Civic Memory and Philosophy in Plato's "Apology"

This paper interprets Socrates’ defense speech in Plato’s Apology in the light of recent studies on the Athenian amnesty of 403BC and the rhetorical conventions to which the amnesty gave rise. Specifically, I establish parallels between Socrates’ rhetorical tactics and those in Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes. I argue that Socrates’ argument for the importance of philosophy appropriates and transforms the rhetoric characteristic of the post-amnesty era. Additionally, I make a case for the more speculative claim that the Apology is, in part, a response to Lysias’ speech. Ultimately, my aim is to contribute to an understanding of Socratic philosophy as a mode of political intervention.

In the first part of this paper, I discuss some of Lysias’ rhetorical moves in the context of post-amnesty Athens. Following an oligarchic coup, a violent civil war, and finally the restoration of democracy in Athens, the Athenians established terms under which they were to forgive and forget. Of course, a reading of legal speeches in the years following the amnesty shows that the memory of civil strife was frequently invoked and weaponized. Scholars such as Nicole Loraux, Andrew Wolpert, and Victoria Wohl have shown how litigants revisited civil strife by rhetorical means, characterizing their opponents as enemies of the democracy and presenting themselves as agents of the restoration of democracy. Thus post-amnesty rhetoric served to constitute a common civic identity among citizens of the democracy. I illustrate this idea with key passages from Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes, in which Lysias exploits the memory of the oligarchic coup and civil war to prosecute a man involved in the murder of his brother. In Lysias’ speech, the jury is called upon not simply to judge Eratosthenes guilty of murder, but by doing so to reaffirm civic unity against enemies of democracy such as Eratosthenes. Thus Lysias, despite being a non-citizen, appears as a representative of the will of the citizenry.

The second part of this paper reads Socrates’ defense speech as a response to Lysias’ speech. Using arguments that resemble Lysias’, Socrates draws attention to the civil strife that lies below the surface of the democracy’s agreement to forgive and forget. Furthermore, like Lysias, he uses these arguments to present himself as an agent of civic harmony, albeit an outsider to Athenian politics in certain respects. However, Socrates departs from Lysias in that he proposes philosophy, rather than democracy, as the true source of social harmony. This involves a transformation of the notions of civic discord, complicity, and reconciliation implicit in the legal conventions produced by the amnesty and given voice by Lysias in particular.