It was a triumphant moment for the Athenians, and one to be savored. Conon toured the islands of the Aegean expelling the Spartan harmosts and garrisons. He then sailed back to Piraeus where he received a hero’s welcome. At great expense (Pharnabazus picked up the bill), he employed the crew of his eighty triremes, about sixteen thousand men, to refortify the port and rebuild the Long Walls.
A little more than one decade had passed since Aegospotami and the loss of empire, and the violet-crowned city was once again a great power. It began to invest in warships. As the patriotic Isocrates remarked: “The Spartans…lost their supremacy, Greeks were liberated and our city recovered part of its old glory.”
The careers of Conon and Xenophon allowed thinking men to draw two momentous conclusions. First, the pretensions of Sparta, perilously short of citizens as it was, were shown to be hollow. The battle of Cnidus broke once for all its ambition to replace Athens as the ruler of a great maritime empire. Second, the experience of Xenophon and his mercenary comrades exploded another reputation—that of the Great King. Persian soldiery could not rival the professional competence of the Hellenic hoplite (although Persian cavalry had to be reckoned with).
A talented general with enough trained hoplites and a deep pocket would have a good chance of overthrowing the vast and ostensibly invulnerable realm that had once had the Greek world at its feet. Agesilaus might have been that man, had the gods not decided otherwise.
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During the years following the fall of Athens, the restored demos had recovered much of its self-confidence and bellicosity. Critias and his oligarchs had come and gone, but it had not forgiven, even if it had officially forgotten, the crimes of its domestic enemies. Abroad it tried to exploit Sparta’s misfortunes and at home, despite the amnesty after the deposition of the Thirty, it looked about for vengeance. In 399 it found a high-profile target in Socrates, who was taken to court on capital charges.
“I don’t know what effect my accusers have had on you, men of Athens,” he told the five hundred and one jurors at his trial. “But so far as I was concerned I almost forgot who I was, their arguments were so convincing. On the other hand, there is hardly a word of truth in what they have said.”
Socrates might have been forgiven for his puzzlement. The accusations against him were serious enough to warrant the death penalty, but at first reading they seem to contradict everything we know about him. What was going on?
A politician called Meletus, supported by two others, Anytus and Lycon, brought the charges against the philosopher. They read:
This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new divinities [in Greek,
daimonia
]. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.
Little is known about Meletus. He was young and, according to Plato, had “a hooked nose, and long straight hair, and a poorly growing beard.” He was a tragic poet whom Aristophanes attacked, or perhaps the son of one.
We have met Anytus before, hero of the democratic restoration. He was acquainted with Socrates and appears as a character in one of Plato’s dialogues, Meno, in which he is presented as being hostile to sophists. Lycon was a democrat and an orator. Socrates was friendly with Anytus’s and (perhaps) Lycon’s sons, and the two fathers may have resented his influence over them.
What is curious about the charges is that Socrates was a religious man and noted for his piety. He was punctilious in observing all the relevant rituals; he took part in the many city festivals and followed the common forms of private and public worship. Although he criticized some sacred legends, he did not reject the existence of the Olympians as some scientific rationalists did, such as Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles.
It would seem that Meletus and his friends were attacking the “Socrates” of The Clouds, whom Aristophanes tars with the same brush as those nomadic intellectuals, the sophists. In fact, the real Socrates was known to be as critical of them as was the average Athenian. It is hard to see how this accusation could have been made to stick.
Did he then introduce new gods, as alleged? Questions of precise belief did not much interest the Greeks and many new cults were imported to Athens without raised eyebrows or cries of heresy. However, Socrates did frequently refer to his daimonion, his own supernatural spirit, which gave him personal access to the will of the gods. Once again there was nothing so very unusual for a Greek to consult oracles or other signs.
On the other hand, Greek religion was essentially about the community not the individual. Indeed, it was a means by which the individual signaled his membership of the community. But Socrates’ daimonion spoke to no one else and was, in effect, his private property. This must have been the offense; no right-thinking citizen should boast a hotline to the supernatural, for it lent too much weight to the individual conscience.
The third and last charge was the easiest to understand. Everyone was aware that, although uninterested in money himself, Socrates was an intellectual honeypot for wealthy young aristocrats. They numbered among them men such as Xenophon and his exact contemporary Plato, who spent his long lifetime preserving, glorifying, and developing his memory and his ideas. But, much worse than that, they included Critias, leader of the Thirty, and his nephew and ward Charmides, an active supporter of the oligarchy who fell with him during the fighting at Piraeus in 403. They both appear in Socratic dialogues by Plato.
Socrates was believed to be misodemos, a hater of the democracy, and a good case could be made that his circle was a breeding ground of political reaction. This was unfair, as the philosopher’s brave stand against the tyrannical behavior of the Thirty showed, at risk to his own life; and, once second thoughts had set in, even democrats respected his refusal to put the motion to the enraged ecclesia to try the Arginusae generals together. Nevertheless, many people blamed him, indirectly at least, for the overthrow of the established constitution. This was the heart of the matter.
There being no public prosecutor nor a police force to detect crime, any citizen was allowed to bring criminal charges against any other (the Scythian archers were only tasked with keeping public order). He would make an arrest (if incapable, a magistrate or Archon would step in). The process was not free of risk, for in the case of wrongful arrest a fine of 1,000 drachmas was levied. The accuser led the prosecution and he could pay for the services of professional speechwriters.
At a preliminary hearing, the plaintiff swore that the charge was genuine and the defendant that he was innocent (he was entitled to enter a counterplea if he so wished). All trials took place in the open air and at different locations in the city (for example, at the Painted Stoa in the agora or the Odeum), dependent on the category of alleged crime. They lasted for one day only. The presiding Archon had no powers to give legal directions and simply oversaw due process. Juries, as already noted, were very large in order to discourage bribery. Once each side had delivered its speeches, they cast their ballots in secret and without discussion. The prosecution required 50 percent plus one of the votes to secure a conviction.
—
We do not have a copy of Socrates’ defense, and apparently he spoke off-the-cuff and in a rather offhand manner. He was unyielding and seems almost to have dared the jury to convict him. Both Plato and Xenophon wrote versions of his speech and, although these overlap here and there, they differ markedly from one another. Neither man was present and must have relied on a combination of eyewitness reports and imagination. Whatever his actual words Plato surely captured his spirit when he has him say: