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dear Friends,
if you are interested you can watch the "The New Trial of Socrates", today at 18:30 ATHEN Local time (+2 zone ) live at the link
http://www.sgt.gr/en/programme/event/688

it will be in English and French language. Please read about at :
http://www.sgt.gr/uploads/Trial_eng.pdf

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Costas, Athens
My Stamps

If anyone else thinks like me that this is something related somehow to the Euro crisis, from the PDF the OP linked to,

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

on trial today is the city-state of Athens, if it was right to convict Socrates to death or not.
Athens was governed with “direct” democratic rules, "the power directly from the people".
(it was not a representative’s democracy. There were no elected "parliament members").

Socrates was in the opposition to this. He believed in aristo-cracy. The "best ones to rule".

The city of Athens, recovering from a harsh tyranny, took this as a threat to the Athenian democracy.
The question 24 centuries now, is if his execution for these reasons was right or wrong.
Did the democracy of Athens commit a crime against someone exercising the outmost of the democracy; the freedom of speech and his ideas?
Did Socrates used this freedom correct ? Was he political and social correct?

Would today democracies convict another Socrates?
Is a Socrates dangerous today?
Maybe not as there are so many other ways to close mouths or twist the political truth.
It is not comical, it is tragical

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Costas, Athens
My Stamps

It is always a mistake, in my opinion, to try and judge events of so long ago in the light of today. In 399 BC Athens was only just beginning to recover from the loss of the Peloponnesian war (against Sparta and her allies). Athens had been utterly defeated, her walls had been torn down and the victors had imposed an autocracy on what was a Democracy until 404BC. Athens had also lost her empire and the revenues that flowed from it.

Was the Athenian Democracy perfect? No, but it was a noble experiment for all that. I think it is not unreasonable to consider all the circumstances of the trial of Socrates in the light of the the political situation at the time. What would have been the fate, for example, of somebody in the newly created United States (just after the revolution) who preached return of the King and the abandonment of Republic?

Or, perhaps more allegorically, to someone in the British North American Colonies (i.e. Canada) who proposed the overthrow of rule from London in favour of a Republic?

I should hasten to add that I have not had time, yet, to look at the link in the OP. I will do so, though, with great interest.

And yes, Thucydides book of the Pelopennesian War is one of my favourite ancient texts.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

dear @PeterS
you are so right !!
I fully agree with you. The time factor has it's weight.
The trial was very interesting, and many arguments were based on your thoughts. The result was 50-50.
To my opinion Socrates was undermining the city, at a time as you exactly described.
Maybe Socrates should not have been sentenced to death, but there was not at that time a bright personality like Pericles to oppose to Socrates bright, arrogant and smart mind and protect the Democracy of the city.

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Costas, Athens
My Stamps

Unfortunately, many of the best and brightest did not survive the war with the Spartans and the following imposition of an oligarchy. And, of course, there were plenty of Athenians who preferred to fight in Asia Minor than stay home at that time.

It is interesting to look at history and compare it to now. But it is inappropriate to try and judge those in the distant past by our standards today. Truth be known, some of what happens in the modern world (such as the slaughter of women and children by a corrupt regime) would be anathema to most in the ancient world! They would consider such people to be barbarians (which, of course, they are).

Like Rome, Athens did not have a prison where convicted offenders could serve a term. They were either fined, sent to the mines, banished or executed. Pericles might find our concept of putting people in maximum security prisons to be an extremely barbaric practice!

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.