Socrates The Horse-Fly Of Athens

To be self-titled the “horse-fly of Athens” is to be shot into social ruin. Socrates, however, cared very little about his social title and, instead, focused on the knowledge he did not have but could easily obtain. Being horse-fly-like in personality and persistence, though, did not win Socrates many favors with the political leaders and the people of Athens; instead, his constant questioning and the subsequent humiliation of the questioned led him to be tried in the Assembly court in front of a jury of 501 for six reasons, three of which being the corruption of the youth, not believing in Athenian gods, and being a man who makes worse argument stronger. The loss of his trial due to his poor reputation and lack of will to apologize for the …show more content…
Athenian society in 399 BCE was severely damaged due to the Peloponnesian War: because so many people were together for such a long span of time, disease broke out and a plague spread among the people (killing and sickening much of the population), walls that were constructed as protection were knocked down and left in shambles, and a majority of the men who left to fight in the war died – all of which were young men and youths. The young people who either lived long enough to come home or who never went to war at all were expected to play a very specific role in Athens – grow to be able to speak in the Assembly. Socrates, being the spectacle that he was and a form of entertainment to all the young men that lived in Athens during and after the war, was accused of corrupting the youth. The young men would often follow Socrates around Athens, watching and learning as he would continuously question political leaders and officials; this, however, led to a good portion of the young men to believe that Socrates was a teacher to them, a title which Socrates would come to reject. These young men, men who would later be in charge of running the Assembly once the older generations had died off, were believed to be corrupted by a man who often questioned …show more content…
Socrates was able to create an entirely knew way of thinking and analyzing, a method that is even named after him today. His use of intense questioning opened doors to discovering just what philosophy can do, and, because of Socrates, philosophy came to be the impactful and influential field that it is today. Regardless of his self-given title as the “the horse-fly of Athens,” Socrates accomplished so much, and without him poking and prodding and buzzing his way around Athens in nothing but filthy robes and knotted hair, society and human analyzation would not be at the level that is it