The Sacrifice of Socrates

When Athenians suffered the shame of having lost a war from their own greed and foolishness, around 404 BCE the public s blame was directed at Socrates, a man whose unique appearance and behavior, as well as his disapproval of the democracy, made him a ready target. Socrates was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to death. However, as Rene Girard has pointed out, no individual can be held responsible for a communal crisis. Plato s "Apology "depicts Socrates as both the bane and the cure of Greek society, while his "Crito "shows a sacrificial Socrates, what some might consider a "pharmakos "figure, the human drug through whom Plato can dispense his philosophical remedies. With tremendous insight and satisfying complexity, this book analyzes classical texts through the lens of Girard s mimetic mechanism."