Was Socrates Responsible For His Own Death

To what extent should Socrates himself be held to be responsible for his own death?

During the days before and after Socrates’ trial, there was a multitude of options to avoid the ultimate punishment for most, death. Socrates was denied options that were on all sides of the spectrum, from an average request to a devious escape. Socrates was never one to know when he has spoken too much, which could also attribute to his death.

In 399 B.C, the Persians had attacked Athens and the Athenian gods denied help for the Athenians. The Athenians denied that they had lost a battle tremendously and tried to place the blame on someone that had ‘lack of respect for the gods’ or had put them to shame, and of course, the first person the Athenians put to blame was Socrates. Socrates was used as a scapegoat for the Athenian government to prove to the citizens that it wasn’t their fault for getting beaten by the Persians by poor strategy and getting blindsided, rather that it was Socrates lack of respect of the gods that caused the Athenians to get attacked by the Persians. With all of this happening, wealthy

Athenians were getting annoyed with Socrates teaching their children the ways of Socratic philosophy, which was not the highest paying or noblest job for a person to typically have, so there was a high demand to get rid of Socrates. With the combination of both the city of Athens, and also the high demand of parents wanting Socrates to be gone, Socrates was brought to trial for impiety and corrupting the youth.

When Socrates was bought to trial for impiety and corrupting the youth, he could have easily asked to be ostracized from Athens. In fact Socrates could also have asked to be thrown into gaol for his crimes, but instead, he opted to be trialed for death. Socrates decided upon the death from a result for his trial as he was seventy years old and had lived a long enough life and was going to die anyway. Socrates sat a trial that contained a total of 501 Athenian citizens as jurors. It does not say in any ancient source whether there was any bias toward Socrates during the trial, but as Socrates had managed to annoy almost every Athenian citizen once through his Socratic conversations, it is not unlikely that there was some. The trial was fairly clear as what the outcome was going to be, as 280 jurors voted guilty and only 220 voted innocent. After hearing this, the usual response would be for a person to defend him or herself and possibly persuade the jury to change their vote or give him a less serious punishment, but that was not the case for Socrates. When Socrates got up to spoke after the numbers came in, he demanded that he were to be treated like an Olympian, getting free food for the rest of his life, and to be paid a fee of 30 minas of silver. This angered the jury, which lead for an even larger gap between innocent and guilty at the end of the one-day trial, as he was sentenced to drink a cup of poisonous hemlock at the end of the month.

Within the month Socrates was in prison, a variety of events took place, some were to try getting Socrates out of his sentence, and some were to get Socrates away from Athens all together. While Socrates was in prison, his two most literate students, Xenophon and Plato both wrote an apology in attempt to get him out of prison. These apologies are written about Socrates defense in court, but in a glorified way, in a way to make Socrates look like the good guy in the story and hopefully save him. Plato’s apology shows Socrates also reassuring his friends, in an attempt to not feel bad for his death, as he states “The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.” This quote highlights Socrates’ values, as he does not believe in disobeying his own values and ethics for the Athenian government just so he could live a few more years, but to always be true to yourself, as if your soul is happy, nothing can go wrong. Although Plato’s and Xenophon’s Apology did not manage to give Socrates much of an opportunity to be let off of his sentence, it did expand historians knowledge of Socrates’ trial.

During Socrates’ time in prison, he did manage to speak to his friends and students about his death and continue to teach them of his ways.

One of Socrates’ friends, Crito, did not take the concept of his teacher being sentenced to death well, and attempted to take measures into his own hands. Whilst Crito was visiting Socrates during the day, he proposed that he would break Socrates out of prison and they would run away. Socrates did not take this lightly as he angrily told Crito that escaping was not morally correct, and was perplexed that Crito said, “Not escaping would be an unjust thing to do”. This was followed by Socrates reassuring Crito that escaping would corrupt the soul; life goes on for a coupe of years but the soul lasts for an eternity. This furthered the decreased Socrates choices to not be killed, but Socrates did not want that, he wanted whatever was

right.

Although Socrates was responsible for almost every aspect of his death, there is still the reason as to why the Athenians chose to use Socrates as their scapegoat. Although Socrates was practicing impiety and could have been suspected of the loss between Greece and Athens, that does not necessarily give reason as to why they had to sentence Socrates to death from hemlock. In fact, Socrates was a hoplite in at least three wars for Athens (Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis. Socrates was a proud citizen of Athens too, often visiting the Acropolis and going to wine parties, so it is strange that his charges were so severe, especially for only a one day trial, which was how all cases went in Athens.

Although there is a strange reason behind Socrates’ sentencing, Socrates is very responsible for his own death as he didn’t defend himself, continued to corrupt the youth through his final days of teaching, and avoided escaping prison. Socrates died the same way he lived, calm and steady, as he drank the hemlock cup and lay back to wait for the effects to kick in, he shamed his friends for crying, and had some contradicting last words to keep everyone thinking as he said “Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. See to it, and don't forget.”