The trial of Anaxagoras: a soliloquy – TheArticle

So it has come to this. I am in jail. There are no ifs and buts about it. I am in jail. Not the ordinary jail in which criminals are usually held. No. It is the condemned cell. The cell I can leave only to drink the cup of hemlock allotted to me. Maybe they will have the courtesy of bringing the full cup to the cell, saving me the effort to walk to the execution place. Gods might know how this execution business works; I honestly do not know.

What I do know is that today, just today, I was condemned to death for being an atheist. Atheism is a crime. I suppose it has always been on the statute books but has never been used, well not in my lifetime. Why do they think I am an atheist? According to the prosecution it is because I dont go along with the general belief that all the light and heat provided by the sun comes from a chariot driven across the sky by the god Apollo.

I proposed another explanation in which gods played no role whatsoever. I tried to explain it in the Assembly. Actually, I did not even say that this was my explanation. I only said that this was a possible explanation. I said that to provide that much light and heat something must be burning up there, perhaps a stone that burns and burns and keeps on burning. Yes, it must be a big stone that can never be consumed.

How big? they asked.

It must be very big, I told them. Perhaps as big as the Peloponnesus.

If its that big, why does it appear to be so small? they demanded.

Simple. It appears to be small because it is far away.

How far?

Not as far as the stars, I thought. The stars really look tiny. Maybe half the distance, I suggested. All this, I told them, is not a theory. It is just a hypothesis, an inspired guess.

I know I am not the first one to face such accusations, nor even the first one to have this kind of show trial. Phidias had his before mine. Phidias was put in jail for misappropriating public funds. Phidias, misappropriating funds! Quite ridiculous. I have never seen a more honest man than Phidias. His only interest was Art. His magnificent golden statue of Zeus at Olympia will, for ever, be the supreme witness to Athenian art and to the genius of Phidias. It will show, yes, for ever the greatness of Pericles Athens.

I have no doubt about it that Phidias prosecution, like mine, was part of a political campaign aimed at Pericles friends. These people want to bring down Pericles and democracy with it. These are the rich, stupid uneducated crowd who live in elegant villas outside the city. They dont like public works unless all the money spent on them goes straight into their pocket. They want a society with absolute licence to make money. They want to bring down Pericles. They brought me down because I am a friend of Pericles.

I dont think my condemnation has got anything to do with atheism. It is just politics. I dont know how to fight them. I am not a politician. But Pericles will know, he will surely know what to do. Alas, it will be too late for me. I heard often that Hades is a bad place. Full of twittering ghosts, fluttering and swooping here and there in the twilight like swifts at evening. How do we know all that? Is it just a fable? Has anyone ever come back from Hades? Where is the evidence? The old ferryman will take me over and I shall soon know more than I ever wanted to know about Hades.

By the way, there was one good thing that came out of this spectacle. I had an opportunity to present my theory, not the burning stone piece that was never intended for mass consumption but my panta rei. I think it is a good theory. To express it in simple terms I would say that there is everything in everything. For example, I claim that there are human nails and hair in bread. It must be so! How would otherwise turn the bread we eat into nail and hair? It is all there but in a quantity too small to notice.

I did actually perform an experiment to prove my point. My students loved it! I had two big pots of paint, one white, the other one black. Then I poured a small amount of black paint into the white pot. Obviously it created some black streaks in the white paint. Then I took a wooden spoon and started to stir the paint in the previously pure white pot. Soon the black streaks disappeared. The paint became white, pure white, exclusively white. So what did I prove? We all knew that there was some black paint in the white pot, but it could no longer be seen. So this shows that such things could always happen. However hard we try, we cannot observe everything we would like to observe. If the thing we want to observe is there in too small an amount, it is not observable. Thats all there is to it.

Now to a new experiment! Can a condemned man sleep on the night before his execution? I shall now close my eyes and try my best. Come, dreams come. I hear the birds singing. Am I still awake? I hear some man-made noise! A key in the lock? The door opens. Who is it? I hear chink, chink, then the jailers voice: Thank you, Sir and a familiar voice dismissing the jailer. It is Pericles, Pericles in person!

The rest is history. Pericles arranged everything. He bribed the jailer, hired a chariot to take Anaxagoras to the port, hired a boat to take him to a waiting ship. The ship landed in Ionia, in Lampsacus, where Anaxagoras founded a School of Philosophy and lived happily up to the ripe old age of 72.

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The trial of Anaxagoras: a soliloquy - TheArticle