
In a city in which public speaking had been honed to a fine art, Socrates did not declaim. He visited with the jury, telling his story, questioning his accusers, sharing his opinions and impressions in everyday language.
And in the course of his defense he did something unheard of: he challenged the jury, putting them on trial for their lives. He dared to affirm that he had a mission from God to help the city, to call the citizens to repentance as it were. “Rather than making a defense on my own behalf,” he said, “as you might expect, I am doing it on your behalf, to keep you from sinning against God’s gift to you by voting against me.”[13]
The infuriating defendant refused to accept the obvious fact that he was on trial, but instead used the forum to carry on his twisted campaign to challenge, shame, and reproach the people of Athens—as if he were the prosecutor and they the defendants.
[1]. April-May, 399 BC. Athenian lunar months began with the new moon, and do not correspond to Julian or Gregorian calendar months, and the names of months varied from city to city. The month of Munichion was the tenth month of the Athenian year, which year began after the summer solstice, not, as in the modern calendar after the winter solstice. There was no universal metric for years (though eventually Olympiads, based on the Olympic Games held every four years, became widely used). In Athens years were named after the “eponymous archon,” one of the magistrates chosen annually.
[2].For the date of the trial, see ch. 25.* For the water-clock or klepsydra, see Boegehold 1995:27 et passim, with testimonies 306-323 and Plate 13; see also Camp 1986:112 and fig. 85.
[3].Plato Apology 33d-34a. My own translations except as otherwise noted.
[4].Boegehold 1995:34. Only later in the fourth century was the jury number increased to 501 to avoid the possibility of a tie; before this, in case of a tie, the defendant won.
[5].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 63.3.
[6].Thucydides 1.6.3.
[7].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 62.2.
[8].While there is no report of the layout of the courts in Socrates’ time, Boegehold’s reconstruction of the Square Peristyle building of the late fourth century allows a glimpse of how Building A might have been used earlier. See Boegehold 1995:110-111 with illustration 5 on p. 112.
[9].Boegehold 1995:11-14. The courtroom in question could be either “building A” on the northeast of the agora or the “rectangular peribolos” in the southwest; but as it was near the prison, it had to be one of these two (Plato Phaedo 59d). See also Plato Theaetetus 173c-d = testimony 89 Boegehold; Wycherley 1978:54-58; Camp 1986:107-111. Subsequent work in the agora of Athens makes it likely that the rectangular peribolos is not the Heliaia as has often been thought, but the Aiakeion: see Stroud 1994, 1998:85-108. Hence building A remains the most likely site of the trial. I have benefitted from correspondence with John M. Camp on this question.
[10].Plato Apology 17a-b.
[11].Plato Apology 18a-19a.
[12].Plato Apology 17b-c.
[xiii].Plato Apology 30d-e.