Defense of Socrates

Socrates is being tried on account of two charges, one being corrupting the youth and the

other being impiety. Socrates begins his defense of the first charge by saying “He says that I am

guilty of corrupting the young, but I say that Meletus is guilty of dealing frivolously with serious

matters.” (28) Rather than focusing on providing evidence to prove his innocence, Socrates bases

the majority of his defense on his cross examination of Meletus.

In court today, Socrates’ approach would most certainly be objected to. The objection

would be relevance. Socrates asks, Meletus, “Who improves our young men?” (29) To this

question, Meletus has multiple answers including “the laws” (29) and “these jurymen” (29) but

his answers have whatsoever no relevance to the entirety of the case. The overall issue of the

case is who is corrupting the youth which has no correlation with who is improving the youth.

Although this cross examination lacked relevance to the case, Socrates was most likely

trying to discredit Meletus’ accusations by humiliating him. Furthermore, Socrates’ defense had

some reason to it. For Socrates to win the case, he had to convince five hundred jurymen. By

Socrates making Meletus look foolish, Meletus also begins to appear questionable to the jury.

Discrediting Meletus’ claims could cause the jurymen to side with Socrates. Overall, Socrates’

defense could have been stronger but not everything he presented was weak.

Meletus’ claim that all Athenians improve the youth and it is only Socrates who corrupts

them is absurd. Meletus’ claim is far too general and is clearly a false statement as it is not

possible for one person to corrupt the entire youth. In Socrates’ defense, he makes the claim look

as foolish as it actually is. Socrates asks Meletus numerous questions about who improves the

youth that lead up to Socrates asking “All the Athenians, it seems, make the young into fine good
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men, except me, and I alone corrupt them. Is that what you mean?” (29) By Meletus making the

mistake of bluntly agreeing with this question, he looks beyond ignorant. There is no doubt

Meletus’ ridiculous claim actually helped Socrates’ case. Socrates goes on by rhetorically asking

“Does this also apply to horses, do you think? That all men improve them and one individual

corrupts them?” (29) This comparison further emphasizes the irrationality of Meletus’ claim.

Socrates continues to nail Meletus with questions that are beyond difficult to answer.

Socrates then states “You have made it sufficiently obvious, Meletus, that you have never had

any concern for our youth; you show indifference clearly; that you have given no thought to the

subjects about which you bring me to trial.” (30) Meletus went along with Socrates’ cross

examination but could have defended himself much better by not answering all of Socrates

questions. To the jury, Socrates’ claim about Meletus being careless about the youth does in

matter of fact appear true because all of Meletus’ answers were extremely vague and he appeared

to be clueless.

Another example of Meletus weakly defending himself is when Socrates sarcastically

asks “Do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras?” (31) This comparison allows Socrates to

really appeal to the jury because they are all aware of Anaxagoras’ case. Socrates continues and

asks “Is that, by Zeus, what you think of me, Meletus, that I do not believe that there are any

gods?” (31) To this question, Meletus answers yes which makes him appear even more ignorant

as Socrates does in matter of fact believe in spirits.

Meletus would have held a much stronger case if he objected to answering every one of

Socrates’ questions. Many of Socrates questions lacked any relevance whatsoever to his proving

his innocence. However, Socrates’ questions made Meletus look careless and ignorant because

Meletus was not able to provide strong answers to these questions. Rather than allowing Socrates
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to run the show, Meletus should have refused to answer the majority of Socrates’ questions.

Instead, Meletus allowed Socrates to ridicule him in front of the entire court.