The Shadows of Socrates
The Heresy, War, and Treachery Behind the Trial of Socrates
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3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher
The Shadows of Socrates
Buy Now for £14.51
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Narrated by:
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Vince Gatton
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By:
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Matt Gatton
Athens, 399 BC: Socrates is sentenced to death. In a moment that will forever mark history, the father of Western philosophy is found guilty by his own fellow citizens. There are two charges: impiety, because the philosopher would not recognize the city/state’s gods, and corruption of the youth. The absurd denunciation, the fight of a man against power and tradition, the hemlock: the fresco that emerges from this story is indelible.
At seventy years of age, after having lived all his life in Athens, Socrates must face the most unjust charges. But what are the real motives behind his condemnation? Why did he accept an unjust verdict? What was the state of the polis of Athens in the fourth century BC? And what role did religion, and in particular the Eleusinian Mysteries, play in all this?
In a surprising book that is part essay and part philosophical thriller, Matt Gatton leads us to discover the real reasons behind the most famous – and in some ways unsolved – murder in History. It is a true mystery in which a long war, rivalries, sex scandals, betrayals, sedition, hunger, and epic courage are intertwined. Socrates was the most rational of men living in the most irrational of times.
©2024 Matt Gatton (P)2025 Matt Gatton