The Last Days of Socrates

This series has eight easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: Setting the Scene.

Introduction
This story is one of the most memorable in all of antiquity. It is the hero-scholar versus the corrupt politicians, his martyrdom, his interest in intellectual truth even though it goes against his own self-interest.

About this piece. Plato’s later dialogues seems to use Socrates as a literary device to make Plato’s own philosophical thoughts, making Plato a great philosopher in his own right. The purpose of this early one seems to convey his historical recollections.

The technique of conveying historical information in dialogue form was used by other Greek historians of this era, most notably Thucydides.

Here’s the background.

The death of Socrates was brought about under the restored democracy by three of his enemies — Lycon, Meletus, and Anytus, the last a man of high rank and reputation in the state. Socrates was accused by them of despising the ancient gods of the state, introducing new divinities and corrupting the youth of Athens. He was charged with having taught his followers, young men of the first Athenian families, to despise the established government, to be turbulent and seditious, and his accusers pointed to Alcibiades and Critias, notorious for their lawlessness, as examples of the fruits of his teaching.

It is quite certain that Socrates disliked the Athenian government and considered democracy as tyrannical as despotism. But there was no law at Athens by which he could be put to death for his words and actions, and the vague charge could never have been made unless the whole trial of the philosopher had been a party movement, headed by men like Lycon and Anytus, whose support of the unjust measure made the condemnation of Socrates a foregone conclusion. Xenophon, the pupil and admirer of the philosopher, expresses in his Memorabilia of Socrates his surprise that the Athenians should have condemned to death a man of such exalted character and transparent innocence. But the influence of the teacher with his pupils, most of them sons of the wealthiest citizens, might well have been dreaded by those in office and engaged in the conduct of public business. By them, the common politicians of the day, Socrates, with his keen and witty criticism of political corruption and demagogism, must have been considered a formidable adversary.

Accordingly, by the decision of the Athenian court, the philosopher was sentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock. Although it was usual for criminals to be executed the day following their condemnation, he enjoyed a respite of thirty days, during which time his friends had access to his prison cell. It was the time when the ceremonial galley was crowned and sent on her pilgrimage to the holy Isle of Delos, and no criminal could be executed until her return. Socrates exhibited heroic constancy and cheerfulness during this interval and repudiated the offers of his friends to aid in his escape, though they had chartered a ship to carry him to Thessaly. With calm composure he reasoned on the immortality of the soul and cheered his visitors with words of hope.

Plato, in his Phaedo, or the Immortality of the Soul, gives the following dialogue between Echecrates and Phaedo — two friends and disciples of the late philosopher — evidently with no other purpose in view than to lend to the account of the great teacher’s last hours, and the last words his followers were to hear from his lips, the additional force and dramatic value of a personal narrative in the mouth of a loving pupil and an actual eyewitness of his death.

This selection is from Phaedo by Plato published in his middle/transitional period. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Plato (c 424-348 BC-) was a pupil and a disciple of Socrates. He is one of the great philosophers in history.

Time: 399 BC
Place: Athens

Echecrates. Were you personally present, Phaedo, with Socrates on that day when he drank the poison in prison? or did you hear an account of it from someone else?

Phaed. I was there myself, Echecrates.

Ech. What then did he say before his death? and how did he die? for I should be glad to hear; for scarcely any citizen of Phlius[1] ever visits Athens now, nor has any stranger for a long time come from thence, who was able to give us a clear account of the particulars, except that he died from drinking poison; but he was unable to tell us anything more.

[1: Phlius, to which Echecrates belonged, was a town of Sicyonia in Peloponnesus.]

Phaed. And did you not hear about the trial how it went off?

Ech. Yes; someone told me this; and I wondered, that as it took place so long ago, he appears to have died long afterward. What was the reason of this, Phaedo?

Phaed. An accidental circumstance happened in his favor, Echecrates: for the poop of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos, chanced to be crowned on the day before the trial.

Ech. But what is this ship?

Phaed. It is the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus formerly conveyed the fourteen boys and girls to Crete and saved both them and himself. They, therefore, made a vow to Apollo on that occasion, as it is said, that if they were saved they would every year dispatch a solemn embassy to Delos; which, from that time to the present, they send yearly to the god. When they begin the preparations for this solemn embassy, they have a law that the city shall be purified during this period, and that no public execution shall take place until the ship has reached Delos and returned to Athens: and this occasionally takes a long time, when the winds happen to impede their passage. The commencement of the embassy is when the priest of Apollo has crowned the poop of the ship. And this was done, as I said, on the day before the trial: on this account Socrates had a long interval in prison between the trial and his death.

Ech. And what, Phaedo, were the circumstances of his death? what was said and done? and who of his friends were with him? or would not the magistrates allow them to be present, but did he die destitute of friends?

Phaed. By no means; but some, indeed several, were present.

Ech. Take the trouble, then, to relate to me all the particulars as clearly as you can, unless you have any pressing business.

Phaed. I am at leisure, and will endeavor to give you a full account: for to call Socrates to mind, whether speaking myself or listening to some one else, is always most delightful to me.

Ech. And indeed, Phaedo, you have others to listen to you who are of the same mind. However, endeavor to relate everything as accurately as you can.

Phaed. I was indeed wonderfully affected by being present, for I was not impressed with a feeling of pity, like one present at the death of a friend; for the man appeared to me to be happy, Echecrates, both from his manner and discourse, so fearlessly and nobly did he meet his death: so much so that it occurred to me that in going to Hades he was not going without a divine destiny, but that when he arrived there he would be happy, if anyone ever was. For this reason I was entirely uninfluenced by any feeling of pity, as would seem likely to be the case with one present on so mournful an occasion; nor was I affected by pleasure from being engaged in philosophical discussions, as was our custom; for our conversation was of that kind. But an altogether unaccountable feeling possessed me, a kind of unusual mixture compounded of pleasure and pain together, when I considered that he was immediately about to die. And all of us who were present were affected in much the same manner, at one time laughing, at another weeping one of us especially, Apollodorus, for you know the man and his manner.

Ech. How should I not?

Phaed. He, then, was entirely overcome by these emotions; and I too was troubled, as well as the others.

Ech. But who were present, Phaedo?

Phaed. Of his fellow-countrymen, this Apollodorus was present, and Critobulus, and his father Crito, moreover Hermogenes, Epigenes, Æschines, and Antisthenes; Ctesippus the Pæanian, Menexenus, and some other of his countrymen were also there: Plato I think was sick.

Ech. Were any strangers present?

Phaed. Yes: Simmias the Theban, Cebes, and Phaedondes: and from Megara, Euclides and Terpsion.

Ech. But what! were not Aristippus and Cleombrotus present?

Phaed. No: for they were said to be at Aegina.

Ech. Was anyone else there?

Phaed. I think that these were nearly all who were present.

Ech. Well, now, what do you say was the subject of conversation?

Phaed. I will endeavor to relate the whole to you from the beginning. On the preceding days I and the others were constantly in the habit of visiting Socrates, meeting early in the morning at the court-house where the trial took place, for it was near the prison. Here then we waited every day till the prison was opened, conversing with each other; for it was not opened very early, but, as soon as it was opened we went in to Socrates, and usually spent the day with him. On that occasion, however, we met earlier than usual; for on the preceding day, when we left the prison in the evening, we heard that the ship had arrived from Delos. We therefore urged each other to come as early as possible to the accustomed place; accordingly we came, and the porter, who used to admit us, coming out, told us to wait, and not enter until he called us. “For,” he said, “the Eleven are now freeing Socrates from his bonds, and announcing to him that he must die to-day.” But in no long time he returned and bade us enter.

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