Introduction to the Ancient World: Greece

 Socrates (469-399 B.C.) and His Trial

 I. Athens and her malaise at the end of the century 5th

A. the sea battle at the Arginusai islands and the trial (406 B.C.)
B. the end: loss of the fleet at Aigospotamoi; 4,000 Athenian sailors executed (405 B.C.)
C. the terror regime of the Thirty (led by Critias)
D. the Democratic counter-revolution (403 B.C.)
E. Socrates and his connections: his story of how the Demos tried to make him help kill the Generals at Arginusai and the Thirty tried to make him help kill Leon of Salamis (Apology, p. 438); his connections with the sophist Critias (Plato's evil uncle)    

II. The judicial system

A. prosecution: left to private individuals
B. juries of 501: large and anonymous...also: no judge to pronounce verdicts
C. water-clock and bronze ballots
D. punishment phase: hemlock and/or cramp irons 

III. Socrates

A. details of life; Xanthippe
B. his mission; Delphi (p. 427), daimon (pp. 436-7)
C. his dialectic method (pp. 427-9, 443, 446), Socratic optimism and irony (p. 423, 427) 
D. shift from physics to ethics (p. 437) 

IV. The trial and his defense

A. accusers (Anytos and Meletos [430]) and charges: corrupts the youth, believes in other gods than Athens'; looks like a sophist (p. 424)
B. patriotism, gadfly (p. 428)
C. the conviction
D. proposal for punishment (p. 442)
E. looking forward to death - death wish (pp. 444-6)?

Lecture 27 Images