Skip to main content

SENTENCING SOCRATES



One day in 399 BC, the philosopher Socrates stood before a jury of 500 Athenians. He was accused of "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state" and "corrupting the youth".

Aguilty verdict could mean death. After six hours of arguments from Socrates and his accusers, the jury voted by placing "guilty" or "not guilty" discs into an urn. The verdict: guilty by 280 to 220.

The jury was asked to decide on Socrates' penalty, which his accusers argued should be the death penalty. When asked for his opinion, Socrates impudently suggested that he receive a government salary and free dinners for the rest of his life. His second suggestion was that he pay a small fine.

Athenians had come to expect no less from Socrates, a man who was widely hated by the city-state. According to Plato, his student and biographer, Socrates had become the "gadfly" of Athens when the oracle at Delphi had allegedly said no one was wiser than he. Socrates regularly annoyed his fellow citizens: he enraged the polis, the political community, by criticizing democracy, a political system invented in Athens; and he embarrassed people with his Socratic method of questioning, which invariably exposed ignorance. Socrates was also associated with the Thirty Tyrants, who had briefly overthrown the Athenian government.

But now Socrates was about to receive his comeuppance.

His sentence was execution, to be administered by his drinking a cup of hemlock. Plato was not present at the execution, but his Phaedo recalls it from eyewitness accounts told to him.

This is what happened after Socrates had drunk the poison:

"Socrates walked around until he said that his legs were becoming heavy, when he lay on his back, as the attendant instructed. This fellow felt him, and then a moment later examined his feet and legs again. Squeezing a foot hard, he asked him if he felt anything. Socrates said that he did not. He did the same to his calves and, going higher, showed us that he was becoming cold and stiff. Then he felt him a last time and said that when the poison reached the heart he would be gone. As the chill sensation got to his waist, Socrates uncovered his head (he had put something over it) and said his last words: 'Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don't forget.... after a while he gave a slight stir, and the attendant uncovered him and examined his eyes. Then Crito saw that he was dead, he closed his mouth and eyelids."

So ends the account of one of the most famous early poisonings in history, and with it Socrates, the father of Western philosophy.

Source ~ ' Poison - The History of potions, powders and murderous practitioners' by Ben Hubbard

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself.......

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of a different perspective. Because if not, there's absolutely no point. Not every argument is worth your energy. Sometimes, no matter how clearly you express yourself, the other person isn’t listening to understand—they’re listening to react. They’re stuck in their own perspective, unwilling to consider another viewpoint, and engaging with them only drains you. There’s a difference between a healthy discussion and a pointless debate. A conversation with someone who is open-minded, who values growth and understanding, can be enlightening—even if you don’t agree. But trying to reason with someone who refuses to see beyond their own beliefs? That’s like talking to a wall. No matter how much logic or truth you present, they will twist, deflect, or dismiss your words, not because you’re wrong, but because they’re unwilling to see another side. Maturity is...
Post a Comment
Read more

The battle against caste: Phule and Periyar's indomitable legacy

In the annals of India's social reform, two luminaries stand preeminent: Jotirao Phule and E.V. Ramasamy, colloquially known as Periyar. Their endeavours, ensconced in the 19th and 20th centuries, continue to sculpt the contemporary struggle against the entrenched caste system. Phule's educational renaissance Phule, born in 1827, was an intellectual vanguard who perceived education as the ultimate equaliser. He inaugurated the inaugural school for girls from lower castes in Pune, subverting the Brahminical hegemony that had long monopolized erudition. His Satyashodhak Samaj endeavoured to obliterate caste hierarchies through radical social reform. His magnum opus, "Gulamgiri" (Slavery), delineated poignant parallels between India's caste system and the subjugation of African-Americans, igniting a discourse on caste as an apparatus of servitude. Periyar's rationalist odyssey Periyar, born in 1879, assumed the mantle of social reform through the Dravidian moveme...
Post a Comment
Read more

AI & Higher Education: The Empty Classroom

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & HIGHER EDUCATION The Empty Classroom When students outsource learning to AI and companies cut the engineers who know better, both ends of the talent pipeline fray at once. India is not watching from a safe distance. Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan At the University of California, Berkeley, something unremarkable happened in spring 2026: a professor held office hours. The unremarkable part was that nobody came. Dan Garcia, who teaches CS 10, a broad introductory computing course popularly called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing,” found his calendar conspicuously clear at the very moment his gradebook became conspicuously alarming. Of the students who sat CS 10’s final examination, 35.3% received an F—five times the historical norm of roughly 7%. Two other courses in Berkeley’s elite Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department suffered similarly: 10.6% of CS 61A students failed, and 16.8% of those in EECS 127, an upper-division optimi...
1 comment
Read more