3. Socrates was executed for being, essentially, smarter than everyone else
Officially Socrates – like so many men and women throughout history – was executed by the state for crimes which were against the realm of religion. His accusers found that he had corrupted the youth of the City of Athens, and in doing so exhibited a lack of belief in the gods and goddesses of Greek tradition. His true crime, if such it can be called, was his befuddling of his accusers through questions which they found it impossible to answer while maintaining any semblance of sentient intelligence. Regardless, according to Plato’s Apology, Socrates’ chief crime was “not believing in the gods of the state”. Socrates proposed that his punishment be a government salary and board for the rest of his life; his accusers offered the counterproposal of death by poisoning.
History exonerated Socrates, as though he ever really needed exoneration, and his execution and death are icons of martyrdom in the name of philosophy. His only crime was creating fear in the minds of those who held greater secular power. Plato – from whom most knowledge of Socrates is derived – and Aristotle largely drowned his voice in the centuries since, and most of what is commonly known of him are based on legend. He remains the father of western philosophical thought, in the sense that philosophy is divided into pre-Socratic and post-Socratic.