Example research essay topic: Short Lived Public Image - 1,401 words

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At the time of Socrates' trial in 399 BC, Athens was still badly shaken by it's unstable political and military past. The surrender at the Battle of Aegospotami marked the loss of the Peloponnesian war to Sparta, a long and hard fought war which waged from 432 - 404 BC. Earlier in 411 BC a group of discontent Athenians led by Antiphon, Critias and Charmides briefly overthrew Athens democracy and established an oligarchy. While it only lasted until 410 BC, it was still fresh in the memory of Athenian citizens when it occurred again with Sparta's victory. Sparta established a government of oligarchs known as the Thirty Tyrants in 404 BC. Critias and Charmides were both involved again, Critias as one of the Thirty and Charmides as one of their deputies.

This was again short-lived however, with the government being overthrown in 403 BC, eight months later. An amnesty was declared to forget past offenses of all but the Thirty Tyrants and their officials. All of these events played an important part in Socrates' trial. There were three main factors that led to his poor public image. Firstly was his students and associates. Alciabides was a student of Socrates, and was regarded by most with suspicion.

An Athenian leader, he was first exiled during the disastrous Sicilian Expedition. Rather than return and face the charges, he defected to Sparta. Later he was re-accepted into Athens, but it was short-lived; after a few naval defeats under his command he was again exiled. Another of his associates, Chaerophon, was nicknamed 'The Bat' due to his thin, pale appearance. He was ridiculed by comic poets as a thief, an informer and a parasite.

But perhaps the most important associates to consider are the now notorious Critias and Charmides. Such associations did not reflect well on Socrates, especially considering some were his students. This only furthered the already growing suspicion and hostility towards him. Another important factor came about through Athens's have political past. The citizens became fearful and easily manipulated, well illustrated by Cleon's rise to power. The citizens soon realized what was going on however, and became rather hostile towards the Sophists who had taught the demagogues such manipulative skills.

Though Socrates had little to do with this, most of the general public made no distinction between him and the Sophists, and thus again by association he was the target of hostility. The last factor was of Socrates' own doing. His daily ritual of questioning people and exposing their ignorance left the subject embarrassed and destroyed their reputation. The practice was understandably not appreciated, as Socrates acknowledges in his defense (I incurred the resentment of the man himself and a number of others).

This resentment was only compounded when the youth who followed Socrates began to imitate his techniques and question their elders. All of these factors left people angry and resentful of Socrates, and with the decline of Athens he was just the scapegoat they were looking for. His associations with Critias and Charmides would have made it easy for Socrates to be such a scapegoat, were it not for the amnesty declared following the Thirty Tyrants which did not allow him to be tried for such ties. Thus it may have been that these ties were the real reason for his trial, but due to the amnesty the charges had to rest elsewhere.

To quote Xenophon from Memorabilia, "The indictment was to this effect: "Socrates is guilty of crime in refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, and importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of corrupting the young. "" Facing these charges in 399 BC Socrates was brought to trial, with the prosecution led by Meets and his two sungari (supporting prosecutors), Lycos and Anytus (a powerful politician). A jury of 501 found him guilty by a narrow margin and he was subsequently sentenced to death. But was it a just decision? The greatest problem faced in the study of Socrates is that Socrates never wrote anything himself. Everything we know of him is drawn from a variety of sources, all of which have their own biases and inaccuracies to account for. The death of Socrates gave birth to a whole new literary genre of 'Socratic' dialogues.

Many were by close friends keen to defend his name, while some, such as the works of the Sophist Polycrates (who wrote a pamphlet which reproduced a version of Anytus' prosecution speech, justifying Socrates' execution) were hostile to Socrates. Unfortunately, of these dialogues only the works of Plato and Xenophon survive. There are, however, a few other sources that we can draw information from. Of all the surviving works those of Plato are both best known and most numerous. We have many of his Socratic dialogues, though it may be argued that some of the later dialogues are less representative of the real Socrates, as Plato tends to use him to propound his own views.

Fortunately for us however, the most relevant dialogue to this topic, the Apology, is commonly believed to be the earliest and thus can be considered reasonably accurate. It is believed to have been written a few years after Socrates' execution, with the purpose of glorifying his memory. For this reason alone it is relatively trustworthy, for many who read it would have witnessed the trial and well remembered Socrates' actual speech, and thus Plato could not very well have glorified his memory with a fictitious account. This, however, is tempered by Plato's close relationship with Socrates, which results in a strong bias. Furthermore, Plato was primarily concerned with presenting the philosophical issues raised by Socrates, any attempt at biographical accuracy was of secondary priority. Xenophon's priority, on the other hand, was firmly biographical, and he is considered by some to be preferable to Plato for historical accuracy.

Xenophon however, like Plato, also tended to use Socrates as his mouthpiece at times. In the Oeconomicus for example Socrates dispenses advice on how to manage one's home and property, which is rather suspiciously uncharacteristic of him and can fairly safely be excluded as Xenophon's input. On the whole however, Xenophon's use of this technique is minimal, and we can assume that earlier works such as his version of the Apology are untainted. The opening of his Apology explicitly states that it was inspired by other 'Apologies' that were inaccurate and did not satisfy him. "It is true that others have written about this... but they have not shown clearly that he had now come to the conclusion that for him death was more to be desired than life" In Xenophon's account, Socrates had decided it was better to die than to face the decay of old age and thus deliberately invited his condemnation. ""If I perceive my decay and take to complaining, how, " he had continued, "could I any longer take pleasure in life"." This viewpoint seems suspicious however, for although Socrates explains the situation as a chance to die honorably he surely must have seen that, however indirectly, inviting ones own execution is suicide, something he stood firmly against.

It is important to note that, like Plato, Xenophon was a close associate of Socrates. His work Memorabilia was intended to celebrate the memory of Socrates; much of the first book is dedicated to defending him against charges made by somebody he refers to as "the accuser", who we have good reason to believe was Polycrates and his version of Anytus' prosecution speech. Given such a relationship, caution is once again required due to the inevitable bias. The last of our primary sources is the legendary playwright Aristophanes. His play the Clouds depicts Socrates as a sophist and an atheist, which did nothing for Socrates' already poor public image. First staged in 423 BC, it would have been seen by Athenians too young to form their own opinions, Athenians who 24 years later would be serving on the jury in Socrates' trial.

Socrates is quite aware of this, and makes note of it in Plato's Apology: "There are a great many accusers... they approached you at the most impressionable age... they literally won their case by default, because there was no one to defend me... it is impossible for me to even know and tell you their names, unless one of them happens to be a playwright. " The playwright here is undoubtedly Aristo...

Research essay sample on Short Lived Public Image