In 399 BC, Athens sentenced the philosopher Socrates to death for corrupting the young and disrespecting the gods. He chose to drink poison rather than flee. David shows him reaching for the cup of hemlock while still making a point, his finger raised.

His grieving students fill the room. The old man slumped at the foot of the bed is Plato, who in fact was young at the time and not there. David painted it in 1787, two years before the French Revolution.