The Trial and Execution of Socrates Sources and Controversies

by Brickhouse, Thomas C.; Smith, Nicholas D.

• ISBN13: 9780195119800
• ISBN10: 0195119800
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Socrates is one of the most important yet enigmatic philosophers of all time; his fame has endured for centuries despite the fact that he never actually wrote anything. In 399 B.C.E., he was tried on the charge of impiety by the citizens of Athens, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to death(ordered to drink poison derived from hemlock). About these facts there is no disagreement. However, as the sources collected in this book and the scholarly essays that follow them show, several of even the most basic facts about these events were controversial in antiquity, and the questionspersist today: How and why was Socrates brought to trial? Why did the jurors, members of the world's first democracy, find him guilty? When he was given an opportunity to escape execution, why did he refuse to do so and instead accept the punishment that he and his friends agreed was unjustlyassigned to him? How exactly did Socrates die? Differences of opinion on these and other issues continue to arouse our curiosity and to challenge new generations of students and scholars. The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies is the first work to collect in one place all of the major ancient sources on Socrates' death--those of both his critics and his defenders--as well as recent scholarly views. Part I includes new translations of Plato's Euthyphro,Apology, Crito, and the death scene from Phaedo, as well as other ancient sources that shed light on Socrates' trial and execution. Part II features some of the most influential recent scholarship on this historically momentous event with work by M. F. Burnyeat, Robert Parker, Mark L. McPherran,Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Richard Kraut, Christopher Gill, and Enid Bloch (whose essay is published here for the first time). Ideal for undergraduate surveys of ancient Greek philosophy and upper-level courses on Socrates and Socratic philosophy, this unique collection provides anunprecedented look into the many perplexing questions surrounding the trial and execution of this remarkable man.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(16)
PART I: ORIGINAL SOURCES
Aristophanes	17	(7)
Clouds II. 358-407, 476-492, 627-680, 723-756, 825-830	18	(6)
Plato	24	(57)
Euthyphro (complete)	25	(17)
Apology of Socrates (complete)	42	(23)
Crito (complete)	65	(13)
Phaedo (death scene: 116a-118a)	78	(3)
Xenophon	81	(27)
Apology of Socrates (complete)	82	(5)
Memorabilia 1.1.1-1.2.39, 1.2.47-1.3.15, 4.7.1-4.8.11	87	(21)
Diogenes Laertius	108	(4)
On the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Persons in Philosophy 2.18, 24, 29, 37-43	108	(4)
Minor Sources	112	(10)
Aeschines of Sphettus (fragment 1K from Publius Aelius Aristides)	112	(1)
Isocrates, Busiris 11.4-6	113	(1)
Aeschines (Rhetor), Oratio 1.173	113	(1)
Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric 2.10.1393b4-8; Metaphysics A 1.6.987b1-4	114	(1)
Diodorus Siculus, Book IV, 37.7	115	(1)
Dio Chrysostum 43.8-10	116	(1)
Maximus of Tyre, Oration 3.1-8	117	(5)
Libanius	122	(11)
Apology of Socrates 1, 13, 15-16, 22, 33, 48, 53, 59, 103-106, 110-112, 127, 136, 142, 153-154, 168, 170, 172, 174-175	122	(11)
PART II: RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Why was Socrates Prosecuted?	133	(91)
``The Impiety of Socrates''	133	(12)
M. F. Burnyeat
``The Trial of Socrates: And a Religious Crisis?''	145	(17)
Robert Parker
``Does Piety Pay? Socrates on Prayer and Sacrifice''	162	(28)
Mark L. McPherran
from Plato's Socrates	190	(34)
Thomas C. Brickhouse
Nicholas D. Smith
Socrates and Obedience to the Law	224	(27)
from Socrates and the State	224	(11)
Richard Kraut
from Plato's Socrates	235	(16)
Thomas C. Brickhouse
Nicholas D. Smith
Did Plato Tell the Truth About the Death of Socrates?	251	(28)
``The Death of Socrates''	251	(4)
Christopher Gill
``Hemlock Poisoning and the Death of Socrates: Did Plato Tell the Truth?''	255	(24)
Enid Bloch
Works Cited	279