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Socrates' Closing Words: A Note on Plato's Apology of Socrates 41e1-42a5

This short paper offers an interpretation of Socrates’ closing words in Plato’s Apology. I argue that the closing words are directed at two particular groups of people at the trial, the three accusers and the jurymen who voted for Socrates’ death penalty. The interpretation I propose does not assume any confusing shifts in the intended recipients of Socrates’ words. Instead, it gives a natural reading of all the verbs and pronouns in the second person plural that follow the third person plural autōn at 41e1, it fixes the reference of the final ō andres accordingly and without compromising the distinction introduced by addressing only the friendly jurors with ō andres dikastai. In addition, I argue that the interpretation makes excellent sense of Plato’s text and gives it a richer meaning than what we find in the literature.

Socrates, trial, jury, address, threat

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