BLOODLESS EXECUTIONS: THE DARKER SIDE OF ATHENIAN JUSTICE
17:00:00 |
"The
death of Socrates" Jacques-Louis David, Metropolitan Museum of
Art
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The Stoa of Attalos in Athens ( a reconstructed building of around 150 B.C. ) houses the Museum of the Ancient Agora. Its exhibits are mostly connected with the Athenian democracy, as the Agora was the focus of the city's public life. The collection of the museum includes clay, bronze and glass objects, sculptures, coins and inscriptions from the 7th to the 5th century B.C., as well as pottery of the Byzantine period and the Turkish conquest.
Among them, there are some black-glazed medicine bottles from the area of the “Desmoterion”(:jail) - 5th century B.C. that used to hold the hemlock or Conium macelatum employed in executions. Conium comes from the Ancient Greek κώνειον - kṓneion: poison hemlock, a herbaceous and poisonous biennial flowering plant. This may be related to konas (meaning to whirl), in reference to vertigo, one of the symptoms of ingesting the plant.
In
ancient Greece, hermlock was
used to poison condemned prisoners. The most famous victim of hemlock
poisoning is the philosopher Socrates. After being accused of impiety
and corrupting the young men of Athens, in 399 B.C., his trial (where
he easily refuted these charges) resulted in his being condemned to
death. Socrates was given a potent infusion of the hemlock plant.
Plato described Socrates' death in the Phaedo:
“The
man...laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and
legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said
“No”; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this
way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And then again
he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be
gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and
uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said – and these
were his last words – “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it
and do not neglect it.” “That,” said Crito, “shall be done;
but see if you have anything else to say.” To this question he made
no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered
him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito when he saw it, closed his mouth
and eyes…”
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