«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 84 n Magda El-Nowieemy to death that your virtuous city offers me. And if the salvation of this city lies in my death, welcome to this death that will offer me eternity. And now the time has come for us to part each in a separate road, you to carry on in the path of life and me to the hereafter, which is the better, your destiny or mine? Only god knows. Socrates uses here irony as a way of expression. What Athenian democ- racy represents within the framework of the dialogue between Socrates and Democratia has been sharply placed in focus here. Etman contextualizes the moment of the trial to protest against current affairs in Egypt. His protest raises a number of issues. He employs the fact that Athens legal system has its flaws. Most charges were laid and prosecuted by private citizens who had an inter- est in the destruction of the accused. Cases, such as Socrates', were heard in a single day, and there was no court of appeal. The jurors of ordinary Athenian citizens, numbering in the hundreds, voted on the guilt or innocence and the penalty that was to be paid. Perhaps Etman is alluding to some Egyptian laws that are quite vague and leave much open to interpretation. One cannot fail to be moved by Socrates' last words to his judges. Etman turned his readers against the Athenian democracy. How could a society that championed freedom of speech condemn an apparently innocent 70-year-old? How could this have happened in a society as free as Athens, whose culture has been hailed as the birthplace of modern democracy? Etman gives further support to his argument at the end of the play; Socrates is sitting in prison and quoted as saying (Etman 2008, p. 100): Socrates: (Wanders with his eyes around the places; stares at the Acropolis and the Athenian houses; then at the sun, takes the cup close to his mouth) In the name of the homeland, in the name of true democracy, in the name of the law, I drink this cup to the last sip, I am not less grieved than anyone who leaves life, but the call of duty is stronger to me than any other call. So fare- well! Farewell (Drops the entire cup at once in his mouth, falls dead immedi- ately, his head falling on the Acropolis, while the cup is still firm on his mouth). So in the final section, as we have seen, Etman remarks on Socrates own use of the language of duty, and points to it as a proof of his attention to laws which he respects. He died standing for correct principles and refusing to sur- render his beliefs even in the face of death (cf. Waterfield 2009). In a reversal of the pattern, Socrates could have shifted the jury in his favor by taking the line of defense of free speech. He could have gained acquittal, but he wanted it to be the trial of thought, the trial of ideas, and the trial of Athens itself, the city that changed the course of history with its democracy. Socrates exposed the radical democracy which he scorned. However, he preferred to be accused by this radical democracy instead of being the accuser of it, to be its victim instead of helping it to prove just. The democratic vote for his death is to