INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The trial of Socrates took place in 399 B.C., when he was seventy years old. Meletos, Anytos and Lycon (Anytos is one of the characters in the Meno). accused him of impiety and of corrupting the young men.
The court which tried Socrates was composed of 501 citizens, and was a subdivision of the larger court of six thousand citizens, chosen by lot, which dealt with such cases. There were no judge and jury in the modern sense; the decision of the court was that of the majority vote.
When the court had pronounced Socrates guilty, the law required him to propose his own penalty, as an alternative to the death penalty proposed by Meletos; no penalty was prescribed by law for his offence. The court then had to choose, by a second vote, between the proposals of the accuser and the accused.
From the mention on THE APOLOGY(The Defence of Socrates) it appears that Plato himself was present at the trial.
How you felt, gentlemen of Athens, when you heard my accusers, I do not know; but I—well, I nearly forgot who I was, they were so persuasive. Yet as for truth—one might almost say they have spoken not one word of truth. But what most astonished me in the many lies they told was when they warned you to take good care not to be deceived by me, “because I was a terribly clever speaker.” They ought to have been ashamed to say it, because I shall prove them wrong at once by facts when I begin to speak, and you will see that I am not a bit of a clever speaker. That seemed to me the most shameless thing about them, unless of course they call one who speaks the truth a clever speaker. If that is what they mean, I would agree that I am not an orator of their class. Well then, these men, as I said, have spoken hardly one word of truth; but you shall hear from me the whole truth; not eloquence, gentlemen, like their own, decked out in fine words and phrases, not covered with ornaments; not at all—you shall hear things spoken anyhow in the words that first come. For I believe justice is in what I say, and let none of you expect anything else; indeed it would not be proper, gentlemen, for an old man like me to come before you like a boy moulding his words in pretty patterns. One thing, however, gentlemen, I beg and pray you most earnestly; if you hear me using to defend myself here the same words which I speak with generally, in the market or at the banker’s counter, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, do not be surprised and make a noise on that account. The fact is, this is the first time I ever came up before a court, although I am seventy years old; so I am simply quite strange to the style of this place. If I were really a stranger, a foreigner, I suppose you would not be hard on me if I used the language and manner which I had been brought up to; then I beg you to treat me the same way now, and, as seems fair, to let pass my manner of speaking; perhaps it might be better, and perhaps it might be worse; but please consider only one thing and attend carefully to that—whether my plea is just or not. For that is the merit of the juryman, but the merit of the orator is to speak the truth.
First, then, gentlemen, it is proper for me to answer the first false accusations made against me, and the first accusers; next, to answer the later accusations and accusers. Indeed, I have had many accusers complaining to you, and for a long time, for many years now, and with not a word of truth to say; these I fear, rather than Anytos and his friends, although they, too, are dangerous; but the others are more dangerous, gentlemen, who got hold of most of you while you were boys, and persuaded you, and accused me falsely, and said, “There is a certain Socrates, a highbrow; brainy in skylore, has investigated what is under the earth, makes the weaker argument the stronger.” These, gentlemen, who have broadcast this reputation, these are my dangerous accusers; for those who hear believe that anyone who is a student of that sort of lore must be an atheist as well. Yes, these accusers are many, and they have been accusing me for a long time, still saying the same, and moreover saying it to you at an age when you would be most likely to believe, when some of you were children or at least lads, really accusing in a case which goes by default, with no one to defend. The most unreasonable thing is that it is impossible to know their names or to tell who they are—unless one of them happens to be a comic poet.* But those who have deluded you from envy and malice, or some who are convinced themselves and try to convince others, these are the hardest to deal with. For there is no possibility of having them produced here, or of cross-questioning any one of them, but having to defend oneself against them is just like being compelled to fight with shadows, and cross-question with none answering. Pray remember, then, that my accusers are of two kinds, as I say, one, those who have accused me now, and the other, the old ones I mention; and consider that I must answer the old ones first. You heard them first, you see, and much more than the new ones. Very good; I must answer them, gentlemen, and try to get rid of the prejudice which you have had so long, with only a short time to do it. I hope indeed I may remove it, if it is better so both for you and for me, and I hope my defence may have some success; but I think it is difficult, and I am quite aware what a task it is. All the same, in this let God’s will be done; I must obey the law, and make my defence.
