It so happened that Socrates was on the Council at the time, his name having been drawn by lot. The period of service for the appointment was a year, and a citizen could serve on the Council only twice in his life. Councilors had to undergo a review or background check to verify their eligibility.[17] On entering office Socrates had sworn an oath to uphold the laws of Athens. It is likely he voted against the summary trial. Socrates was, moreover, a member of the “presidency” or executive committee, prytaneia, of the Council, during the time of the trial. The Council itself consisted of 500 citizens, 50 from each of the ten administrative tribes. The year was divided into ten periods, during each of which one tribe presided as the executive committee (the order of their tenure being determined by lot). During the time of the trial, Socrates’ tribe Antiochis was presiding, so he served on the executive committee.[18] Each day a new committee member was chosen by lot to be the epistatēs, chairman—in effect the president of Athens—from that evening through the next day.[19]
At the appointed Assembly meeting, Theramenes led an attack on the generals for incompetence. The generals were given a short time to speak. Their speeches were interrupted by angry shouts from the floor. Asking for quiet, the generals pointed out that the men they had appointed to conduct the rescue, including Thrasybulus and Theramenes, had been generals themselves previously and were fully able to carry out the operation, if the weather had permitted, which it did not. The meeting adjourned as night fell.
Before the Assembly could meet again, the festival of Apaturia (see ch. 3*) was celebrated, marked by family gatherings and reunions. At these gatherings the people felt more keenly than ever the absence of those lost in the battle. On the eve of the day appointed for Assembly meeting, to continue the examination of the generals’ conduct, Socrates was evidently chosen to be the chairman of the executive committee, again by lot.[20] With a subcommittee consisting of one-third of the executive committee on active duty, sixteen or seventeen strong, he had dinner at public expense in the Rotunda. For his twenty-four hours, he had charge of the seal of Athens, the keys of the treasuries, and archives of the city. He spent the night in the Rotunda. He would preside ex officio at the contentious Assembly meeting the following day, wearing a myrtle wreath, along with other subcommittee members, as an insignia of his office.[21]
On the Pnyx hill in the open air, Socrates watched the six thousand citizens admitted to the Assembly file in sullenly. Relatives of the dead sailors came to the Assembly in mourning clothes accompanied by supporters who were more hostile than ever to the generals.[22] A popular leader named Callixeinus proposed a resolution to vote immediately by tribes on the question of the guilt or innocence of the generals; they had had their say at the previous session, and now it was time to act. If the generals were judged guilty they were to be condemned to death and their property confiscated by the state, with a tenth part going to the cult of Athena.[23] Obviously he was moving for a summary judgment with no due process and no deliberation. No distinction was to be made between the different roles the individual generals had played in the action. On the first day of the trial, the generals had been given only a brief opportunity to present their case while they were interrupted by the shouts of angry listeners.
At this point, Euryptolemus stood up to speak at the podium. He was the cousin of Alcibiades who had been waiting at the docks to welcome the general when he returned to Athens after his long exile. Euryptolemus was a relative of the general Pericles, son of Pericles the great, who was among the generals on trial, so Euryptolemus had a vested interest in the proceeding. He proposed to serve Callixeinus with a writ of illegality, graphē paranomon, accusing him of making an unconstitutional motion in proposing the summary judgment of the defendants.[24] Some of the assemblymen applauded the writ, but others shouted out against it as a travesty of justice. A certain Lyciscus called for the Assembly to vote to include Euryptolemus and his supporters with the accused generals and condemn them all together. There was a roar of approval from the crowd. Seeing the mood of the crowd, Euryptolemus withdrew his motion. Again there was a motion for a summary vote on the generals. At this point the executive committee, led by Socrates, refused to allow a vote to be held on the obviously illegal motion of Callixeinus.
Callixeinus returned to the podium. He now proposed that the executive committee be included among the defendants to be judged in the vote. The crowd, whipped up by his inflammatory speech, shouted out to condemn the committee members who resisted. By now the members of the executive committee were trembling with fear that they would be condemned by the bloodthirsty lynch mob who constituted the majority of the Assembly. All but Socrates. Coming up to the podium as chairman of the executive committee, he vetoed the proposal, declaring that he would never act contrary to the law of Athens. He stood alone against a mob calling for his death.[25]
The day seems to have ended without any decision.[26] On the next day Socrates was no longer president. Euryptolemus returned to the podium. He repeated the point that the generals had given orders for the bodies to be recovered. They should not be condemned for the failure of their subordinates. They should have at least one day to defend themselves. Euryptolemus offered two legal precedents to follow, either one of which prescribed a manner of trial with severe penalties for the condemned. What was crucial was to turn the accusation into a regular trial in which the defendants would be able to speak in their own defense, and they would be tried separately and not en masse in a kangaroo court proceeding before the Assembly. “If this happens,” he continued, “the guilty will suffer the maximum penalty, while the innocent will be released by you, my fellow Athenians, and not condemned unjustly. By acting according to law, you will prosecute the case in keeping with your oaths and sacred duties, and you will avoid supporting the Spartan cause in putting to death, in defiance of our laws, the very men who victoriously captured seventy enemy ships.”
Euryptolemus proposed that one of the legal procedures be followed, and the measure passed. But the next speaker challenged the vote on a technicality. Then another vote supported Callixeinus’ proposal. Finally the Assembly voted on the fate of the generals, without the benefit of a trial before a jury or any real legal process at all. The six generals were condemned and led off to execution.[27]
[17].Rhodes 1972: 1-3.
[18].Plato Apology 32b; cf. Gorgias 473e.
[19]. Rhodes 1972: 23-24. A citizen could occupy this post only once in his lifetime. See Aristotle Constitution of Athens 44.
[20].Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1.18, 4.4.2.
[21].Lycurgus Against Leocrates 122; Rhodes 1972: 13.
[22].Xenophon Hellenica 1.7.8; Diodorus Siculus 13.101.6.
[23].Xenophon Hellenica 1.7.9-10.
[24].See Aristotle Constitution of Athens 45.
[25].Xenophon Hellenica 1.7.9-15.
[26].Xenophon notes no interruption between Socrates’ veto and Euryptolemus’ speech. But ps.Plato Axiochus 368d-369a, which seems to be well-informed, puts Euryptolemus’ long speech and the vote against the generals on the following day—a reasonable assumption given the number of speeches, proposals, counter-proposals, and votes involved.
[27].Xenophon Hellenica 1.7.16-34.