Vindicated

Twenty-three and a quarter centuries ago, a short, grotesque man, thicknecked and paunchy with flat nostrils and thick lips stood trial for his life. He had a shrill-tongued wife; by her, three "dull and fatuous" sons. His father was a sculptor, his mother a midwife. But he had been soldier, statesman, teacher; he was Socrates, the greatest liberal of his age. In Athens, 500 judges heard the accusations brought by Meletus, the poet; Anytus, the tanner; and Lycon, the orator. The accusation ran: "Socrates is guilty, firstly, of denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of corrupting the young." Socrates, with brilliant irony, pleaded guilty only to an open mind; a majority of the judges, 280, steeped in Babbittry, voted him guilty. Thirty days later, conversing with weeping friends, he carried out their sentence, drank the cup of hemlock, died.

Before the Supreme Court of Greece of this year, Attorney Paradopulos brought suit; he demanded "that Socrates' innocence be re-established." The modern court of Athens refused to consider the plea, on the ground that legal action would be empty and superfluous. World opinion, they decided, had completely vindicated the liberal Socrates.