In the year 399 BC, Socrates was brought to trial in Athens on two charges: not believing in the gods of the city, introducing new divinities, and corrupting the youth. The usual reading treats this as plain persecution, driven by ignorance or envy. It is fairer, both to the city and to the case itself, to also look at what Athens saw.
The two charges
The first charge had two parts that went together: Socrates supposedly did not recognize the city's traditional gods, and on top of that he introduced new divinities in their place. The second said he corrupted the youth, forming, among the young men who followed him around the city, a generation that learned to question everything the previous generation took for granted.
Neither charge came out of nowhere. Socrates did in fact spend his days questioning politicians, poets, and craftsmen, showing each one that he knew less than he thought he knew, and he did it in front of young men who watched and laughed. And he did in fact say he heard, since childhood, an inner sign that did not come from the gods of the city.
The city that judged him
It is only fair to Athens here, because the caricature of an ignorant court helps no one understand anything. The city was fresh from a lost war against Sparta and a bloody tyranny still fresh in the memory of those who voted. It was an Athens unsure of its own foundations, watching a man spend his days showing in public that the certainties holding it together did not withstand examination.
As for that effect, the charge was right. He really was corrosive, in the exact sense of the word: he dissolved certainties that could not survive the next question. Athens' mistake was not seeing that. It was concluding that the right answer was to kill the man who saw it.
The daimonion, and what it wasn't
As for the "new divinities," Socrates said he had heard, since childhood, an inner sign he called his daimonion. It is worth saying what it was, because it is almost always told wrong: that sign never commanded him to do anything. It only held him back. It was not inspiration, it was a brake, and that is quite different from a voice that orders actions, which would in fact be a divinity competing with those of the city. To his accusers, the difference did not matter: a sign no one else heard was already enough proof of a new divinity.
The exile he refused
Condemned by a narrow margin of votes, Socrates had the right, by Athenian custom, to propose his own penalty. The obvious way out was exile, which the court almost always accepted: all he had to do was agree to live in silence in another city. He refused, and it is in that refusal, told in more detail in the Apology of Socrates, that the line lies that would make him famous.
Understanding the charge from Athens' side does not excuse the sentence. What it does excuse is the city from the caricature of a blind court, and it gives the case back what makes it interesting to this day: it was not a misjudgment of a harmless man, it was a real city reacting to a man who genuinely shook the ground under the feet of those who listened to him.
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What were the charges against Socrates?
Two: not believing in the gods of the city, introducing new divinities, and corrupting the youth. He was tried in Athens in 399 BC and condemned by a narrow margin of votes.
Why did Athens condemn Socrates?
The city was fresh from a lost war and a bloody tyranny, and it watched a man show in public, every day, that the certainties holding it together did not withstand examination. As for that effect, the charge was not wrong: he really was corrosive.
What was Socrates' daimonion?
An inner sign he said he had heard since childhood, which his accusers took as the "new divinity" in the charge. Contrary to what is usually told, it never commanded him to do anything: it only held him back.
Continue: Apology of Socrates: not calendar wisdom · Crito, by Plato: why Socrates didn't escape · Socrates' daimonion never commanded, only restrained · Free will in Macbeth: destiny or choice?
Source class: Sócrates e o conhece-te a ti mesmo: autoconhecimento, virtude e maiêutica