![]() ![]() The sum of these various factors presents a fuller and more complete picture of Socrates' choice of death over life. In this story, Socrates has been convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing strange gods, and has been sentenced to die by drinking poison hemlock. ![]() ![]() In this article I discuss the various personal factors, his awareness of aging, his vision of declining relationships with others, his marriage and family life, the political context of the times, and his disbelief in democracy, at a time when the Athenian democracy had only recently been restored, but was still under threat by the oligarchs and the influence of his daimon, a personal spirit who spoke to him only when opposing an action he was considering. Stone has discussed in depth the political context surrounding the trial of Socrates. Xenophon's portrayal, the only other contemporaneous account, shows Socrates as being tired of life, seeing nothing worthwhile in hanging on to a continuously declining life, and deliberately choosing death. Socrates in this graphic novel is so selfless, so understanding, and so sure of his place as a seeker of knowledge, that he doesn’t seem real. Socrates' death, as portrayed by Plato, and commonly accepted, is seen as the virtuous choice of a philosopher of death in preference to ignominiously evading an unjust verdict of the jury. The Dialogues of Plato (427347 B.C.) rank with the writings of Aristotle as the most important and influential philosophical works in Western thought. ![]()
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