The Law of Athens Symbol Analysis

In Crito, the law of Athens symbolizes the divinely sanctioned wisdom and authority of organized political community. Midway through the dialogue, Socrates begins speaking as the personified law of Athens in order to support his arguments about what a citizen owes to the state. However, it quickly becomes clear that he is not just talking about the written laws which govern Athens. The Greek word translated as “law,” nomos, actually means quite a bit more: the word can also be translated as “custom” or “institution” more broadly. Because the nomoi enable all the benefits that come from existing in a social community, Socrates argues that a citizen owes the law even greater loyalty, piety, and obedience than they owe their parents. This is especially important to note because Socrates seems to give the “law” credit for all social goods a citizen receives from living in a political community—a claim which might seem exaggerated if taken in reference to only written statutes.

However, the symbolic scope of the law in the Crito does not stop there: it also extends to the realm of the gods, as the laws come to symbolize divine truth. At the end of the dialogue, the laws threaten Socrates with punishment in the afterlife if he disrespects them. The fact that the laws possess sufficient knowledge to make this kind of threat indicates that they simultaneously stand for human institutions and for superhuman truth: trespassing against the law means trespassing against the gods. The law of Athens, then, encompasses more than the social norms which support the state’s political structures; it also gestures towards divine, transcendent authority Socrates finds reflected in a well-ordered state.