The Last Days Of Socrates (Readings Classics)

The Last Days of Socrates brings together Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, four of Plato’s most enduring dialogues which trace the final period of Socrates’ life, from the questions surrounding his trial to his imprisonment and death. Through these remarkable conversations, Plato examines the nature of justice, duty, piety, virtue, the soul and the philosopher’s responsibility to truth.

Read together, the four works form a compelling philosophical drama. Socrates debates the meaning of holiness before entering the Athenian court, delivers his celebrated defence against charges of impiety and corruption, considers whether he should escape his sentence and, in his final hours, reflects upon death and the immortality of the soul.

Translated by Benjamin Jowett, whose influential renderings helped establish Plato for generations of English readers, this collection captures a defining episode in the history of philosophy: the final journey of a thinker who chose fidelity to his principles over the preservation of his own life.