Financial Times, March 9, 2009
Review by Jonathan Gibbs
Why Socrates Died by Robin Waterfield
We may be used to understanding the trial and execution of Socrates as the martyrdom of an innocent hero. We may even dismiss the charges - of impiety, and corrupting the city’s youth - as trumped-up and unfair. Robin Waterfield’s scholarly book seeks to sweep away these preconceptions by finding a deeper political resonance to those charges.
He finds this resonance in the trauma of Athens’ recent history - the disastrous Peloponnesian war against Sparta, and then the civil war that saw “30 Tyrants” briefly rule the city. Read the rest of the story.
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