HUAS48019 - Apologies of/for Socrates

Course Description

A few years after an Athenian jury convicted Socrates in 399 BCE on the charges of corrupting the young and of impiety, people began to ask aloud about Socrates’s arrogance and incompetence at mounting his own defense. As a result, a cottage industry of sorts arose purporting to give accounts of Socrates’s trial. This course takes Plato’s Apology for Socrates as its main focus, but with reference to Xenophon’s Apology and Memorabilia, as well as excerpts from other works and authors. Rather than reading their trial accounts simply as history, we’ll consider the works of Plato and Xenophon – reading them in Greek - as an attempt to respond to the criticisms of Socrates made after his execution and to restore the reputation of their friend.