Why Socrates Died, by Robin Waterfield -- a very readable book about the workings of Athenian democracy

"Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths" by Robin Waterfield (Norton 2009)

This was a fun read. A well-written, engaging book. Waterfield goes to great lengths to describe the context and background of Socrates's execution in 399 BC. We learn a great deal about Athenian political and cultural life, the Peloponnesian War, and the habits of Socrates and his friends. Waterfield made me feel as if I personally knew Alcibiades and Socrates and the many other characters. There is plenty of historical detail, without being too heavy.

Waterfield elucidates the case against Socrates over many pages. He sums it up on page 191, quoting from the book: "He was a clever arguer and taught young men to be clever arguers; he usurped their fathers' roles in education and in general was perceived to be subversive of inherited values..." In a time of unrest, of conflict between democracy and oligarchy, and the war with Sparta, Athenians were fed up with Socrates's undermining of the traditional faith and conventions. That was enough in the Athenian democratic system, to be a crime.

There was more, of course. He was young Alcibiades's teacher, the most prominent young Athenian if his time. Alcibiades was brilliant and handsome, an oligarch, and went on to play a traitorous role in the war with Sparta. Socrates also seemed allied with Critias, a member the The Thirty tyrants, who briefly took power in Athens in a coup that led to civil war, although Socrates himself played no role in the tyranny. Socrates was not a friend of Athenian democracy, as it was structured.


It reads to me as if there are parallels in the struggle between democrats and oligarchs and today's progressive liberals and small-government conservatives. The democrats constantly worked to hedge and contain the power of the few wealthy oligarchs, and believed in collective decision-making and the betterment of "the many" at the expense of the oligarchs. The oligarchs believed in reducing the role of democracy and its conventions and bureaucracy, of promoting the progress of the state by promoting the progress of "the best", of the brightest and most capable men (who were of course oligarchs).

Hemlock could not have been an easy way to die. You didn't simply go to sleep painlessly. You apparently are asphyxiated as your diaphragm stops working. Socrates is said to have willingly taken hemlock rather than escape at the urging of his friends. As Waterfield presents him, he is filled with what we would regard as faults, but not what we could call crimes. And certainly not faults worthy of execution.