The Legal Setting of Plato's Apology

Abstract

The appearance in 1893 of an edition of the Apology of Plato with an elaborate introduction by Schanz aroused new interest in the various questions connected with the trial of Socrates. But apart from the problems involved in the indictment and the alternative penalty proposed by the defendant, the strictly legal side of the Apology has nowhere received adequate treatment.' The purpose of this paper is to develop the legal setting of the defense and compare it from this standpoint with contemporary forensic speeches. It is immaterial whether the Apology is purely fictitious or is in part based on truth-stilizirte Wahrheit, as Gomperz2 neatly expresses it. In the Apology attributed to Xenophon we have, I believe, the nearest approach to an exact report of the real speech.3 The Platonic defense of Socrates consists of three distinct speeches. The first is his answer to the speeches of the prosecutors and deals with the question of guilt or innocence. The second, delivered after the verdict guilty had been rendered, is devoted to the presentation of the alternative penalty proposed by Socrates in accordance with Athenian practice. This is of special interest as being the only speech of this kind extant. The third is an informal address to the jurors after the conclusion of the trial. Socrates had been left in the courtroom for a brief period (Apol. 39e) while the officials were making preparations to convey him to prison, and he employed the interval by addressing first those who had voted for conviction and then those who had voted for acquittal. Official permission was probably not neces-