The Death of Socrates

The world-famous translator of Homer investigates the life and afterlife of antiquity's most influential thinker, in an essential re-issued edition

FROM THE INSTANTLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CROSSING THE WINE-DARK SEA AND THE ODYSSEY A Blackwell's Book of the Month 'Wilson is unquestionably quite cool, and not just by the supposedly-buttoned up standards of her discipline' FT To his followers, it was an act of extraordinary folly: the silencing of society's most valuable critic. To his enemies, it was a necessary step to protect Athens' youth from dangerous corruption. The truth is lost to history. The death of Socrates has inspired freethinkers for millennia and become a touchstone of Western philosophy. Tracing Socrates' long afterlife through antiquity, politics, religion and culture, the renowned classicist and translator Emily Wilson unravels some of the most enduring - and difficult - questions of ancient philosophy: How do democracies deal with dissent? Are there limits to what we can say and think? And what lessons should we take take from Socrates' ultimate act of defiance?