Plato, Apology 28d6-29al and the Ephebic Oath

Abstract

Socrates’ words in Ap. 28d6-10 “wherever a man posts himself in the ranks, thinking that best, or is posted by a commander, there he ought, as it seems to me, to stand his ground in the face of danger, taking no account either of death or of anything else rather than of disgrace” belong to a digression that has long been recognized as the central part of Socrates’ first speech and the Apology as a whole: it is here that Socrates explains in detail the divine mission to which his entire life has been dedicated. I will argue that the words are a paraphrase of what will later become firmly attested as the ephebic oath and that the essentials of the latter are also deliberately evoked throughout the broader context of the passage. I will also argue that Plato’s association of Socrates’ obedience to his god with the behaviour of the hoplite soldier should be seen as a sophisticated rhetorical strategy meant to reach the central core of the Athenian consensus.