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Religious law-court, Athens, May 399 BC
If you think that by killing people you’ll put a stop to anyone criticising you because you don’t live as you should, you’re not thinking clearly … The best and easiest course is not to restrain others, but instead to do what you need to do to be as good as possible.
Plato, Apology, 39d1
ABLOOD SACRIFICE STARTED THE LEGALITIES in earnest.
Today the oath stone is the only thing that feels secure in the boggy rectangle of the old religious court, the Stoa Basileios; archaeologists have to lay planks to cross safely. Marshy grass clumps around the few, marooned, listing, classical remains; a rude train from the leafy suburb of Kifissia to Piraeus rattles by at four-minute intervals. This block, a limestone table for sealing sacred oaths, was uncovered by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, which undertakes excavations in this zone of central Athens.2 It rests 20 feet below today’s street level: overhead, tourists munch Greek salads above the masonry blocks and fallen columns here in the fashionable Plaka district – seemingly unaware of the drama that was once played out beneath them.
As Socrates watched in 399 BC, this cracked, worn, 6-foot-long altarblock may well have gleamed wet with blood and gore.
The theatre of justice had begun.
The Archon Basileus, the chief magistrate, his hair long and wreathed in myrtle,3 his tunic unbelted, did the killing.4 The oath sworn here was believed to be binding, its potency accentuated by the visceral nature of the sacrifice. Goats, rams or oxen, their coats washed and scented, horns twinkling with gilt, were coaxed to the priests’ blade. As they died, the animals’ open veins coursed into a sacred bowl – here the magistrate plunged his hands. Wrist-deep in blood, now he was ready to oversee justice. But the oath-maker hadn’t finished his gory business; the severed testicles of a sacrificed animal were then ground and squashed underfoot (a precursor of things to come: if he broke the oath, his own family would be emasculated). It was an ancient, unyielding custom:‘Whatever men first do wrong against the oath, let the brains of them and of their children flow to the ground like this wine,’ warns the Iliad.5
All jurors swore to do their duty: a synthetic strap of common purpose. One Greek said, ‘The oath is what holds democracy together.’6 And what a mongrel democracy it was: farmers, old generals, cheesemakers, road-builders – all manner of men would have been here to judge Socrates; all Athenian citizens over the age of thirty, all chosen by lot. These were oaths taken in the presence of the gods themselves, their ritual aspect was central. And Meletus’ own indictment of Socrates was itself an antomosia, a ‘counter-oath-swearing’ – a statement with the gods as his witness that what he said was true. We must never lose sight of how deeply pious, superstitious (one might say) Athens was. In the city that is often considered the catalyst of a rational, enlightened way of being, there was no doubt in the minds of the first democrats that spirits and magic were in the air. The sublime, inexplicable, potent world and its unpredictable, primeval, divine inhabitants were believed to be far more powerful than anything in the mortal coil. Spirits, dead heroes, gods, goddesses and demons were around every street corner in Athena’s city.
And so the fact that Socrates stands accused of a religious crime, in a religious court, should remind us of the fundamental seriousness of this particular legal day.
Since the early hours men have been preparing to judge Socrates. The eligible of the city have rolled themselves out of bed and trooped in to the Agora, busy even before dawn. In that blue-grey light, tribe by tribe, they have stood in line before a futuristic invention – the kleroterion – a random-selection machine. There were probably a number of these contraptions in the city; certainly one in the marketplace and at the entrance to the law-courts. Each tribe had its own machine, and the tribe members are here to find out if the day ahead of them is going to be one of justice; 6,000 have already made their names available for the annual selection by lot, and now a second selection from that list takes place.7
The kleroterion (really a proto-computer) is a neat bit of technology. Still available to marvel at in Athens – one in the Agora Museum, the other in the Epigraphic Museum – it randomised participation in democratic business. On the face of the hollow stone box there are carved slots, just big enough to take a metal disc on which is inscribed the name of an individual citizen. Down the left-hand side is a chute. Black and white marble counters would be sent down the chute (wood originally, now long gone), and when a black or white marble (we still don’t know which) lined up with a bronze disc bearing your name and deme (the village district where you lived or where your family’s name was registered), then you had been chosen for office on that day.