Let us go back to the beginning, and see what the accusation is, whence came the prejudice against me, which Meletos believed when he brought this indictment. Very well; what did the calumniators say who calumniated me? I will pretend to read a pretended affidavit of my accusers: “Socrates is a criminal and a busybody, prying into things under the earth and up in the heavens, and making the weaker argument the stronger, and teaching these same things to others.” It is something like that; for that is what you saw in the comedy* of Aristophanes, a certain Socrates there being carried about, and claiming to be treading on air and talking much other nonsensical nonsense about which I don’t understand one jot or tittle. Don’t suppose that in saying this I mean to disparage knowledge of that kind, if anyone does know about such things: may I never be prosecuted by Meletos on serious charges such as that! But I have nothing to do with such things, gentlemen. I appeal to most of you to bear me out, and I ask you to inform and tell one another, as many as have ever heard me conversing—and those of you who have heard me are many—tell one another, then, whether any of you has ever heard me conversing about such things, either much or little. Then you will recognise from this that the other things are just the same which people say about me.
But, indeed, as none of these things is true, neither is it true, even if you have heard it from someone, that I undertake to educate people, and take fees. I must say I think it is a grand thing for anyone to be able to educate people as Gorgias of Leontini, and Prodicos of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis do. For each of these, gentlemen, is able to go to any city, and persuade the young men, who can associate for nothing with any one they like of their fellow-citizens, to leave the society of those and to associate with themselves, and to pay for it and thank them besides. Indeed, there is in this place another man, one from Paros, an able man, who I found out was staying here in Athens; for I happened to meet a man who has paid more money to Sophists† than all the rest put together, Callias, Hipponicos’ son, so I asked him—he has two sons of his own—“Callias,” I said, “if your two sons were colts or calves, we should know how to hire and pay a manager for them, to make them well-bred in the virtue proper to those animals; he would be a horse-trainer or a farmer; but now, since they are human beings, whom have you in mind to be their manager? Who is an expert in such virtue, human or political? For I think you have looked for one because you have sons. Is there one,” said I, “or not?”
“Certainly there is,” said he.
“Who?” said I, “and where does he come from, and what’s his fee for teaching?”
“Euenos,” he said, “from Paros, my dear Socrates, five minas.”*
And I said Euenos is a happy man, if really and truly he has this art and teaches it for such a modest fee. I, at least, should give myself fine airs and graces if I had this knowledge. But I have not, gentlemen.
Some one of you then might put in and ask perhaps, “Well, Socrates, what is your business? Where did these calumnies come from? For all this talk about you, and such a reputation, has not arisen, I presume, when you were working at nothing more unusual than others do; it must be you were doing something different from most people. Then tell us what it is, that we may not be rash and careless about you.” That seems to be quite fair, if anyone says it, and I will try to show you what this is which has got me this name† and this prejudice. Listen, then. And perhaps some of you will think I am jesting, but be sure I will tell you the whole truth: a sort of wisdom has got me this name, gentlemen, and nothing else. Wisdom! What wisdom? Perhaps the only wisdom that man can have. For the fact is, I really am wise in this wisdom; but it may be that those I just spoke of are wise in a wisdom greater than man’s, or I can’t think how to describe it—for I don’t understand it myself, but whoever says I do, lies, and speaks in calumny of me. And do not protest, gentlemen, even if you should think I am boastful; for what I am going to tell you is not my word, but I will refer it to a speaker of sufficient authority; I will call the god in Delphi as witness of my wisdom, whether indeed it is wisdom at all, and what it is. I suppose you know Chairephon. He has been my friend since I was young, and a friend of your people’s party, and he was banished with you lately and with you was restored. And you know, doubtless, what sort of man he was, how impetuous in all he tried to do. Well, once he went to Delphi and dared to ask this question of the oracle—don’t make an uproar, gentlemen, at what I say—for he asked if anyone was wiser than I was. The priestess answered, then, that no one was wiser. His brother is here, and he will bear witness to this, as Chairephon is dead. But let me tell you why I say this; I am going to show you where that calumny came from. Well, when I heard that reply I thought: “What in the world does the god mean? What in the world is his riddle? For I know in my conscience that I am not wise in anything, great or small; then what in the world does he mean when he says I am wisest? Surely he is not lying? For he must not lie.” I was puzzled for a long time to understand what he meant; then I thought of a way to try to find out, something like this: I approached one of those who had the reputation of being wise, for there, I thought, if anywhere, I should test the revelation and prove that the oracle was wrong: “Here is one wiser than I, but you said I was wiser.” When I examined him, then—I need not tell his name, but it was one of our statesmen whom I was examining when I had this strange experience, gentlemen—and when I conversed with him, I thought this man seemed to be wise both to many others and especially to himself, but that he was not; and then I tried to show him that he thought he was wise, but was not. Because of that he disliked me and so did many others who were there, but I went away thinking to myself that I was wiser than this man; the fact is that neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know when he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do: so I am wiser than he is by only this trifle, that what I do not know I don’t think I do. After that I tried another, one of those reputed to be wiser than that man, and I thought just the same; then he and many others took a dislike to me.
