The Apology of Socrates as a theory of rumour

Abstract

The most prominent leaders of the Trasibulo party soon forget their promise sanctioned in Arquino's law not to take revenge for acts that occurred during the dictatorship of the thirty tyrants. Plato is going to face in this way in the Apology one of the most important enigmas and theoretically little attended to in the field of communication: rumor. The condemnation and execution of Socrates rests precisely on a rumour spread by Athens. Therefore, he must establish a strategy that allows him to recover the memory of Socrates, but he cannot limit himself to vindicating that memory, but must attack an image that the death sentence itself would clearly confirm. At the same time, he seeks to install a new one that will rehabilitate the figure of his teacher and the dowry of immortality. Thus, he must destroy the figure of Socrates as a sophist and as the inspirer of the dictatorship, some of whose leaders were his disciples. In addition to the suspicions raised by Socrates' closeness to those wealthy classes, the only ones with time to debate, and staunch enemies of Athenian radical democracy. The result of the Platonic operation is obvious every time that any attempt to separate the figure of Socrates from the character Socrates is a wasted enterprise.