The key questions at the heart of Apology are why Socrates’s accusers put him on trial and, by extension, why the jury voted to condemn him to death. The official charges brought against Socrates were impiety and corrupting the youth. Given that these are both very subjective accusations, it is important to place them in the context of Socrates’s social and political reputation in early 4th century BCE. Athens. At the time, most educators were referred to as “sophists.” As paid tutors, they generally taught the children of wealthy clients. Moreover, because of this employee-employer relationship, sophists answered to their wealthy clients to a degree and thus had little reason to alienate them.

By contrast, Socrates never accepted payment for educating youths, and Plato characterizes him in direct opposition to the sophists. Socrates offered a far more informal education, as Athenian youths followed him in the streets to watch him expose the ignorance of their wealthy parents’ generation. In his defense, he says, “[T]he young men who follow me around of their own free will, those who have most leisure, the sons of the very rich, take pleasure in hearing people questioned” (28).