Should The Corruption Of The Athenian Law System

The law system in Athens was a system where anyone off the streets could press charges against their fellow man without having to go through an attorney general like figure. After charges were pressed, the jury would be called and everyone would report to where the case was occurring. The number of jurors ranged anywhere from 21 to the two thousands. The individual who pressed charges spoke first as to why the other party was guilty; then the defendant would rebut the first party’s points and state why they were innocent. After this occurred, there was a vote, -and if there was a guilty party- both parties expressed what they felt the punishment should be, and then the punishment was voted upon. This system was the one where Socrates was placed
This reputation existed only in a comedy that Aristophanes wrote. To think of it along the lines of today, this would be similar to someone suing a political figure or celebrity based off of a Saturday Night Live or Mad TV skit. There were two later allegations placed against Socrates over corrupting the youth of Athens and Socrates being an atheist by not believing in the gods of Athens. However, only one of the two latter claims held much weight. The atheism charges had little to no grounds and will not be a major focus in this paper. On the charges of corruption of youth, Socrates gave two arguments defending himself against
Did corruption mean brainwashing these young men into being unruly vandals who endeavored to fight everyone? Did corruption mean teaching the youth to question everyone of status that they met? Did corruption mean that they encouraged the young men to not abide by morals? If one of them, namely Socrates, had bothered to clearly define what corruption was, this counterargument could have went a lot smoother since they had a targeted area to attack and defend. To make Socrates’ argument sounder, I would set the definition of corruption to turning the youth into unruly vandals who lust for blood. That would be the easiest claim to disprove because there would be no evidence for the young men of Athens currently acting like that. In addition, all Socrates has to do is disprove that and poke holes in Meletus’ argument, he would be proven innocent. Since we have already logically disproved that, and Socrates has made Meletus look unintelligent and made the jury doubt him, Socrates would have just secured his two hundred and fifty first juror and he could go