The Apology of Socrates to the Jury is Xenophon’s literary contribution to the many apologia written to explain the trial of Socrates to the Athenian public. Each book was the author’s literary perceptions and interpretations of the guilty-verdict against the public man Socrates. The author Xenophon presents Socrates’s megalēgoria at trial, as a tactic of legal defence against being a corrupt and impious man who is harmful to the Athenian polity. The principal event in the Apology of Socrates to the Jury is Socrates’s rejection of an attack upon his character, by Anytus. In the year 399, Xenophon was soldiering with the Greek mercenary army of the Ten Thousand ; hence he was not in Athens for the trial of Socrates. As an author, Xenophon’s primary source for the Socratic dialogue is the philosopher Hermogenes, who attended the trial. Nonetheless, in the literature of the trial of Socrates, Plato features Hermogenes in Phaedo but not in the Apology of Socrates. In literary comparison, Xenophon’s interpretation of Socrates’s megalēgoria as defence-at-trial is compared and contrasted with the interpretation of the legal defence presented the Apology of Socrates, by Plato. In the literary production of Xenophon of Athens, the final chapter of Memorabilia contains some of the apology text, which are the opening paragraphs of the Apology of Socrates to the Jury. The textual repetitions in the books, indicate that the Apology was Xenephon’s original conclusion to the Memorabilia.
Contrast with Plato's ''Apology of Socrates''
The stylistic differences between the Socratic dialogues the Apology of Socrates to the Jury, by Xenophon, and the Apology of Socrates, by Plato, is in the literary descriptions of the philosopher, by the Oracle at Delphi; in Xenophon's dialogue, the Oracle said that there was no man “more free, more just, or more sound of mind” than Socrates; in Plato’s dialogue, the Oracle said that there was no man “wiser” than Socrates. Moreover, the narrative differences in the dialogues indicate that Xenophon avoided direct attribution of “wisdom,” the term suggesting that Socrates was accurately characterized as a natural philosopher and an atheist; as he is portrayed in the comedyThe Clouds, a play by Aristophanes. As portrayed by Xenophon, Socrates does not claim to be wise “from the time when I began to understand spoken words... have never left off seeking after and learning every good thing that I could.” Moreover, in Xenophon's Apology of Socrates, the philosopher’s daimonion is described as giving positive indications about what to do, whereas the philosopher Socrates portrayed by Plato consistently and explicitly describes the daimonion as meant to “turn me away from something I am about to do,” but “never encourage me to do anything.” A further difference between Plato and Xenophon is that whereas Plato has Socrates finally suggest a thirty-mina penalty for himself, the Xenophon/Hermogenes version says that he refused to suggest any and refused to allow his friends to do so, claiming that to do otherwise would imply guilt. Finally, whereas Socrates' willingness to face the death penalty is in Plato's Apology explained by Socrates' unwavering commitment to his divinely appointed mission to keep philosophizing at all costs, it is explained in the Xenophon/Hermogenes version by the claim that it is better for him to die now than to face the pains and limitations of advanced old age.
