Why Socrates Died

Why did democratic Athens condemn Socrates to death in 399 BCE? Robin Waterfield places the philosopher’s trial within the political and social upheavals of late fifth-century Athens, moving beyond the familiar image of an innocent thinker destroyed simply for asking uncomfortable questions. He examines the charges of impiety and corrupting the young alongside Socrates’ public reputation, associations and the recent crises of Athenian democracy.

Drawing closely on the surviving Greek evidence, Waterfield separates later legend from what can reasonably be reconstructed about Socrates, his accusers and the city that judged him. The result is both a study of a famous philosophical death and an accessible history of Athens after the Peloponnesian War, showing why the trial made sense to contemporaries even while its outcome has remained controversial for more than two millennia.