Socrates the Gadfly Socrates spent his time questioning people about things like virtue, justice, piety and truth. The people Socrates questioned are the people that condemned him to death. Socrates was sentenced to death because people did not like him and they wanted to shut him up for good. There was not any real evidence against Socrates to prove the accusations against him. Socrates was condemned for three major reasons: he told important people exactly what he thought of them, he questioned ideas that had long been the norm, the youth copied his style of questioning for fun, making Athenians think Socrates was teaching the youth to be rebellious. But these reasons were not the charges against him, he was charged with being an atheist and with corrupting the youth. The charge of being impious was completely absurd because Socrates talked about the gods quite frequently and never stated to anyone that he was an atheist so it would be impossible for him to be an atheist. The charge of corrupting the youth is unjust because Socrates did not tell the youth to copy him and he is not responsible for their actions. The charges against Socrates were merely excuses by his enemies to murder him in a legal way. Socrates made his enemies by going on a search to find someone wiser than he was. Socrates went on this search because the Oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man there was but Socrates believed that to be false (5). This lead to a futile search for a person who did have wisdom so Socrates could prove the oracle wrong. Socrates went to people who had a reputation of wisdom and then he would question and talk to them to find out if they in fact were wise. When he met someone who thought they were wise, Socrates would come "to the assistance of the god" and show him that he is not (6). When he found out that they were not wise he would tell them that to their face and by doing that make another enemy. Socrates traveled from one gro...
