Look to non-sympathetic sources, if any Trial of Socrates: Plays written during lifetime of Socrates ---eccentric headmaster of "thinkery" (Aristophanes in Clouds, 423 BC) ---pro-Sparta youth called "Socratified" (Aristophanes in Birds, 417 BC) ---"poverty-stricken windbag" (Eulopsis) From argument in a later trial (345 BC): ---"[Socrates executed because] clearly responsible for education of Critias, one of the 30 anti-democratic leaders" Trial of Jesus: Two late First-century histories ---"Christus...suffered the extreme penalty...at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition...broke out..." (Tacitus, Roman historian) ---"Pilate sentenced [Jesus] to die on the cross, having been urged to do so by the noblest of our citizens...." (Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian in 80s or early 90s AD) |