All 6 Uses of
democracy
in
The Trial of Socrates, by Linder
- Why, in a society enjoying more freedom and democracy than any the world had ever seen, would a seventy-year-old philosopher be put to death for what he was teaching?†
*
- Growing to adulthood in this bastion of liberalism and democracy, Socrates somehow developed a set of values and beliefs that would put him at odds with most of his fellow Athenians.†
- Striking at the heart of Athenian democracy, he contemptuously criticized the right of every citizen to speak in the Athenian assembly.†
- Socrates at the time of Clouds must have been perceived more as a harmless town character than as a serious threat to Athenian values and democracy.†
- Sparta—the model of a closed society—and Athens were enemies: the remark suggests Socrates' teaching may have started to be seen as subversive by 417 B.C.E. The standing of Socrates among his fellow citizens suffered mightily during two periods in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in 411-410 and another slightly longer period in 404-403.†
- Critias, first among an oligarchy known as the "Thirty Tyrants," led the second bloody revolt against the restored Athenian democracy in 404.†
Definition:
a system of government in which citizens have power with equal votes