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As a matter of fact in 399 B.C. Socrates was put on trial, accused of corrupting the young and impiety and found guilty. The 501 member jury claimed that Socrates believed in other gods than the gods of Athens and according to the Athenian sentence the thinker drank a cup of poison hemlock.
Today Socrates’ philosophy points are argued about, he is often blamed for inconsistency and at times called a man of contradictions. For instance, Socrates supposed that a better man cannot be harmed by a worse man, he felt that he would be harmed if forced into prison or exile. He believed in division of body and soul and that he would not be killed even if he drinks poison, his soul will move to another place. He found death to be the possibility of hope and did not fear it as he thought that life with the full knowledge of making the wrong choice would be more harmful to him than death. Therefore, if Socrates is imprisoned, it will harm his soul, this is how worse men can harm a better man, that seems a kind of contradiction to his convictions.
Plato called Socrates a hero for truth, a courageous thinker who was committed to it and executed by the Athenians. Let us consider the evidence presented to readers of the dialogue in the Socrates’ prison cell. Actually, the thinker has a few options such as prison, exile, fine, silence or death. His friend Crito suggests Socrates that he should escape from prison and gives arguments to support his proposal. Crito in the name of Socrates’ friends believes that exile is better than prison or death and says that it will not badly reflect on Socrates’ friends, they will not get into trouble or lose their property in order to save the thinker, adding that “there are persons who are at no great cost willing to save you and bring you out of prison”, people “will love you in other places to which you may go, and not in Athens only” (Crito). In the light of ethics Crito claims that by putting up with the situation Socrates betrays his own life and acts unjustly. One more argument Crito presents is that Socrates makes his children usual orphans in case he does not escape. Crito urges the thinker to act immediately, “any delay will render all but impossible…there is only one thing to be done, which must be done” (Crito).
Though Socrates says he is eager to be persuaded, he seems to await for inevitable execution and wants to die insisting on the fact he cannot disobey the state that brought him into the world and educated him, comparing the laws of the state to a system where no single law-component can be violated and he is like a child to his own state.
Socrates is attentive to the judgments of Crito, however, he puts forward counter-evidence and airs his viewpoint on the insignificance of public opinion. What is quite typical for the thinker is his presentation of thought through a series of logically connected questions. He asks Crito and waits for his affirmation: “are we to rest assured, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, of the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly?” (Socrates) The thinker airs the voice of the Laws of Athens, saying he has no right to destroy them, doing violence to his country. He strongly believes that a law-obedient citizen should not go against the State “disobeying his parents,…the authors of his education” (Socrates). If he runs away, he will break all the agreements and covenants which make him a true citizen of Athens. Socrates seems not to endure that the government turns with its back upon him, for he is “the corrupter of the laws” (Socrates). He sees no sense in existence on such terms. Socrates claims there is no use living as an outlaw, therefore death seems to him a better way to preserve his dignity and remain faithful to his life philosophy. So, he crowns his arguments with the words: “…anything more which you will say will be in vain…let me follow the intimations of the will of God” (Socrates).
According to N.S. Gill as well as other contemporary scholars studying the conditions of death of the thinker, the Socrates death was the greatest suicide in law (Gill). Currently it is considered that the philosopher challenged the conceptions of piety and the youths’ respect for their elders, therefore, is blamed for false teachings, corrupting the youth of Athens. Brenner concludes from Plato’s Apology that Socrates was either arrogant and challenged the Athenian way of life, or was suicidal, the latter being closer to the truth (Brenner). Given a chance to escape the sentence Socrates hardly cares about the suffering his death may bring to his relatives and friends, rejecting all the other options, Socrates takes consciously the poison (Brenner). Nietzsche is also cited in the context of approving of Socrates suicidal decision. Nietzsche supposed that Socrates wanted to die and was ready for that, it was not the Athens but he himself who administered the hemlock (Brenner).
Though the evidence on Socrates suicide is quite contradictory, history and the dialogue with Crito gives a number of convincing arguments in favor of his voluntary departure.