Uncover the betrayal at the heart of Socrates’ death: in 399 BC, Athens puts its most famous questioner on trial for impiety and for “corrupting the youth.” Join us as we track the case from the public square to the courtroom to a quiet prison cell, asking one unsettling question all the way through: who broke faith first—Socrates, the city, or the people who claimed to defend it?​

In this episode, we follow the evidence that survives from antiquity—especially Plato’s Apology and Crito, alongside other ancient testimony—to reconstruct what Athens said it was punishing, and what it may have been trying to protect. We explore how Socrates’ method of relentless questioning could look like civic medicine to admirers and civic sabotage to anxious leaders, particularly in a democracy still raw from recent politi ...