Hello, my name's David Rumsman and this is past, present, future, the History of Ideas

podcast. Today, the first trial in our series Politics on Trial. This is the trial of Socrates. This was a case about

philosophy, about truth, about justice, about the corruption of the young. It was a case about all

sorts of different things, with all sorts of ramifications for how we understand what justice is.

But it's also in a very literal sense, a case in which what was on trial was politics itself.

A lot of the trials that I'm going to be talking about in this series, right up to the 21st century, are jury trials.

So there are cases in which the fate of the defendant hangs on the verdict of a jury.

And that is also true of this one, the first one, which goes back nearly two and a half thousand years.

But the trial of Socrates is not a jury trial

in any sense, I think that we would recognize. So my understanding of a jury, I'm sure a lot of people

listening, especially people in the English speaking world, is of a small group of people. The classic

jury is 12. Not always 12. American grand juries, I believe, can be a number up to 23 in some

states, but a small group of people, small enough to sit around a table in a room, chosen at random

from the wider population, so from a wide enough population that these people don't know

each other, so you should be strangers to each

other, more or less, on the jury. And these juries are designed to be this size so that people

can discuss the case. That is the whole point of the jury system. Deliberation, as it's sometimes

cool. The jury goes away, into a room sequestered, kept away from outside

influences, and these, let's say, 12 people, talk about the case and try and work out on its

merits what the verdict should be. I've never been on a jury. I've never been asked to do

jury service, which I am frustrated by because I'm

fascinated by it, and I would love to know what it's like. People say, you should be careful

...