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Plato records Socrates final days and words through his novel “The Last Days of Socrates”. In this novel Socrates was “facing public prosecution for impiety of the grounds that he was failing to acknowledge the city’s gods, introducing new divinities, and corrupting the youth” (p.33) After being on trial with approximately five hundred jurors, Socrates was finally found guilty of those charges and was sentenced to death. Socrates uses his time on trial to explain to the jurors that he has never asked for money from anyone, and also that he never claimed to have knowledge of things that he does not understand. One of his arguments is that you cannot accuse a man of corrupting the youth, because if Socrates did, he did so unknowingly, which cannot be considered a crime. Socrates’ argument about the accusation of him not believing in the city gods, is that, if he doesn’t believe in the city gods then how does he believe in new divinities, because they are both of a higher spiritual power. Throughout this novel Socrates criticized suicide for being unethical, but passes up two opportunities in escaping the death penalty. Although many would consider this a contradiction, Socrates explains reasons why he did not take his opportunities to escape.
Evidently, nothing would ever stop him from acknowledging those Gods that he chose to worship, not even death, because Socrates believes that there should be no reason to fear death because we know nothing about it. Socrates had always taught, and always strongly believed that one should never spend his or her life worrying about or weighing the prospects of life and death, or good and bad. ... If Socrates had chosen to suggest other options to the death penalty then he would have completely disregarded all of those things that he spent his life trying to achieve. ... Socrates believes that this decision is not his to make or argue against, or left to be put in the hands of five hundred jurors.
Approximate Word count = 1551
Approximate Pages = 6.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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