So I went to one after another after that, and saw that I was disliked; and I sorrowed and feared; but still it seemed necessary to hold the god’s business of the highest importance, so I had to go on trying to find out what the oracle meant, and approaching all those who had the reputation of knowledge. And by the Dog, gentlemen—for I must tell you the truth—this is what happened to me: Those who had the highest reputation seemed to me nearly the most wanting, when I tried to find out in the god’s way, but others who were thought inferior seemed to be more capable men as to common sense. You see I must show you my wanderings, as one who had my own Labours* to prove that the oracle was un-impeachable. For after the statesmen, I approached the poets, the composers of tragedies and the composers of dithyrambs,† and all the rest as well; there I expected to find myself caught in the act as more ignorant than they were. So I took up their poems, those which I thought they had taken most pains to perfect, and questioned them as to what they meant, and I hoped to learn something from them at the same time. Well, gentlemen, I am ashamed to tell you the truth; but I must. Almost all the bystanders, with hardly an exception, one might say, had something better to say than the composers had about their own compositions. I discovered, then, very soon about the poets that no wisdom enabled them to compose as they did, but natural genius and inspiration;‡ like the diviners and those who chant oracles, who say many fine things but do not understand anything of what they say. The poets appeared to me to be in much the same case; and at the same time I perceived that because of their poetry they believed they were the wisest of mankind in other things as well, which they were not. So I left them also, believing that I had the same superiority over them as I had over the statesmen.
At last I approached the craftsmen; for here I was conscious that I knew nothing, one may say, but these I was sure to find knowing much of real value. I was not deceived in that; they knew what I did not, and here they were much wiser than I was. But, gentlemen, they seemed to make the same mistake as the poets, even good workmen; because they could manage their art well, each one claimed to be very wise in other things also, the greatest things, and this fault of theirs appeared to obscure their real wisdom. So I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I should prefer to be as I am, not wise with their wisdom nor ignorant with their ignorance; or to have what they have, both. I answered myself and the oracle, that it was best for me to be as I am.
From this enquiry, gentlemen, many dislikes have arisen against me, and those very dangerous and crushing, so that many calumnies have come out of them, and I got the title of being wise. For the bystanders always believe that I am wise myself in the matters on which I test another; but the truth really is, gentlemen, that the god in fact is wise, and in this oracle he means that human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and it appears that he does not say this of Socrates, but simply adds my name to take me as an example, as if he were to say that this one of you human beings is wisest, who like Socrates knows that he is in truth worth nothing as regards wisdom. This is what I still, even now, go about searching and investigating in the god’s way, if ever I think one of our people, or a foreigner, is wise; and whenever I don’t find him so, I help the god by proving that the man is not wise. And because of this busy life, I have had no leisure either for public business worth mentioning or private, but I remain in infinite poverty through my service of the god.
Besides this, the young men, those who have most leisure, sons of the most wealthy houses, follow me of their own accord, delighted to hear people being cross-examined; and they often imitate me, they try themselves to cross-examine, and then, I think, they find plenty of people who believe they know something, when they know little or nothing. So in consequence those who are cross-examined are angry with me instead of with themselves, and say that Socrates is a blackguard and corrupts the young; and whenever someone asks them, “By doing what and teaching what?” they have nothing to say; they do not know, but, unwilling to own that they are at a loss, they repeat the stock charges against all philosophers, “underground lore and up-in-the-air lore, atheists, making the weaker argument the stronger.” For they would not like, I think, to say the truth, that they are shown up as pretending to know when they know nothing. So I think, because they are ambitious, and pushing, and many in number, and they speak in battalions very plausibly about me, they have deafened you long since and now calumniate me vigorously. From among these Meletos has set upon me, and Anytos and Lycon, Meletos being angry on behalf of the poets, and Anytos for the craftsmen and statesmen, and Lycon for the orators. The result is, as I began by saying, that I should be surprised if I could erase this prejudice from you in so short a time when it has grown so great. This, gentlemen, is the truth; I have hidden nothing great or small, and dissembled nothing. And I know well enough that these same things make me disliked; which is another proof that I am speaking the truth, and that this is the prejudice against me, and these are the causes. Whether you examine this now or afterwards, you will find the same.
