Figure 60 Silver decadrachm of Syracuse, signed by Kimon, showing the nymph Arethusa with dolphins
and a charioteer crowned by Nike; weight 43.36 g, 400–390 BC. London, British Museum,
1841,0726.288.
Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.
“So, given the kind of man I am, what penalty do I deserve? A proper one, my fellow Athenians, if
the assessment is truly to be made according to my merits, a proper sort of thing that would be
suitable for me. So, what is suitable for a man of modest means whose role as a public benefactor
requires leisure in order to serve as an inspiration to you? There is nothing more suitable, my fellow
Athenians, than that a man like that should be fed at public expense at city hall, much more so than if
one of your citizens has won a prize at the Olympic games in the horse race or in the two- or four-
horse chariot race. After all, he merely makes you think you are blessed whereas I confer true
blessings on you. Also, he doesn’t need to be given nourishment whereas I do.” (Plato, The Apology
of Socrates 36d)The writings of both Plato and Xenophon include works that purport to record all or part of the speech
that Socrates gave to the jury in his defense. (The Greek for “speech for the defense” is apologia, and so
each of these works is called The Apology of Socrates.) These works bear scant resemblance to one
another, but what little they have in common strongly suggests that Socrates’ manner of speaking further
antagonized the jury: Socrates expressed his conviction that he had done nothing wrong and, what must
have considerably annoyed the jury, gave the impression that his personal sense of his own innocence
mattered much more to him than the jury’s verdict. He asserted that the divine entity that occasionally
communicated with him made no effort to oppose the method of defense that he was using, thus suggesting
that his apparent condescension toward the jurors had at least the tacit approval of the gods. Further, he
recounted the story of one of his associates who had gone to Delphi to consult the oracle of Apollo and
was told that there was no one either (according to Plato) wiser or (according to Xenophon) more free,
more just, or more moderate in his ways than Socrates. Since juries in Athens thought of themselves as
truly representative of the democratic citizenry of the polis, Socrates’ superior attitude seemed to
constitute convincing proof of his oligarchic frame of mind. The jury condemned Socrates by a vote,