Socrates’ post mortem concerns

In the ‘Life of Socrates’ by Diogenes Laertius we can read: ‘he would take to task those who thought highly of themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure he treated Anytus, according to Plato’s Meno. For Anytus could not endure being ridiculed by Socrates, and so in the first place he stirred up against him Aristophanes and his friends; then afterwards he helped to persuade Meletus to indict him on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth,’ (Diog. Laert. II. 38)

Socrates believed that the Athenians would soon repent their sentencing him to death. After the trial, he said to those, who voted for his death sentence: ‘Shortly, men of Athens, you will be given the name and blame (onoma hexete kai aitian) of having killed Socrates (hȏs Sȏkratȇ apektonate).’ (Pl. Ap. 38c) Thus reviled, the Athenians. would seek a scape goat. There were two obvious candidates for this: Plato, the author of the Meno, and Meletus, who brought the indictment. I shall argue that Socrates did not want this to happen and in his Defence speech did his best to prevent it. Concerning Meletus, the task was simple; Socrates achieved it within the framework of his interrogation of him.

Socrates asked Meletus: ‘How do you say, Meletus, that I corrupt the youth? Or is it evident, according to the indictment you brought, that it is by teaching them not to believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings? Do you not say that it is by teaching this that I corrupt them?’

Meletus: ‘Very decidedly that is what I say’ (Panu men oun sphodra tauta legȏ).

Socrates: ‘Then, Meletus, for the sake of these very gods about whom our speech now is, speak still more clearly both to me and to these gentlemen. For I am unable to understand whether you say that I teach there are some gods, and myself then believe that there are some gods, and am not altogether godless and am not a wrongdoer in that way, that these, however, are not the gods whom the state believes in, but others, and this is what you accuse me for, that I believe in others; or you say that I myself do not believe in gods at all and that I teach this unbelief to other people.’

Meletus: ‘That is what I say, that you do not believe in gods at all.’ (Pl. Ap.26b-c)

Socrates: ‘This man appears to me, men of Athens, to be very violent (panu einai hubristȇs) and unrestrained (kai akolastos), and actually to have brought this indictment in a spirit of violence and unrestraint and rashness (kai atechnȏs tȇn graphȇn tautȇn hubrei tini kai akolasiai kai neotȇti gegraphthai). For he seems, as it were by composing a puzzle to be making a test: “Will Socrates, the wise man, recognize that I am joking and contradicting myself, or shall I deceive him and the others who hear me?” For he appears to me to contradict himself in his speech, as if he were to say, “Socrates is a wrongdoer (adikei Sȏkratȇs), because he does not believe in gods (theous ou nomizȏn), but does believe in gods (alla theous nomizȏn).’ And yet this is the conduct of a jester (kaitoi touto esti paizontos).’ (Pl. Ap. 26e-27a)

Who has read this piece of Socrates’ Defence speech can hardly believe that it was on account of Meletus that the Athenians sentenced Socrates to death; the ‘name and blame’ concerning it lies fairly and squarely with Anytus. This is not a conjecture; Socrates says, reflecting on his death sentence: ‘I think, so far as Meletus is concerned, I have even now been acquitted, and not merely acquitted, but anyone can see that, if Anytus had not come forward to accuse me, he would have been fined a thousand drachmas for not receiving a fifth part of the vote.’ (Pl. Ap. 36a-b) (Translation from Plato’s Apology H. N. Fowler)