Although Polycrates’ version of the trial was an anachronistic fabrication, it contained a kernel of truth. Meletus may have had a personal bone to pick with Socrates, if he was the Meletus who helped arrest Leon of Salamis when Socrates refused (see ch. 23*). But what was at stake rose above private quarrels. Virtually all trials in Athens were political trials in some sense, and Meletus’ accusation was underwritten by two important political figures, Anytus and Lycon, the former a prime mover of the restored democracy, the latter an aggrieved father whose son was a victim of the Thirty. When Socrates stated to the jury that without his two supporters, Meletus would have failed to garner enough votes to avoid a penalty,[54] he was not being a sore loser. Lycon had an emotional investment in the trial, and Anytus a strategic interest, and both were men of influence. Indeed, a contemporary calls Anytus, along with Thrasybulus, the leader of the rebellion against the Thirty, “the most powerful men of the city” during this time period.[55]
In all likelihood, Meletus was just a hired gun to carry out the agenda of Anytus. Anytus, son of the wealthy tanner Anthemion of Euonymon, had been a general in 409 BC.[56] When Athens fell, he supported Theramenes’ efforts to establish a moderate government.[57] Exiled by the Thirty, he became a leader of the democratic rebels at Phyle.[58] After the fall of the Thirty, he had supported the Amnesty, which protected citizens from reprisals for what they had done during the oligarchy and promoted a reunification of the state (ch. 21*).
Indeed, Anytus himself was scrupulously faithful to the terms of the Amnesty, refusing to go after an enemy who had confiscated his own property under the oligarchy.[59] But he judged Socrates to have anti-democratic leanings, and he knew perfectly well that there was more than one way to get rid of a political liability. Polycrates, in his pamphlet, exposed the reality behind the pretext: the trial was about Socrates’ politics, not his religion.[60] Anytus was the éminence grise behind the trial, the political architect who saw Socrates’ growing influence as an obstacle to the restored democracy. The philosopher had to go.[61]
[54]. Plato Apology 36b.
[55]. Isocrates 18.23.
[56]. Aristotle Constitution of Athens 27.5; Diodorus Siculus 13.64.6.
[57]. Aristotle Constitution of Athens 34.3.
[58]. Xenophon Hellenica 2.3.42; Lysias 13.78-79.
[59]. Isocrates 18.23-24: Loening 1987: 34, cf. 44, 68.
[60]. Finley 1977: 64-65 takes the religious motive seriously, but this seems naïve. No doubt some citizens would take the issue seriously, but that is the point of a pretext or cover story.
[61].On the political undercurrents of the trial, see Wolpert 2002: 63-65; cf. Waterfield 2009: 193-195.