As regards the accusations of my first accusers, let this defence suffice for you; next I will try to answer Meletos, the good patriot, as he calls himself, and the later accusers. Once more, then, let us take their affidavit, as if they were another set of accusers. This is how it runs: It says that Socrates is a criminal, who corrupts the young and does not believe in the gods whom the state believes in, but other new spiritual things instead. Such is the accusation; let us examine each point in this accusation. It says I am a criminal who corrupts the young. But I say, gentlemen, that Meletos is a criminal who is making a jest of serious things by prosecuting people lightly, by pretending to be serious and to care for things which he has never cared about at all. That this is true, I will try to show you also.
Meletos, stand up here before me, and answer: Don’t you think it very important that the younger generation should be as good as possible?
“I do.”
Then tell these gentlemen, who is it makes them better? It is clear that you know, since you care about it. You have found the one who corrupts them, as you say, and you bring me before this court here and accuse me; now then, say who makes them better, inform the court who he is. You see, Meletos, you are silent, you cannot say. Yet does it not seem disgraceful to you, and a sufficient proof of what I am just saying, that you have cared nothing about it? Come, say, my good man, who makes them better?
“The laws.”
That’s not what I ask, dear sir; what man, who in the first place knows this very thing, the laws?
“This jury, Socrates.”
What do you mean, Meletos? The gentlemen of the jury here are able to educate the young and make them better?
“Yes indeed.”
All of them, or only some?
“All.”
Excellently said, by Hera, quite an abundance of benefactors. Well, what of the people here listening to us, do they make the young better, or not?
“Yes, they do too.”
What about the Councillors?*
“The Councillors too.”
Oh, indeed, Meletos, is it possible that the Commons corrupt the younger generation? Or do they also make them better, all of them?
“They do.”
Then the whole nation of the Athenians, it seems, makes them fine gentlemen,† except me, and I alone corrupt them? Is that what you say?
“Yes, that is exactly what I do say.”
What bad luck for me! You charge me with my great bad luck! Answer me now: Are horses in the same case, do you think? All the men in the world are making them better, and only one corrupting them? Isn’t the truth quite the opposite of this: There is one, perhaps, able to make them better, or very few—the horse-trainers, but most people, if they have to do with horses and use them, spoil and corrupt them? Isn’t that the case, Meletos, both with horses and with all other animals? Most certainly, whether you and Anytos say no or whether you say yes. What a blessing it would be for young people, if only a single one corrupts them, and all the rest do them good! But really, Meletos, that is enough to show that you never were anxious about young people; you show clearly your own carelessness—you have cared nothing about the things you impeach me for.
I have another question for you; in God’s name attend, Meletos. Is it better to live among good citizens or bad ones? Answer me, good sir. There’s nothing difficult in my question. Don’t the bad ones do some harm to those who are at any time nearest to them, and the good ones some good?
“Certainly.”
Then is there anyone who wants to be damaged by his associates rather than to be helped? Answer, my good man; the law commands you to answer. Is there anyone who wants to be damaged?
“No, certainly.”
Very well. You bring me here as one who corrupts the young generation and makes them worse: Do you say that I mean to do it, or not?
“You mean to do it is what I say.”
Oh dear me, Meletos! I so old and you so young, and yet you are so much wiser than I am! You know that bad men always do harm to those who are nearest about them, but good men do good; yet look at me—have I indeed come to such a depth of ignorance that I do not know even this—that if I make one of my associates bad I shall risk getting some evil from him—to such a depth as to do so great an evil intentionally, as you say? I don’t believe you there, Meletos, nor does anyone else in the world, I think; but either I do not corrupt, or if I do, I corrupt without meaning to do it. So you are speaking falsely on both counts. But if I do it without intent, there is no law to bring a man into court for accidental mistakes such as this; on the contrary, the law is that one should take him apart privately and instruct and admonish him: for it is plain that, if I learn better, I shall stop what I do without intent. But you shirked meeting me and instructing me; you would not do that, and you bring me to this court, where it is the law to summon those who need punishment, not instruction.
