Week 1: Socrates Death

Socrates was sentenced to death for two reason: (1) his eagerness to spread knowledge and (2) his morality. Because of his strong desire to spread his knowledge, even jokingly saying that he would pay somebody to listen to him, Socrates quickly became a threat to the older residents of of Athens, who held strict theocratic worldviews. Meletus, a prosecutor, was perhaps the most threatened, however. Meletus believed that Socrates was an atheist poet who not only created new gods and denied the existences of older ones (i.e., Zeus, Cronus, Uranus, etc.), he also encouraged the youth of his city to do the same. In Athens, this was a capital offense. Believing that Socrates had a very good chance of getting convicted, Crotos, Socrates’ friend, set up a way for Socrates to escape death via ship. However, Socrates thought it would be wrong to deprive the citizens of the State their justices; no matter how unjust it was, he refused to repay evil with evil. As a result of his desire to spread his knowledge and his strong moral convictions, Socrates was put to death.