Essay Sample on Socrates’ Fate

Socrates was a teacher through and through. He spent his entire life getting people to think, and think in a way that hadn’t been really seen before. Many saw him as the annoying ugly guy that messed around in the agora and held them up when they just wanted to get home. However, Socrates sees himself as doing a service to Athens by educating the populace, and by extension the youth of Athens. Socrates believed that the youth of Athens is his beloved city’s future and spent decades dedicating himself to educating them only to be killed for his efforts by those who didn't understand him and his methods.

Socrates has always seemed hardheaded. He spent decades arguing with people in public, defending philosophy, and pointing out the flaws in people’s arguments.  Even upon the pain of death, he didn’t stop doing what he enjoyed. To an extent, Socrates should be admired for his tenacity and willingness to persevere. However, in his mind, he wasn’t the crazy old man people saw him as. He was a teacher, guiding the youth of Athens to a brighter future, and allowing others to see the faults in their thought and reason. The way he taught invoked true thought and deliberation over one’s life. To Socrates and his students, there was no better joy than discussing life and philosophy day in and day out. To many of Athens, this seemed a bit absurd. Foregoing other pleasures to talk to people in the agora for hours a day for decades? Who does that? Socrates. 

The people of Athens prided themselves on being the best of the greeks. They were pioneers of warfare, democracy, and reason. They had recently won the Persian war and were the head of the Delian League, though they had even more recently been crushed by Sparta in the Peloponnesian wars. To keep this up, they would need something every civilization wants; a better next generation. Young men who would take the foundations they were given and raise Athens to new, loftier heights. To do this, they taught their children everything they deemed important. Rhetoric, religion, politics, everything a young man would need to survive Athens and come out on top. Socrates was all for helping the next generation, he just thought it was being done wrong. He thought that a boy should be brought up not to get what he wants and manipulate people, but to think and think right. To work towards a goal rightly and thoughtfully. And like Socrates says about himself in the apology, to be the same person both in public and behind closed doors.  To Socrates, this is the most important thing a young man can be taught, and that teaching wasn’t being given, so he took it upon himself to teach. 

Standing in the agora, he would question people, asking things to make them think. In his eyes, this was the best thing he could do to repay Athens for all it had done for him. Athens had given Socrates wealth, success, and all other manners of fortune. Socrates had been a soldier in the recent war and had even saved the life of a popular general. He was a landowner, and never really had to worry about money. He knew how to talk to the rich and poor alike. Socrates fully believed that he was no better than the common man, unlike some of his fellow wealthy Athenians. For this, he saw himself as just another Athenian. His mindset was a bit strange for the time. Athens was a place of democracy, but not equality. For Socrates, Athens was the people, not the elite and city. Socrates is one of the sole outliers for this school of thought. This is why he thought the youth was so important. He says in the Apology that the men of Athens treat their sons like colts, hiring Sophists as metaphorical trainers to help them develop. However, these trainers, in Socrates’ eyes, don't train the right parts of the metaphorical “colts” to allow them to prosper fully and to blossom into the bright young men that will guide Athens. This was especially important at this time because Athens was under the rule of the 30 tyrants. 

The 30 tyrants were an oligarchy set up by Sparta after Athens lost the Peloponnesian wars. Many in Athens were against them. They saw the oligarchy as tyrants there to take their freedom and keep them under Sparta’s thumb. Socrates, as in many things (and life it seems) didn’t necessarily like or dislike the oligarchy. He just saw it as another phase of Athens’ rulers, which made people suspicious of him. This suspicion later turned into distrust, and distrust into malice, which ended up bringing Socrates to trial and death. No matter what, though he kept persevering through the expectations and rejections of his fellows. Even when faced with his own demise, Socrates kept his beliefs strong and kept to his purpose.

From a young age, Socrates had devoted himself to philosophy and the purpose the oracle of Delphi gave him. She pronounced him the wisest of all Greeks and he figured out it was because he didn’t claim to know things he didn’t know. He saw other people (sophists mainly) claiming to know almost everything and even things they didn’t know. In the Euthyphro Socrates questions the namesake of the book, Euthyphro, on what piety really is. Euthyphro, being a priest claimed to have that knowledge, but upon examination by Socrates, it seemed he didn’t have a clear definition. Socrates seemed to be judging the priest here, one could almost see him shaking his head and thinking “This is who is teaching our children how to worship and be religious?” Socrates never defied the Greek gods, rather seemed to embrace his purpose set by them, to teach and spread his own knowledge to the generations. Socrates never also claimed to know their will. Some priests claimed to, but the fact was, at least in his mind that they were claiming to know something they never could. This fact is also Socrates’ charge and his defense. 

In the Apology, Socrates is charged by Meletus for corrupting the youth of Athens. He counters these charges by saying that Meletus is being frivolous and “unnecessarily bringing people into court” to charge Socrates against something he doesn’t understand. Socrates proceeds to pick Meletus’ argument apart bit by bit until Meletus looks incompetent in front of the whole court of Athens. Still, though, this isn’t enough to prove Socrates innocent. When asked what he thinks a fitting punishment should be for himself, Socrates responds with they should fine him or imprison him, but he would not leave Athens. This also prompts him to say that Meletus’ suggestion of death seems like something that he would accept but not prefer. This definitely says something about Socrates. He spent his whole life trying to defend and nurture Athens and its people that to leave would be a fate worse than death for him. From his start as a soldier, Socrates had done his best to protect Athens, even reaching his own success on the battlefield. Here, Socrates was a hero. When he got back home, he did his best to try and educate the people of Athens in the way he thought was right. He constantly challenged them, in a somewhat annoying way, yes, but made them think. This was his way of giving back to the city that made him, the city that he had lived in all his life. Athens was his home and his willingness to die for it and its people is astounding. 

It is no secret what the jury chose as punishment for Socrates. He died of hemlock poison soon after the trial. His friends did their hardest to convince him to leave Athens, to start a new life elsewhere, which frankly, probably wouldn’t have upset the jury, as he would have been functionally dead to Athens and its people. However, Socrates stayed. He accepted death with a grace not many could muster. Maybe this was his final lesson to the Athenians. Not to take what comes lightly, not to give in to what others demand, but to hold firm until the end and not give up on what you believe in. This still rings true today. In a way, Socrates taught more than his pupils in Athens. He still teaches modern students of philosophy through Plato and his portrayal of his teacher. Socrates wanted to be able to teach the future generation and through his death at the hands of those who misunderstood his intentions, he managed to teach both the youth of Athens as well as many scholars of philosophy to this day.