you are right where you need to be
The death of the Athenian philosopher Socrates in 399 BCE was representative of a growing feeling of dissonance by the Athenian people and acted to create a philosophical martyr. Socrates himself never wrote any of his thinking or lectures down and despite this fact he has remained one of the most influential figures in philosophy around the world since his death, and arguably partially owing to the nature of his death. The death of Socrates has been wildly influential in terms of its trickle down effect on how people conduct themselves politically and socially, the international ramifications it has had, the wide presence it has had in the arts, the lasting effects it has had on people up to today and even the impact it had had on me personally. One of the most prominent spheres of influence of the death of Socrates is in the shift it created in politics.
In order to understand the political impacts of Socrates’ death you have to first understand the nature of his death and in turn his life. Socrates spent much of his life engaging with the ideas of the average Athenian through the Socratic method of dialogue, and as a consequence he was unpopular with some of the common people (Kraut). In turn, shortly after the return to democracy from the 30 Tyrants, Socrates was tried and convicted to death under the charge of “impiety” and “corruption of the youth” via his teachings and Socratic dialogues (Plato). This sentencing of Socrates for his outspoken refusal to bend the knee and thereby abandon his principles is what makes his death so politically charged. Although Athens permitted Socrates to perform a legal defense and had an “impartial” jury, the verdict to sentence Socrates to death represented the lingering tensions after the fresh wounds of the 30 Tyrants (Plato). Politically this was significant in that it showed a clash at the time of civic responsibility present in Athens, and the perceived individual responsibility to live a virtuous life regardless of the hardships faced as a consequence of that virtue. Over the long term it charged many debates about democracy and influenced later enlightenment thinkers on their political philosophies and on top of all of this, it had major consequences in terms of the social structures of Athens at the time.
The social impacts of Socrates’ death at the time are widespread and represent a larger shift in the attitudes of Athenian citizens in the 5th century BCE. For one thing, the charge of corruption of the youth via the free expression of critical thinking represented a deeper fear by the people in charge of the democracy of philosophers as a means to subvert the establishment through dissemination of knowledge and the acceptance of the sentence by Socrates only gave this threat more weight (Ambury). As a consequence of Socrates’ death Plato found himself completely at odds with a system that could allow someone he saw as a great man to be condemned for no charge he recognized and as such did his best to intellectually explore the systems at play in his Dialogues, which had further consequences on the immediate social climates of Athens, but also internationally as a consequence of Plato’s soul searching quest outside of Athens.
Internationally the waves of Socrates’ death were felt not only through Plato’s spread of his teachers’ works, but also in the form of the adoption of Socratic thinking by the Roman and by extension Christian thought. Stoic philosophers such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius used much of the Socratic ideals expressed in Plato’s works as basis for their own ideas (Kraut). Along with influencing the philosophy of others, the Christian take on Socrates’ death was that he was a martyr who stood for his values until the bitter end and as such he became a hero, a reputation that partially owed itself to Plato’s depiction of Socrates (Ambury). On top of having influenced the thought of foreign leaders, the death of Socrates and its implications also had a profound impact on the arts at the time as well as in later history.
Socrates’ death was prominently featured as a topic in Plato’s works, Apology and Phaedo, in which he described the events leading up to, during and after Socrates’ conviction through a series of dialogues between Socrates and his associates. Along with the depiction in literature, Socrates’ death was prominently featured in the painting “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David that is largely based on Plato’s writings and depicts Socrates’ last moments before he succumbs to the hemlock he is thought to have been poisoned with (Sayre). Although Socrates’ death has had quite an impact on the arts, the most lasting impacts are in the intellectual engagement Socrates represents as well as the exemplification of the idea of living virtuously at any cost.
The largest influence Socrates’ death had on the modern day is in the creation of a philosophical martyr that allowed his ideas to be carried on the back of his circumstance. The virtue theory and dialogue techniques that are still used today in schools to help students more thoroughly engage with ideas are only even known about as a consequence of Socrates’ death. This is because Socrates wrote none of his own thoughts or lectures down, and the main reason his students wrote much of what we know today of him is as a consequence of the manner in which he died (Kraut). Along with techniques for dialogue, virtue theory and freedom of speech Socrates represents academic freedom and the idea of the right to knowledge and to engage with thoughts rather than just absorb them.
Socrates’ death is a matter I became interested in largely thanks to my grandmother who gave me her personal copy of Plato’s Republic from when she was in college and since having received that book I have jumped down the rabbit hole of Platonic philosophy and really just philosophy as a whole. I have now made it through all of Plato' s dialogues and I thoroughly enjoyed them, which is how I landed on the subject matter for this paper. Overall this was very enjoyable to write about and I am thankful for the opportunity!
Works Cited
Ambury, James M. “Socrates.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2025, iep.utm.edu/socrates/.
Kraut, Richard. “Socrates.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 8 Feb. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates.
Plato. Dialogues of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, New York, Ny, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Sayre, Henry M. The Humanities. Pearson, 1 May 2014.