Trial of Socrates
In unraveling the long-hidden issues of the most famous free speech case of all time, noted author I.F. Stone ranges far and wide over Roman as well as Greek history to present an engaging and rewarding introduction to classical antiquity and its relevance to society today. The New York Times called this national best-seller an "intellectual thriller."
Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT
The New York Times
SOCRATES' drinking of the hemlock in 399 B.C. must surely be counted among the most dramatic acts of human history. Yet is anyone clear on why exactly the ancient Greek philosopher insisted on accepting his death sentence from the Athenian court when he could probably have escaped into exile, or on what the events were that led to his indictment and trial in the first place?
Plato, who made Socrates the hero of his famous dialogues, seems to suggest his mentor got into trouble for exhorting his fellow citizens to virtue. Some classical scholars take literally the apparent language of the court's indictment, which, according to Plato's paraphrase of it in his ''Apology,'' read in part that ''Socrates is a wrongdoer because he corrupts the youth'' of Athens. Still others focus on the second part of the indictment, that Socrates ''does not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings,'' and suggest he was only the most famous victim in a wave of persecutions aimed at irreligious philosophers.
The issue has continued to tantalize posterity, and now I. F. Stone has joined the chase in his 12th book, ''The Trial of Socrates.'' I. F. Stone!? Why is this maverick journalist, this dogged civil libertarian, this one-man investigative gang who put out I. F. Stone's Weekly for 19 years, this author of such books as ''Underground to Palestine'' (1946), ''Hidden History of the Korean War'' (1952), ''The Haunted Fifties'' (1964) and ''The Killings at Kent State'' (1971), suddenly grazing in the peaceful pastures of ancient history?
The answer is itself a complicated story involving the angina pectoris that forced Mr. Stone to give up editing his weekly in 1971 at the age of 64; a word processor producing bold enough type for him to overcome a cataract in writing the present book; a lifelong passion for philosophy that led him to fall ''in love with the Greeks,'' and a need to understand how the trial of Socrates could have happened in so free a society as in his beloved Athens. How could it have happened? One can give away his answer because there's so much more to his book than the conclusions he arrives at. Essentially, Mr. Stone reasons, Socrates was put on trial because he didn't believe in democracy as the city-state of Athens practiced it, but rather in an absolutist form of leadership by ''the one who knows.'' What precipitated his indictment at the age of 70 were the upheavals brought on by the Peloponnesian War and the threat in 401 B.C. of yet another takeover by anti-democratic people who had been students of Socrates and whose like had seized leadership in 411 and 404.
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