Selection for jury service was considered a thrill, a privilege, the mark of a democrat. A number of Athenians chose to be buried with their personal metal name-disc; so while we’ll never know their faces, we know what these first democrats were called: Alexander, Draco, Georgios. Having been selected, there was still some administration to do: each juror would reach into an urn and pull out a ball marked with different letters. Depending on whether you got a ‘lamda’ (an L) or an ‘omicron’ (an O), you would end up serving that day in one particular courtroom. There was no chance of cheating – the moment your ball was inspected by a magistrate you were handed a coloured baton that corresponded with the paint daubed over the entrance to ‘your’ court, and this you had to show as you arrived.
And the engineering of democratic equity didn’t stop at the kleroterion and tinted sticks.
Each tribe had its own entrance, its own machine, its own zone. Society might still be fiercely tribal, but families, friends, allies, conspirators were not allowed to sit together. Everyone suspected of a close connection, a vested interest that might cloud judgements, was given a place in separate stone blocks, lettered like our theatres and cinemas. It is no coincidence that Plato even refers to those listening to trials as ‘the audience’.8
Picture that audience. All middle-aged or old men, many settling down for the day with a cushion or reed-mat to stop their buttocks getting cold-stone sore. Each one has sworn to be impartial. No well-dressed, punctilious clerks organising things here. This is a direct democracy – individuals are actively, immediately involved in the administration and decision-making of their polis. You might have been a sheep-stinking farmer or a merchant of perfumed oils; in this land everyone was a politician. Each is to be paid three obols for his pains.9 In the glory days of the Athenian democracy, money had not been a key motive. Sure, in the Assembly ideas could be formed, laws created; but it is in the law-courts that Athenian self-government could be put into play.10 It was both a duty and a privilege to be here.11
But by the time of Socrates’ trial so many citizen-judges of Athens have been killed, in defence of the city or by rival Athenian cliques. Today it is the disabled, the aged, the lucky few who have survived. The majority of the jurors are poor, they need the essential money that a day of justice will bring.
The minimum number of jurors allowed at a graphe – a public law-suit – is 500/501; Socrates’ trial fell into this category. His crimes were believed to be of public concern; serious matters. By bringing Socrates to trial, Meletus was preventing religious outrage, he was doing Athens a favour. But, oddly, this was not a popular trial to attend. Juries could easily reach up to 1,000 or 2,000 men. Perhaps Athenians were already uneasy about what they might have to do – they came measured by the hekaton (hundred), not thekhilioi (thousand).
The 500 jurors on that May morning, as always, are held in by a nominal security fence – a lattice of wood punctuated by gates – a symbolic ringing in of civilised practice. Because although events here were impassioned and powerful, law-courts were not particularly pretty places. Victorious prosecutors could exact punishment then and there, beating their victims to a pulp.12 The accounts of Socrates’ trial describe jurors in an uproar, gurning and groaning when they hear something that displeases them.13 Socrates himself complains that thorubos – tumult, baying, shouting, the acclamation of the rabble – disrupts the course of justice. But now, one presumes, there is just murmuring, as the chosen men – the ragbag judges – file in to take their place to enact the business of democracy. Once the entire panel is assembled and settled, the Archon motions for the wicker gate to be opened to admit prosecutor and defendant. Both stand on a bema, a raised platform. As the plaintiff and the to-be-judged appeared, all eyes must have swivelled immediately to stare, to check out their quarry.14
And here we have the worrying certainty of the world’s first true democracy. If all citizen-men can judge their fellow citizens, then naturally men of all degrees can sit in judgement. Their decision will be representative. Every means possible has been thought of to prevent corruption. Alphabetical blocks of seats, secret ballots, random-selection machines. But still, the value of the judgement depends on those 500 odd men chosen to cram into the Stoa on that one day. As they shout and complain and applaud they will whip up and goad one another. They will bring their own neuroses, frustrations and back-biting, pre-judgements to bear.
Socrates has spent his life so far promoting the notion that every man should strive to be as good as he possibly can be. But he is to be judged before his advice has been institutionalised. As his darting eyes scan the courtroom – populated by men scrawny from hunger and disappointment, veterans scarred by war, tremblers scarred with shame, citizens who view him as an enemy of the state – one wonders with what degree of confidence he drew breath.