Socrates First Accusers Analysis

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In this essay, I will be discussing the ways in which Socrates defends himself in court against those which he calls his ‘first accusers’. As stated in Plato’s text, there are two kinds of accusations against Socrates, the first, older accusation which he dreads the most, and the contemporary charge made by Anytus, Meletus, and Lycon. Socrates identifies his early accusers as those who were bombarded with gossip and propaganda against him while they were younger, and are now the jurors at his trial. The first accusation may be summed up as: Socrates fears the former ‘ancient’ accusations above those made by the contemporary court as these false charges have been gossiped about over a period of many years, and have such been twisted and exaggerated. He sees the danger in the children whose impressionable minds were corrupted by falsehoods against him which he states stemmed from “envy and malice”. Furthermore, those who have grown up listening to the false accusations have in turn convinced others that this is to be believed as truth. Socrates goes on to say that this bad reputation was influenced by the satirical playwright Aristophanes whom wrote a comedy called The Clouds which referred to man called Socrates whom makes exuberant…show more content…
He goes on to state that he does not fear death, arguing that those who do are allowing their ignorance to be revealed; death may be a great blessing and not the evil it is perceived to be when they couldn’t possibly know it to be. Death could be, Socrates reasons, either an annihilation, in which case it is to be welcomed as a deep, restful sleep, or as a migration to an afterlife, in which case he could spend his days in the presence of great figures such as Homer, Odysseus, and Hesiod. Again he highlights his wisdom lies in the fact he is
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