Hemlock

Hemlock is the popular name of plant known scientifically as Conium'', consituting two species of highly poisonous flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to Europe and the Mediterranean Region.

The poison derived from such plants was used as a method of execution in Classical Greece. It was considered that letting the condemned person himself drink the hemlock was a more dignified way of dying then having to submit to an exectioner.

In Western Culture hemlock is especially associated with Socrates, who was condemened for impiety and focrced to drink this poison. Socrates - though considering himelf innocent of the charges against him - neverhtless felt bound to abide by the court's decision, refuse the offer of his friends to help him escape and go through with drinking the hemlock. His reasoning (or that attributed to him by Plato, in one of the most well-known of the Socratic Dialogues) was that the sentence against him, though wrong, had been passed in accordance with the laws and judicial procedures of Athens. Therefore, it was Socrates' civic duty to abide by the laws and judicial procedures, even at the price of his life.

Hemlock in The Daimon
After seizing power in Athens, Alkibiades came to the regretful conclusion that he had to get rid of Socrates, who had been his teacher and friend, since the philosopeher openly defied his rule. However, rather then sending assasins to kill Socrates - as he had done with Kritias - Alkibiades offered  Socrates  the more dignified option of drinking Hemlock. However, since Alkibiades was tyrant who seized power by force, overturning the laws and proper procedures of Athens, Socrates did not feel bound to drink the poison. On the contrary, feeling as his civil duty to oppose the usurper to the best of his ability, he pushed the hemlock of out of Alkibiades' hand, attmepted to kill Alkibiades with his bare hands, and came close to doing it before being killed by Alkibiades' guards.