Socrates, an old man, has been accused by �Meletus' and brought before a judging counsel which will determine whether his crime merits death. The charge brought against him is this: that he has been corrupting the younger men, teaching them that there are no gods, and instructing them in disrespect. For years, the lies and rumor have gathered around him - some from the parodies like Aristophanes,' some from the men he had questioned - so now, instead of facing a single accusation, he was dealing with the compounded finger-pointing and whispered tales of a life-time.
Contrary to the spirit of his age, when the accused did not bother to prove his innocence, but bribed the judges or presented a pathetic front so they would judge from pity, Socrates stood alone, proud, without offering a single enticement, answering one by one the accusations brought against him. He showed with scorn the utter impossibility of the charges, questioning his accuser in his typical fashion, and wondering aloud whether he is thinking, "Will Socrates, the wise man, see how neatly I contradict myself, or will I deceive him and the audience?"
Then Socrates proceeds to the reasons for the whole of his conduct: He tells of a Delphian oracle that called him wisest among men; of his search to find the truth of the oracle; and the consideration that drove him to his present occupation, "I am wiser in this one respect: I do not think I know what I do not." So that, for the God who pronounced him wise, "I go about even now... searching and enquiring among both citizens and strangers, should I think some one of them wise; and when it seems he is not, I help the God and prove it." In fact, Socrates considers himself a divine gadfly, "I rouse you. I persuade you. I upbraid you." and tells the council, that, "I am far from making a defense for my own sake, as some might think; I mad it for yours, lest you mistake the gift the God has given you... Be well assured that if you kill me, and if I am the sort of man I claim, you will harm me less than yourselves."
Despite this moving, logical speech, Socrates is sentenced to death by a thirty vote margin, and called upon to propose an alternative penance - a practice in those times, to make capital punishment seem less harsh. But even then, when a suggestion that he should go into exile or pay a fine might have saved him, Socrates merely remarks that since there seems no crime he should not be punished at all; in fact, for his great public service, he should be fed at the state's expense. But it is done, and he is inevitably sentenced to death. It is no hardship in any case, he says, since for all I know, death may be the greatest good, and I would rather face what may be good that what I know to be evil, such as incarceration. With customary calm, Socrates then proceeds to discuss with the judges that voted for his acquittal the nature of death and the sentence he just received, finishing famously, "But it is already the hour of parting - I to die and you to live. Which of us goes to the better is unclear to all but God."
Besides being the amazing tale it is, Plato's Apology has a deeper meaning relative to himself. Chronologically, it is one of the first things he wrote. It is the portrait of a true philosopher, whose goal is always truth, and whose animal passions - even desire for life - are subservient to that goal. Since it is the first thing he wrote, in addition to being a homage to Plato's �hero,' it is the consecration of his life: a portrait of the path he intended to follow.
©Copyright, 2004, Robert Quiller