Early Greek Censorship
Censorship Early History Greek Censorship
In Athens, where democracy first flourished, Socrates preferred to sacrifice his life rather than accept censorship of his teachings. Charged with the worship of strange gods and with the corruption of the youth he taught, Socrates defended free discussion as a supreme public service. He was thus the first person to formulate a philosophy of intellectual freedom. Ironically, his disciple Plato was the first philosopher to formulate a rationale for intellectual, religious, and artistic censorship.
Plato believed that art should be subservient to morality; art that could not be used to inculcate moral principles should be banned. In the ideal state outlined in The Republic, censors would prohibit mothers and nurses from relating tales considered bad or evil; and in his Laws Plato proposed that wrong beliefs about God or the hereafter be treated as crimes and that formal machinery be set up to suppress heresy.
In the 5th century bc, the Athenian philosopher Anaxagoras was punished for impiety; Protagoras, another leading philosopher, was charged with blasphemy, and his books were burned. These instances of repression and persecution in Athens were not truly typical of Greek democracy, for usually the freedom to speak openly in private or in the assembly was respected. (1)
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