Waterfield takes a crack at trying to figure out why an ancient Greek polity executed a well-known philosopher. The task is difficult, not least because the primary sources on the trial and death of the philosopher are ‘intelligent fictions,’ their meaning distorted by time and distance. The charges brought up at trial―impiety and corrupting the youth of the city―are imprecise and much debated in subsequent commentaries. We do not know how the prosecution made its case against the philosopher, or what exactly the philosopher said in his own defense. Consequently, we don’t really know why the philosopher was put to death, though the accounts of his end have great literary merit, and the questions raised inspired whole fields of philosophical inquiry. The best we can do, writes Waterfield, is to develop an understanding of the legal, religious, and political context of the trial, and thereby uncover clues as to what the characters believed was at stake―whether the particular story we are told is true or not.

Waterfield avoids the kinds of facile analogies that pop historians frequently lean on because he knows that any apparent similarities between societies separated by thousands of years are merely superficial, and are rendered insignificant by the peculiarities defined by the historical context. What qualified as impiety in an ancient Greek city-state depended upon the beliefs and practices unique to that society. Waterfield’s version comes off as reinterpretation because he pays such careful attention to cultural idiosyncracies, like the apotropaic nature of the erect phallus, for instance. If the philosopher exploited the pedagogical possibilities of homoeroticism in a singular aristocratic milieu, this clarifies his association with the flamboyant and narcissistic younger man who became an emblem of the city’s failures in wartime. In a city-state corrupted by years of democracy and artificial egalitarianism, crippled by over-reach, incompetence and amorality, it is entirely plausible, says Waterfield, that there would emerge a dictatorship determined to implement a program of moral regeneration.

The greatest danger to government (democratic or authoritarian) is not the rabble, but a restless intellectual class. For Waterfield, the subtext for the philosopher’s trial was the general uncertainty of a polity in crisis, with old convictions undermined by years of war, displacement of the rural population into the city, decline in relative prosperity, polarization of rich and poor, episodes of civil violence and the questioning of traditional values. Such conditions set the thinkers off in search of solutions. For the philosopher, the political and moral reform of the city presupposed the reform of education and religion. What is the difference between convention and law? Do the gods really exist? How do we get a disinterested, responsible elite that can make philosophical understanding available as a guide to improving the imperfect cities of men? Is language arbitrary? Does a strawberry taste the same to everyone? The philosopher’s project of imagining a city managed by an ethical elite―'constructing a city in words’―coincided with an actual authoritarian program of renewal during a period of social upheaval. He looked guilty of something. ( )

Really interesting look into why Socrates was so dangerous in his time. Dude hated democracy, by the way. ( )

Another book that fits into my summer project of Reading Outside The Box, i.e. trying new authors and new genres via a cross-section of newly published work. In a very manageable 204 pages, Waterfield's Why Socrates Died opens with Socrates’ trial and death by hemlock, then takes us into the backstory of the Peloponnesian War and the social changes wrought by Athens’ eventual defeat, and finally presents his theory of why Socrates stayed in Athens and accepted death when he could so easily have escaped.

As I know very little of Socratic thought and ancient Greek history, this subject could easily have proved difficult to follow. So I was impressed by the clarity of Waterfield’s writing and the easily understandable structure of this book, which made it possible even for an amateur historian like me to gain a fair amount of understanding of a very far-off world.

I didn’t learn much about Socrates himself, though. The larger-than-life character in this book is Alcibiades, Socrates’ pupil and, possibly, toyboy. Socrates himself seems rather pushed to the margins; this is a book about his environment rather than the man himself. I don't think that this detracts from the book, though; in fact it has piqued my interest to learn more about Socrates.

Waterfield is scholarly, engaging with other historians and discussing their theories in contrast with his own. Yet I never really had the impression that I was reading a piece of historical scholarship; the narrative flows well, and he follows the delightful contemporary practice of making his notes almost entirely inconspicuous. I did get a bit bogged down in the description of the war, but then I always have trouble following political narratives when the players are not well known to me.

I thought that the book really came into its own once the account of the war was over and we returned to the time of the trial. Waterfield makes some truly interesting comparisons between Socrates’ day and American history of the 60s and 70s. From the jacket photo I would say that he’s slightly older than me, which makes him a true Boomer (whereas I am on the cusp) and explains why this comparison comes so naturally to him. He also made some remarks that got me thinking about our own “democracy” and recent history.

Waterfield’s final theory is only a theory, and he doesn’t try to sell it as the only solution to the mystery of Socrates’ death. Still, I found it plausible and neatly put. Altogether an excellent book: highbrow without being inaccessible, nicely structured and well edited. I got through the whole thing without once being annoyed by the writing, which is rare for me. ( )