Well now, gentlemen, thus much is plain by this time, as I said, that Meletos has never cared for these things, not one little bit. All the same, kindly tell us, Meletos, how do you say I corrupt the young? It seems plain from the indictment which you made that it is by teaching them not to believe in the gods which the state believes in, but in other new spirits. Don’t you say that it is by teaching this that I corrupt them?
“I do say so, and no mistake about it.”
In the name of those gods, then, the very ones we speak of, Meletos, make it still clearer to me and these gentlemen. I can’t understand whether you say I teach them to believe in some gods—in that case I do believe myself that there are gods, and I am not a complete atheist, nor am I a criminal in that sense—but that I do not believe in the same gods which the state believes in, but others, and this is what you accuse me of, that I believe in others: or, secondly, do you say that I disbelieve in gods altogether and teach this to other people?
“This is what I say, that you believe in no gods at all.”
O you amazing creature, Meletos! What makes you say that? Then I don’t believe even the sun and the moon are gods, like everyone else in the world?
“No, by Zeus, he does not, gentlemen of the jury, he says the sun is a stone and the moon is earth.”
Is Anaxagoras before you, my dear Meletos? Do you think you are accusing him? Do you despise these gentlemen so much, do you think them so illiterate, as not to know that the books of the great Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of this lore? And so the young men learn this lore from me, when they might often buy a ticket for one drachma at the most in the orchestra,* and have a laugh at Socrates if he says this lore is his, especially when it is so odd! By Zeus, is that what you think of me, that I don’t believe in any god?
“No, by Zeus, you don’t, not one little bit.”
Well, Meletos, no one can believe you, and, to my mind, in this matter you don’t believe your own words. What I think, gentlemen, is that this man seems to be an impudent bully, and he has made this indictment in the reckless violence of wild youth. He is like one who has made a riddle to test me: Will Socrates the so-called Wise guess that I am jesting and contradicting myself? Or shall I deceive him and the others who hear it? For the man seems to me to be contradicting himself in the indictment, which might be put “Socrates is a criminal for not believing in gods but believing in gods.” Truly this is a game he is playing.
Now come with me, gentlemen, while I examine how he seems to me to mean this. You answer us, Meletos, and you gentlemen, remember not to make an uproar, as I asked you before, if I speak in my usual manner.
Is there any man, Meletos, who believes there are human things, but does not believe in human beings?—Let him answer, gentlemen, and let him not go on interrupting again and again. Is there anyone who does not believe in horses, but does believe in horsey things? Or does not believe in pipers, but does believe in things which pipers do? No, there is not, my good friend; I will answer it for you to the court, if you won’t answer yourself. But answer what comes next: Is there anyone who believes in spiritual things, but not in spirits?
“No, there is not.”
Many thanks for the answer, wrung from you by the court here. Now then, you say I believe in spiritual things and teach them, whether new or old, at any rate spiritual things; I believe in them according to your words, indeed you even swore to it in the indictment. But if I believe in spiritual things, surely it is absolutely necessary that I believe in spirits. Is not that right? It is then, for I put you down as agreeing since you do not answer. And spirits, do we not believe them to be either gods or the sons of gods? Yes or no?
“Certainly.”
I believe in spirits then, as you say; then if spirits are a kind of gods, this would be your riddle or jest which I spoke of, that you said I do not believe in gods and yet again I do, because I believe in spirits; if, again, spirits are sons of gods, a sort of bastards from nymphs or whatnot, as they are said to be, who in the world would believe in sons of gods if they did not believe in gods? It would be just as odd as believing in sons of horses or asses, but not in horses or asses! Well, Meletos, there’s no question about it—you were just pulling our legs in making this indictment; perhaps you did not know a true crime to put in; but for you to persuade any man with even a grain of sense that the same man can believe in divine things and in spiritual things, and yet not in gods and spirits and heroes, that is absolutely impossible.
