According to Plato, Socrates spent the hour arguing with his friends and family and composing poems, his only attempts at the written word. They could visit the jail at any time of the day or night, and they had to bring food for the detainees since the rations distributed in the jail were minimal or almost non-existent.
On Socrates’ last day his friends got to jail earlier, an appointment they had kept for the past thirty days with their teacher. Now they were there: Apollodorus, Critóboulo and his father, Crito, Hermogenes, Epigen, Aeschines, Antisthenes, who was the leader of the Cynical school of philosophy. Ctesippus, Menexene. From Thebes: Simmias, Cebes, and Fedondes. From Megara: Euclid, leader of the megaric philosophical school and Terpsion. They were all together outside at the entrance. A prison servant had joined the group, who would later be in charge of giving Socrates the poison. The warden had asked them to wait for his signal before entering the cell because they were removing Socrates’ chains and preparing everything to give the order of the death sentence.
His Wife Jantipa
As soon as his disciples and friends enter, they meet Xantipa, his wife, who was already inside the cell with her 3 children and begins to unravel in lamentations and screams. Socrates had to ask his friend Crito to take her home, and Crito orders some slaves to take care of the woman, but she insists on staying close.
Socrates was convinced that death was not a bad thing. He believed that it was a neutral situation, like a dreamless dream, or an opportunity to start philosophical discussions in Hades with interesting personalities from the past. Just before drinking the hemlock, Crito, one of his best friends who was there, asks him if he wants to order something from him, about a business or a recommendation for his children, to which Socrates replies:
– Nothing more Crito, than what I have always recommended, which is to take care of yourself, and thus you will do a service to me, my family and yourselves.
Crito, very affected, insists on receiving instructions from his teacher for when he is no longer here and asks him:
– How will we bury you?
They had spent the day arguing about death, about the immortality of the soul that according to Plato, Socrates defended arguing that death is nothing more than the separation of body and soul and that this is immortal. He responds to Crito speaking to all those present:
– I beg you to be my guarantors near Crito, but in the opposite way to how he was close to the judges, because there he answered for me that I would not run away. And now I want you to respond, I beg you, that the moment I die, I will leave; so that poor Crito can bear my death more calmly, and that when he sees my body burn or give you earth he does not despair, as if I suffered great evils, and do not say at my funerals that he exposes Socrates, who leads Socrates, who buries Socrates because you must know, my dear Crito, that speaking improperly is not only committing a fault in what is said, but causing harm to souls. It is necessary to have more courage, and say that it is my body that you bury; and bury it as it suits you, and in the way that you think is more compliant with the laws.
They are all in silence and Socrates goes to the baths to bathe, and asks that no one accompany him or help him and that they wait for him where they are. Upon returning, he joined his wife and children for a moment to say goodbye. And as the sun was setting, he went to his bed, lay down and the guard arrives with the hemlock saying:
– Socrates, I do not have to give you the same reprimand as the others who have been in your case. Since I have come to warn you, by order of the magistrates, that it is necessary to drink the poison, they have revolted against me and cursed me; but with respect to you, since you have been here, you have always seemed to me the most firm, the sweetest and the best of all those who have entered this prison; and I am quite sure that at this moment you are not angry with me, and that you will only be angry with those who are the cause of your misfortune, and whom you know well. Now Socrates, you know what I have come to announce to you; he receives my greeting, and tries to endure with resignation what is inevitable.
The guard turned his back and left with tears. Meanwhile Socrates, looking at him, said:
– And I also greet you, my friend, and I will do what you tell me.
Socrates asked for the poison to be brought to him to drink. Then Crito tells him:
– I think that the sun is still shining on the mountains and that it has not set; and I know that many others have not drunk the poison until long after receiving the order; who have eaten and drunk to their liking and even some have enjoyed the pleasures of love; so you should not rush, because you still have time.
Socrates firmly replies:
– Those who do what you say, Crito, have their reasons; They think that they earn more, but I also have them for not doing it, because the only thing I think I win, drinking the hemlock a little later, is making a fool of myself in my own eyes, manifesting myself so eager for life that I try to save the death, when it is absolutely inevitable.
The guard arrives with the poison already crushed in a short and small glass and says to Socrates:
– Go for a walk after you have drunk the hemlock, until you feel your legs weaken, and then you lie on your bed.
Socrates took the cup and drank it with marvelous gentleness and tranquility. All his disciples and friends shed their tears in abundance and some covered their faces with their capes to cry freely. They did not cry for Socrates’ misfortune but for themselves when they saw who they lost.
–As he walked through the cell, Socrates began to feel his legs weaken and he lay on his bed on his back, just as the guard had told him. He felt his legs freeze and that cold rose throughout his body.
His last words were:
–Criton, we owe a rooster to Asclepios; do not forget to pay this debt.
It was a sacrifice in thanksgiving to the god of medicine , who freed him from all the evils of life by death.
Very soon after the death of Socrates, the Athenians regretted what they had done. They realized the barbarity of their actions when they tried an innocent man and sentenced him to death. So much was their repentance that they punished those who had laid the groundwork for Socrates’ condemnation. They honored the memory of the philosopher by building a bronze statue and began to study his teachings and his didactic legacy with greater enthusiasm perhaps out of remorse. Socrates taught with his behavior and his legacy was his simplicity to live in search of knowledge and truth.
