The trial and conviction of Socrates is one of the great questions that Athens of the 5th century left us. Was it a political trial? Why did he mock his judges? Why did Athens - exhausted from the long war with Sparta, humiliated by its defeat - decide to execute a seventy-year-old philosopher?

The three texts by Plato that record the events of Socrates' trial are among the most beautiful texts that live in our libraries. Moreover, one could say that the Trial of Socrates was perhaps the first trial of political correctness in the history of Western civilization. Socrates was not politically correct, and his stance in court continues to disturb the political correctness of our legal culture.

At a time when our entire civilization is in danger of sinking into a perpetual cycle of violence and extreme fanaticism, Socrates' stance seems like a necessary condition for whatever freedom we have left. And that is why he is our contemporary.