The ancient Greek and Roman empires are two examples of where disobedient actions now provide a basis for modern law. From the Greeks, we have come to know the story of Socrates by Plato, and the Roman age was the time of St. Perpetua, an early Christian woman. The fate of those individuals is similar – a death sentence handed down by the society they lived in. Although the ending of their lives is similar, the differences that lie in the thinking of their death are more complex, with key factors affecting their individual pre-destined future. S we will see, these factors affect their relationships to the states and time periods in which they existed.
Understanding the differences between Socrates and Perpetua rests in two major elements.…show more content… Gender was not an issue for Socrates. Yet for Perpetua, it is one of the main reasons she was drawn to being baptized in the name of God. Both Greek and Roman societies saw women as inferior with limited roles. In Crito, the sole mentioning of a female is in reference to the dream Socrates had of “a beautiful and comely woman dressed in white” awaiting him in the afterlife. Meanwhile, Perpetua similarly experienced three visions, the first and third being intertwined with gender. First is her meeting in a miraculous garden and embraced by “a white-haired man sitting in the dress of a shepherded of a large stature…and standing around were many thousand white-robbed ones”. The mass of robbed people are not described as either male or female, suggesting that they are all equally embraced. In the third vision, Perpetua was “stripped, and became a man”, hinting that only men were capable of winning a fight. Both visualizations are suggestive to gender equalities. While ultimately sentenced to death because of civil disobedience regardless of gender, both visions have well demonstrated that gender issue has a significant impact to the society. The Roman Empire viewed women as second-class citizens whereas God’s grace did not. Remarkably, what makes Perpetua’s death stand apart from Socrates is that in her passion, other people were sharing the beliefs which are died with
