The ancient Greeks said: “The fear of death is worse than death itself.” Did the great Socrates think about this when death inexorably approached him? Did he not think that a man should be able not only to live with dignity but also be worthy to die, opposing the fear of death with the strength of the spirit? It is hard to say what exactly Socrates’s thought were about before his death, but it is obvious that until the last moment of his life he remained true to his ideas and nothing, not even death, could affect his beliefs.
Background
Socrates wanted to change manners and customs, he denounced the evil, deception, undeserved privileges, and thereby he aroused hatred among contemporaries and must pay for it. The Athenian authorities sentenced Socrates to death on the official prosecution of not recognizing the local gods and introducing others, new deities, in corrupting youth. In other words, Socrates was accused of dissidence, undermining the very foundations of the state, its basic laws. However, behind the formulated points of the prosecution, there were hidden reasons of a different kind. With his pious, unselfish, modest way of life, Socrates made himself not only friends but also enemies. Inept politicians (and there were many of them in those days) could not forgive him his call that only knowledgeable should govern: real kings are not those who wear scepter or are chosen by whomever, and not those who have attained power by lot or violence, but those who know how to govern(Plato Apology 15).
In anticipation of death, Socrates spent a long 30 days in prison. Such a long period was due to the fact that the holiday days of the Delos of Apollo came. The death penalty in Athens during such holidays was suspended. He could hide himself, flee to another city, but to respond to his fatherland with evil for evil is equivalent, according to Socrates, to a rejection of the principles he proclaimed by himself, from his convictions. “I really want to live… But you will be ashamed,” Socrates said to the student, “if your interlocutor Socrates betrays his beliefs for the sake of life” (Plato Crito 9). In prison, he was in the usual light and cheerful mood. He was visited by family and friends. And until the sunset, conversations on life and death, virtues, and vices, laws, and policies, the gods and immortality of the soul continued.
The reasons for refusing to escape the death penalty
Not only in “Apology”, but also in “Crito” Socrates adheres to the point of view that life without philosophy and philosophizing is not life. Therefore, in the Apology, it is said that he, who prefers obeying the God more than people, will accept death rather than give up philosophy. The texts of the accusatory speeches were not preserved, but according to Plato, after the speech of the accusers Socrates took the word and said that he defends only because the law requires it. The content of Socrates’s defensive speech, its general spirit, and tone, conveyed by Plato, are the closest to the true speech of Socrates himself, uttered before the judges. This speech consists of three parts: defensive speech before the judges, the talk about the measure of punishment, the appeal to the judges after the death sentence.
Crito is trying to assure Socrates to escape the prison. Socrates rejects the insistent request of a friend and remains true to domestic laws. The motives for refusing to escape follow from the ethical teaching of Socrates and lead to the fact that “an unjust act is an evil and a disgrace to the one who does it, and moreover in all cases” (Plato Crito 8). Therefore, contrary to public opinion, “no need to respond to injustice with injustice, nor do anyone any harm, even if you had to suffer someone” (Plato Crito 8). Moreover, one can not do injustices against domestic laws, because only due to them there is a state, owing to them Socrates was born from a legal marriage, received the education prescribed by them and became a citizen of Athens, who endowed him with all sorts of benefits. Being a citizen, he undertook to support, not undermine the laws of his fatherland. As against the father and mother, and even more so against the state and its laws, it is unacceptable to commit violence, even if you experience injustice from them, including such undeserved punishment as condemnation to death (Aquinas 5).
Finally, Socrates understands that his escape from prison will be a the most evident proof of his guilty in violating the laws and of youth’s seducing. “After all, the destroyer of laws can very much and very well seem to be the destroyer of youth and people of the unintentional” (Plato Crito 6). Speaking on behalf of the laws, Socrates observes that he, who has been teaching justice and virtue all his life, should not contradict himself in his actions and flee from prison in fear of death, like a miserable slave. And where can he find a new home, if in his homeland he became a violator of her laws? The laws of the Fatherland would say to him: “If you now go away, then you will go offended not by us, the Laws, but by people” (Plato Crito 10).
Socrates would not be Socrates, supremely a man of moral freedom and responsibility, civil courage, and fortitude of the spirit if he did not accept the challenge he had challenged. This person, recognized by the Delphic oracle himself as the “wisest of men,” could not do otherwise. And he appeared before the Athenian court to declare himself justified before the court of his conscience. No wonder Socrates after the proclamation of the sentence, using his right to the last word, said: “… neither in court, nor in war, nor me, nor anyone else should one avoid death by any means indiscriminately… It is not difficult to avoid death, the Athenians, but that it is much more difficult to avoid corruption; It overtakes the fastest death ” (Plato Crito 7).
An essential motive for escaping from prison was Socrates’ polis patriotism, his deep and sincere affection for his native city. The 70-year-old philosopher had enough time to understand his relationship with Athens. All his long previous life, except for participation in three military campaigns and one absence from the city during the Poseidon holiday, was spent in Athens. Not everything in Athenian politics pleased Socrates. But all his critical attacks against the Athenian order and references to Sparta and Crete as examples of landscaped states invariably remained within the bounds and horizon of his polis patriotism. Fidelity to the native policy and its laws was for Socrates the highest ethical norm of mutual relations of the citizen and the policy as a whole (Plato Apology 20).
The Socratic version of life in anticipation of death was not an indifference to life, but rather a conscious attitude toward its worthy conduct and completion. Therefore, how difficult it was for his opponents, who, confronted with him, saw that the usual arguments of force and intimidation tactics do not work on their opponent. His willingness to die, giving the unprecedented strength and steadfastness of his position, could not help but confuse all those whom he faced in dangerous skirmishes about politics and divine affairs. And the death sentence, so logically completed the life of Socrates, was primarily desired and provoked by the very outcome. The death of Socrates gave his words and deeds, everything connected with him, that monolithic and harmonious wholeness, which is no longer corroded by time. Socrates, who ended his life differently, would be a different Socrates – not those who went down in history and swept it from everywhere.
Socrates remained true to his convictions until the last minute of his life, until his last breath. It can be said that he sacrificed himself in the name of his convictions. The Socratic theme is inexhaustible. All the new and new aspects of it attract the interest of researchers – theologians, historians, philosophers, politicians, lawyers. Today, without Socrates, there is not one philosophizing, even if he seems to be a pale sparkle from a distant past. The way everyone has known Socrates influences the main features of his thought.
Works Cited
Aquinas, Thomas. “On Law.” Morality and Politics, edited by W.P. Baumgarth and R.J. Regan, Hackett, Indianapolis,1988, p. 11.
Plato. Apology. BookRix, 2017. Web.
Plato. Crito. University Press, 1933. Web.