The Trial and Death of Socrates

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History repeats itself over and over :rolleyes:

If you look too long at a classicist, they'll flinch. As a general rule classicists are self-conscious and introspective members of the academy. What other disciplines can boast such 'self-study styled' titles as, Classics: A Discipline and Profession in Crisis? (Phyllis Culham and L. Edmunds, edd; R. A. Smith co-editor [Lanham, MD] 1989) and Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (V. Hansen [New York] 1998)? Homer died in a homicide/suicide -- we classicists murdered Homer in the process of shooting ourselves. Some would say we have been elistist academic oligarchs. I will apologize only a little for our mood, since for at least the last thirty years Classics has been in a mostly defensive posture so tensed that it has become reflexive: we pounce on every opportunity to argue the importance and relevance of the Classics for modern society. So, I smile and admit that we enjoy democracy's discontent. Via Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Aeschines, and the collective Athenian demos, classicists have found a place in the recent discussions of democratic political philosophy alongside philosophers, political theorists, and other scholars. I have very little reason, then, for an apology, but in 399 BC before the citizen-judges of Athens and by extension before the collected demos Socrates did. We should not overlook the drama of the situation. The disasterous collapse of the Sicilian expedition with the defeat of the Athenian army at Syracuse (413 BC) had heralded the revolt of the Delian league the following year and the final victory of Sparta over Athens (404 BC). During these years, rule at Athens was a volatile mixture of competing powers between the demos, elected generals, and an oligarchial elite, which twice came to power, once in the Council of Four Hundred during the summer of 411 BC and again after the final surrender of Athens (404 BC), when the Spartan admiral Lysander reduced Athens to a satellite state and installed an oligarchy known as 'the Thirty.' In both instances the counter democratic forces remained strong and the oligarchies failed to last out a year, but the political upheaval left a memory of bitter citizen conflict and terror. 'The Thirty' in their political purges were said to have killed more Athenians in eight months than the Spartans in ten years of war (Xen. Hell. 2.4.21). The reign of 'the Thirty', already destabalized by internal conflict and the unpopularity from the extremity of the purges, ended abruptly when pro-democratic forces led by Thrasybalus took control of the Piraeus and defeated the army of the oligarchy. The oligarchy did appeal for Spartan support, but King Pausanias ended the policy of Lysander by restoring the democracy and declaring a general amnesty with the exception of 'the Thirty' themselves and a few of their followers. In general, the democracyÕs reaction towards dissidents was lenient, but scepticism toward the political elite had earned a very difficult edge. Within the immeditae memory of violent oligarchial elitisms, Socrates comes to trial, charged with rejecting the gods of the city and corrupting the youth. He is on trial for his life in the sociopolitical context of democratic discontent.

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Yet, the faces of the speaker are complex: Socrates, "the ordinary citizen", "the offended older gentleman" and simultaneously "the political insider /outsider" sets out a puzzle or at the very least a very difficult tension that still impacts much of the current political debate between the procedure and the ideals of democratic political theory, namely, non-ego-centric inquiry ("I don't know") versus objective standards ("you will hear from me the entire truth"). With all the craft of a rhetorician, Socrates places first his question and delays the governing verb and its negative so that it occupies central position in his first statement. The verbal tri-colon (all in last position) continues and the progression and contrast sets the tone for the remainder of the defense: 'i don't know; i overlooked; they spoke; (of the truth) they have said nothing'. What is the solution to such polarity? How can the Socratic voice here maintain open inquiry and envalued ends? I would like to suggest that the answer lies in the dialectic that follows and the relationship it forces between Socrates and his audience.

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Now in my opening statement I will hazard being unSocratic: I will immediately abandon the dialectic tenet by stating my goals. (1) To bring up for debate the assumptions about classical political practice that undergird modern discussions on American democracy. Much of our political context involves classical political systems and their corresponding texts comprise much of our primary source material. It is an essential part of our investigation into citizenship in democracies, then, to question several presuppositions that when coupled together have often served as a matrix for understanding ancient classical political practice. In discussions of the contemporary sociopolitical landscape these assumptions underlie supposed connections between Athenian and American democratic forms.

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1) Greece and Roman political practice are often grouped together as ancient forms of democracy without any real understanding of their many differences, and consequently how these differences reflect on the current political debates. For instance, references are often made to the classical form (Greece and Rome lumped together) of democracy as is if it were a precursor for the 'new experiment', when in fact American foundations in conception and practice parallel Rome and, perhaps Sparta, not Athens.
2) Greek political theory is analyzed almost exclusively as Athenian or Spartan, and this limited perspective invites a skewed view of the Greek world and the varied city-states that shaped its history. The wide-ranging distribution of literature from the Archaic period illustrates clearly that Athens was one city-state among many (Archilochus [Paros and Thasos], Simonides and Bachylides [Ceos], Sappho and Alcaeus [Lesbos], Mimnermus and Xenophanes [Colophon], Theognis [Megara], Pindar [Thebes], Hesiod [Askra], etc.). Greek political history should not be narrowed to a condensed overview of only the Classical period to the neglect of the formative Archaic period.
3) Classical political philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, are taken to represent majority opinion and are simply read as if they were normative for Athenian society instead of prescriptive or antagonistic. Primary sources often generated by the philosophical or rhetorical elite are cited as the way political practice ÔwasÕ or even more often the way political practice "should have been."
4) The pervasive notion that radical democracy is an undesirable, unwise impossibility, that is, Athenian democracy was elitist and in fact rule by only a small privileged section of society. Democracy is a mask for oligarchy. Robert MichelÕs "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" (Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Trans. Eden and Cedar Paul [New York 1915]) coupled with the highly influential work by R. Syme (The Roman Revolution [Oxford 1939]).

Although I hope that my discussion will relate, even if only in a cursory manner, with all the first three mis-presuppositions, my primary concern (objective 2) will be with the last. I will propose that the dialectic negotiation between the citizen- judges and Socrates in PlatoÕs Apology support Josiah Ober's argument (Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People (Princeton 1989) that Classical Athens represented a radical democracy, and I would add in character quite different from the American revolution. Specifically, borrowing from Ober, Athenian practice demonstrates much confidence in popular mass decisions. Further, in contrast to Sparta, no special education was needed for a citizen to participate well in the political process beyond growing up in the polis. There was a general mistrust of the academic or political elite, and the Athenians believed themselves to be a collective nobility (Josiah Ober, The Athenian Revolution: Essays on Ancient Greek Democracy and Political Theory [Princeton 1996] 26-27).