16

In 399BC (age 70), was put on trial for not believing in the gods, “Zeus” specifically, in whom the city believes, teaching atheism, corrupting the youth, and for instead teaching the youth about “daemons”, something considered, then, as godlike, power, fate, spirit guides, or forces of nature, depending on translation; Plato, who supposedly was at the trial recounts the court proceedings, wherein his main accuser Meletus interrogates him, as follows:

[SOCRATES] Nevertheless, speak to us, how do you say that I corrupt the youth, Meletus? Or is it clear, according to the indictment that you brought, that it is by teaching them not to believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel? Do you not say that it is by teaching these things that I corrupt them?

[MELETUS] I certainly do say this, most vehemently!

[SOCRATES] Then before these very gods, Meletus, about whom our speech now is, speak to me and to these men still more plainly. For I am not able to understand whether you are saying that I teach them to believe that there are gods of some sort—and so I myself do believe that there are gods and am not completely atheistic and do not do injustice in this way—but that I do not believe in those in whom the city believes, but in others, and this is what you charge me with, that I believe in others. Or do you assert that I myself do not believe in gods at all and that I teach this to others?

[MELETUS] This is what I say, that you do not believe in gods at all.

[SOCRATES] Wondrous Meletus, why do you say this? Do I not even believe, then, that sun and moon are gods, as other human beings do?

[MELETUS] No, by Zeus, judges, since he declares that the sun is stone and the moon is earth.

[SOCRATES] Do you suppose you are accusing Anaxagoras, My dear Meletus? And do you so much despise these men here and suppose that they are so inexperienced in letters that they do not know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of these speeches? Moreover, do the young learn these things from me, when it is sometimes possible for them to buy them in the orchestra for a drachma, if the price is very high, and then to laugh at Socrates if he pretends that they are his own, especially since they are so strange? But before Zeus, is this how I seem to you? Do I believe there is no god?

[MELETUS] You certainly do not, by Zeus, not in any way at all!

was regarded as an atheist by the Athenians (Aristophanes, c.390BC); he was convicted of atheism, by vote of the the majority of the dikasts (male-citizen jurors chosen by lot), and sentenced to death via drinking poisonous hemlock.