Plato’s composition “Apology of Socrates”, perhaps, does not convey his speech in the Athenian court for certain. Most likely, this most valuable document is only an artistically-stylized interpretation of it. After all, the trial in Athens was very loud, and Plato attended it only as a student of Socrates and his close friend. Therefore, one cannot expect his good knowledge of all the events of this court.
It is likely that the “Apology of Socrates” was written, first of all, out of a desire to rehabilitate before the descendants and contemporaries of the accused and executed not at the merits of the teacher. In addition, Plato is not the only author who transmitted to his descendants his speech in court. The famous apologies of Socrates, for example, Xenophon of Athens, Theon of Antioch, Diagen and other authors who portrayed the executed philosopher as a highly moral person and an outstanding thinker.
Socrates is a person who has had the greatest influence on the worldview of Plato, so we can say with confidence that the whole theory of Platonism is only a development of the ideas and scientific views of his teacher, who opened a new era in the history of ancient philosophy.
The great merit of Socrates lies in the fact that he managed to move from cosmology to the problems of specific people and began to explore the human mind. At that time, this was a kind of revolution in the world of philosophy, therefore its hero was to become a victim, sprinkling new ideas with his blood.
“Apology of Socrates” is an analysis of his desire to find clarity in human understanding, to preserve the best, to destroy what is worse. Contemporaries were not ready to accept these ideas. Greece of that time did not yet know criticism. He caused horror, inspired fear, so the philosopher was blamed for atheism, and the Athenian court charged him with undermining state power, corrupting young people and even worshiping unknown gods.
His disciple Plato was enthusiastic and saw in Socrates a living symbol of the new philosophy. Socrates' Apology conveys to us this attitude of the author, the essence of the ideas of the accused and such an image of an outstanding thinker as the writer himself knew. In this essay, he put into the mouth of Socrates a fiery and full of new philosophical ideas speech, consisting of three parts. The work is very rich in both artistic and logical terms.
Note that only "Apology of Socrates" is an essay written not in the form of dialogue, like all other works of Plato. The artistic side of the composition is very high. It gives us a wonderful image of an adamant and intelligent person, majestically and with dignity reflecting the miserable accusations of people who unjustly sentenced him to death.
Despite the fact that the composition of these accusations is not there, its logical chain is structured in such a way that it is easy to understand them and draw conclusions that they are all just common phrases. If the accusations had concrete facts, then Socrates' Apology would contain criticism of a crushing nature, convincing the accusers of their wrongness. We see in this work only the desire to convince the public of the correctness of their ideas.