What was socrates prosecuted for

Anytus supported the Amnesty of Eucleides in that prohibited prosecution of offenses occurring during or before the Rule of Thirty. Anytus' motivation in prosecuting Socrates is believed to have been based on his concern that the Socrates's criticism of Athenian institutions endangered the democracy that Athens had so recently regained.

Socrates, who was associated with several persons viewed as responsible for the overthrow of Athenian democracy, made no secret of his disdain for politicians such as Anytus. Even after democracy was restored, he continued to ridicule such centerpieces of Athenian democracy as the selection of leaders by majority vote. Plato's Meno offers some possible clues as to the animosity between Anytus and Socrates. In the Meno , Plato reports that Socrates's argument that the great statesmen of Athenian history have nothing to offer in terms of an understanding of virtue enrages Anytus.

Plato quotes Anytus as warning Socrates: "Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. Anytus had an additional personal gripe with Socrates. Socrates had a relationship with the son of Anytus.

Plato quotes Socrates as saying, "I has a brief association with the son of Anytus, and I found him not lacking in spirit. Anytus almost certainly disapproved of his son's relationship with Socrates. I wish to receive the University's news digest by email.

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Please read our email privacy notice for details. Postgraduate Why Cambridge? Postgraduate courses How to apply Fees and funding Frequently asked questions. International students Continuing education Executive and professional education Courses in education. Annual reports Equality and diversity Media relations A global university. Events Public engagement Jobs Give to Cambridge. Research at Cambridge. Socrates, in Plato's account, points to his refusal to comply with the Tyrants' order that he bring in Leon of Salamis for summary execution.

He argues this act of disobedience--which might have led to his own execution, had not the Tyrants fallen from power--demonstrates his service as a good citizen of Athens. Stone notes, however, that a good citizen might have done more than simply go home to bed--he might have warned Leon of Salamis.

In Stone's critical view, the central fact remained that in the city's darkest hour, Socrates "never shed a tear for Athens. He argues that he never presumed to be a teacher, just a figure who roamed Athens answering the questions that were put to him. He points to his pupils in the crowd and observes that none of them accused him.

Moreover, Socrates suggests to the jury, if Critias really understood his words, he never would have gone on the bloody rampage that he did in Hannah Arendt notes that Critias apparently concluded, from the message of Socrates that piety cannot be defined, that it is permissible to be impious--"pretty much the opposite of what Socrates had hoped to achieve by talking about piety. What is strikingly absent from the defense of Socrates, if Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be believed, is the plea for mercy typically made to Athenian juries.

It was common practice to appeal to the sympathies of jurors by introducing wives and children. Socrates, however, did no more than remind the jury that he had a family.

Neither his wife Xanthippe nor any of his three sons made a personal appearance. On the contrary, Socrates--according to Plato--contends that the unmanly and pathetic practice of pleading for clemency disgraces the justice system of Athens.

When the three-hour defense of Socrates came to an end, the court herald asked the jurors to render their decision by putting their ballot disks in one of two marked urns, one for guilty votes and one for votes for acquittal. With no judge to offer them instructions as to how to interpret the charges or the law, each juror struggled for himself to come to an understanding of the case and the guilt or innocence of Socrates. When the ballots were counted, jurors had voted to find Socrates guilty, jurors for acquittal.

Penalty Phase of Trial. After the conviction of Socrates by a relatively close vote, the trial entered its penalty phase. Each side, the accusers and the defendant, was given an opportunity to propose a punishment.

After listening to arguments, the jurors would choose which of the two proposed punishments to adopt. The accusers of Socrates proposed the punishment of death. In proposing death, the accusers might well have expected to counter with a proposal for exile--a punishment that probably would have satisfied both them and the jury.

Instead, Socrates audaciously proposes to the jury that he be rewarded, not punished. According to Plato, Socrates asks the jury for free meals in the Prytaneum, a public dining hall in the center of Athens. Socrates must have known that his proposed "punishment" would infuriate the jury. Stone noted that "Socrates acts more like a picador trying to enrage a bull than a defendant trying to mollify a jury.

The only answer, Stone and others conclude, is that Socrates was ready to die. To comply with the demand that a genuine punishment be proposed, Socrates reluctantly suggested a fine of one mina of silver--about one-fifth of his modest net worth, according to Xenophon. Plato and other supporters of Socrates upped the offer to thirty minae by agreeing to come up with silver of their own.

Most jurors likely believed even the heftier fine to be far too slight of a punishment for the unrepentant defendant. In the final vote, a larger majority of jurors favored a punishment of death than voted in the first instance for conviction. According to Diogenes Laertius, jurors voted for death, for the fine.

Under Athenian law, execution was accomplished by drinking a cup of poisoned hemlock. In Plato's Apology , the trial concludes with Socrates offering a few memorable words as court officials finished their necessary work. He tells the crowd that his conviction resulted from his unwillingness to "address you as you would have liked me to do. Finally, as he is being led off to jail, Socrates utters the memorable line: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live.

Which to the better fate is known only to God. There are no records suggesting that Athenian practice allowed defendants to speak after sentencing. Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens jail. The ruins of the jail remain today. The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system. Most scholars see the conviction and execution of Socrates as a deliberate choice made by the famous philosopher himself.

If the accounts of Plato and Xenophon are reasonably accurate, Socrates sought not to persuade jurors, but rather to lecture and provoke them. The trial of Socrates thus became the most interesting suicide the world has ever seen. Had he wanted to, Socrates could have won an acquittal. The closeness of the vote shows that there was nothing inevitable about his sentence.

If he had been less condescending, less confrontational, less arrogant; if he had argued he was just exercising his basic right of free speech, a right of which Athenians were justly proud, jurors might have been more receptive.

Far from corrupting the city, he argued, his life of questioning had done it nothing but good. Plato's 'Apology' records what Socrates said: 'To put it bluntly I've been assigned to this city as if to a large horse which is inclined to be lazy and is in need of some great stinging fly and all day long I'll never cease to settle here, there, everywhere, rousing and reproving every one of you.