Socrates’ QuestIn 399 BCE, Socrates was found guilty of not recognis-
ing the city gods, introducing new deities and corrupting the
young. He was sentenced to death. Scholars have debated ever
since whether Socrates was guilty of these things or whether
an amalgam of unfortunate political associations, presumed
atheism, and stinging his enemies one too many times were the
real causes. Probably it was a mixture of all three and Socrates’
agnosticism was right there at the heart of it, disquieting his
opponents.
A month or so later he drank the hemlock and died. His last
words were: ‘Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; pay it and don’t
forget’ – not, at fi rst glance, overly inspiring, though, as is the
way with last words, they have been much refl ected upon.
Asclepius was one of the gods of healing; the sacrifi ce of a cock
was a thanksgiving for overcoming illness. Socrates’ last concern
was, likely, religious, and once again he turns conventional
piety around: he was not going to live but was about to die. Was
Plato’s point merely rhetorical, saying he was pious to the last,
for all that his accusers said otherwise? Nietzsche interpreted the
last words as Socrates’ giving thanks for the fi nal escape from
the sickness which is life itself, an idea he hated since it was the
opposite of his ‘will to power’. Alternatively, they might make
sense if Socrates hoped he was about to leave this in-between
life and be cured of its ignorance. We cannot say for sure, not
least because elsewhere Socrates says he is not sure whether
there is an afterlife, let alone whether he is sure what that after-
life might be like. His agnosticism is echoed in his last words
too – giving thanks, as his humility would, though exactly to
whom and for what he knew not.