Well, gentlemen, I am no criminal according to Meletos’ indictment; that needs no long defence from me to prove, but this is enough. However, when I said some time ago that I was heartily disliked by many, you may be sure that it is quite true. And this is what will convict me, if anything does, not Meletos or Anytos but the prejudice and dislike of so many people. The same thing has convicted many other good men, and I think will do so again; there is no fear it will stop with me. But perhaps someone may say: Are you not ashamed then, Socrates, at having followed such a practice that you now run a risk of a sentence of death? I would answer such a one fairly: You are wrong, my friend, if you think a man with a spark of decency in him ought to calculate life or death; the only thing he ought to consider, if he does anything, is whether he does right or wrong, whether it is what a good man does or a bad man. For according to your argument, in the Trojan War those of the demigods who died would have been poor creatures, particularly Thetis’ son, Achilles; he so despised danger in comparison with undergoing disgrace that when he wished to kill Hector, and his mother (a goddess herself) said thus to him, if I remember, “My son, if you avenge the slaughter of your friend Patroclos and kill Hector, you will be killed yourself, for ‘right after Hector death is ready for you,’”*—when he heard this, he belittled danger and death, and much rather feared to live as a coward who would not avenge his friends, and replied, “Right after this let me die, when I have punished the offender; I don’t want to stay here a laughingstock beside the ships, a burden to the earth.”† You cannot think he cared about danger and death? And this is true, gentlemen, wherever a man places himself, believing it to be the best place, or wherever he has been placed by his captain, there he must stay, as I think, and run any risk there is, calculating neither death nor anything, before disgrace.
Then, gentlemen, I should have been acting strangely, if at Poteidaia and Amphipolis and Delion‡ I stayed where I was posted by the captains whom you had chosen to command me, like anyone else, and risked death; but where God posted me, as I thought and believed, with the duty to be a philosopher¶ and to test myself and others, there I should fear either death or anything else, and desert my post. Strange indeed it would be, and then truly anyone might have brought me to court justly and affirmed that I did not believe in God, because I disbelieved the oracle, and feared death, and thought I was wise when I was not. For to fear death, gentlemen, is only to think you are wise when you are not; for it is to think you know what you don’t know. No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well. Surely this is the objectionable kind of ignorance, to think one knows what one does not know? But in this, gentlemen, here also perhaps I am different from the general run of mankind, and if I should claim to be wiser than someone in something it would be in this, that as I do not know well enough about what happens in the house of Hades, so I do not think I know; but to do wrong, and to disobey those who are better than myself, whether god or man, that I know to be bad and disgraceful. Therefore, in comparison with bad things which I know to be bad, rather will I never fear or flee from what may be blessings for all I know. So even if you let me go now and refuse to listen to Anytos—you remember what he said; he said that either I ought not to have been brought into court at all, or if I was, that death was the only possible penalty; and why? He told you that if I escaped, your sons “would at once practise what Socrates teaches, and they would all be utterly corrupted.” Then if you were to say to me in answer to this: “We will not this time listen to Anytos, my dear Socrates; we let you go free, but on this condition, that you will no longer spend your time in this search or in philosophy, and if you are caught doing this again, you shall die”—if you should let me go free on these terms which I have mentioned, I should answer you, “Many thanks indeed for your kindness, gentlemen, but I will obey the god rather than you,* and as long as I have breath in me, and remain able to do it, I will never cease being a philosopher, and exhorting you, and showing what is in me to any one of you I may meet, by speaking to him in my usual way: My excellent friend, you are an Athenian, a citizen of this great city, so famous for wisdom and strength, and you take every care to be as well off as possible in money, reputation and place—then are you not ashamed not to take every care and thought for understanding, for truth, and for the soul, so that it may be perfect? And if any of you argues the point and says he does take every care, I will not at once let him go and depart myself; but I will question and cross-examine and test him, and if I think he does not possess virtue but only says so, I will show that he sets very little value on things most precious, and sets more value on meaner things, and I will put him to shame. This I will do for everyone I meet, young or old, native or foreigner, but more for my fellow-citizens as you are nearer to me in race. For this is what God commands me, make no mistake, and I think there is no greater good for you in the city in any way than my service to God. All I do is to go about and try to persuade you, both young and old, not to care for your bodies or your monies first, and to care more exceedingly for the soul, to make it as good as possible; and I tell you that virtue comes not from money, but from virtue comes both money and all other good things for mankind, both in private and in public. If, then, by saying these things I corrupt the young, these things must be mischievous; but if anyone says I say anything else than these, he talks nonsense. In view of all this, I would say, gentlemen, either obey Anytos or do not obey him, either let me go free or do not let me go free; but I will never do anything else, even if I am to die many deaths.
