Close reading Plato’s Apology, part 3

Three Accusers

Let’s take a break from the action to ask a historical question: who were the accusers of Socrates, and why did they go after him? We know that three men came forward — fingers pointing. Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. Allow me to introduce the three stooges.

Meletus was a minor league tragic poet. Nobody remembers him for his poetry, only for accusing the most famous philosopher of all time. Ironically Meletus, like Socrates, was mentioned in Aristophanes’ plays. He was probably thirty or forty years old at the time he…