Don’t make an uproar, gentlemen, remain quiet as I begged you, hear me without uproar at what I have to say; for I think it will be to your benefit to hear me. I have something more to say, which perhaps will make you shout, but I pray you, don’t do so. Be sure of this, that if you put me to death, being such as I am, you will not hurt me so much as yourselves. I should not be hurt either by Meletos or by Anytos, he could not do it; for I think the eternal law forbids a better man to be hurt by a worse. However, he might put me to death, or banish me, or make me outcast; perhaps he thinks, perhaps others think, these are great evils, but I do not; I think, rather, that what he is now doing is evil, when he tries unjustly to put a man to death. Now therefore, gentlemen, so far from pleading for my own sake, as one might expect, I plead for your sakes, that you may not offend about God’s gift by condemning me. For if you put me to death, you will not easily find such another, really like something stuck on the state by the god, though it is rather laughable to say so; for the state is like a big thoroughbred horse, so big that he is a bit slow and heavy, and wants a gadfly to wake him up. I think the god put me on the state something like that, to wake you up and persuade you and reproach you every one, as I keep settling on you everywhere all day long. Such another will not easily be found by you, gentlemen, and if you will be persuaded, you will spare me. You will be vexed, perhaps, like sleepers being awaked, and if you listen to Anytos and give me a tap, you can easily kill me; then you can go on sleeping for the rest of your lives, unless God sends you such another in his care for you. That I am really one given to you by God you can easily see from this; for it does not seem human that I have neglected all my own interests, that I have been content with the neglect of my domestic affairs, all these years; while always I was attending to your interests, approaching each of you privately like a father or elder brother and persuading you to care for virtue. And indeed, if I had gained any advantage from this, and taken fees for my advice, there would have been some reason in it; but as it is, you see yourselves that my accusers, although accusing me so shamelessly of everything else, had not the effrontery or ability to produce a single witness to testify that I ever exacted or asked for a fee; and I produce, I think, the sufficient witness that I speak the truth, my poverty.
Perhaps it may seem odd that although I go about and give all this advice privately, quite a busybody, yet I dare not appear before your public assembly and advise the state. The reason for this is one which you have often heard me giving in many places, that something divine and spiritual comes to me, which Meletos put into the indictment in caricature. This has been about me since my boyhood, a voice, which when it comes always turns me away from doing something I am intending to do, but never urges me on.* This is what opposes my taking up public business. And quite right too, I think; for you may be sure, gentlemen, that if I had meddled with public business in the past, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself. Do not be annoyed at my telling the truth; the fact is that no man in the world will come off safe who honestly opposes either you or any other multitude, and tries to hinder the many unjust and illegal doings in a state. It is necessary that one who really and truly fights for the right, if he is to survive even for a short time, shall act as a private man, not as a public man.
I will bring you strong proof of this, not words but facts, which you respect. Just listen to what has happened to me, and you will learn that I would never give way to anyone contrary to right, for fear of death, but rather than give way I would be ready to perish at once. I will tell you a story from the law courts, tiresome perhaps, but true. I have never, gentlemen, held any office in the state but one; I was then a Councillor.* It happened that the tribe which was presiding was mine, the Antiochis, when you wished—illegally, as you all agreed afterwards—to try all the ten generals together for not gathering up the bodies of the dead after the sea fight.† Then I alone of the presidents opposed you, and voted against you that nothing should be done contrary to law; and when the orators were ready to denounce me and arrest me on the spot, and you shouted out telling them to do so, I thought it my duty to risk the danger with law and justice on my side, rather than to be on your side for fear of prison and death.‡ This happened while the government was still democratic; and when the oligarchy came in, the Thirty again summoned me and four others to the Dome,¶ and ordered us to bring Leon of Salamis from Salamis, whom they meant to put to death. Such things those people used often to do to others, wishing to make as many as possible share their guilt. Then, however, I showed again by acts, not by words, that as for death, if it is not too vulgar to use the expression, I cared not one jot, but all my anxiety was to do nothing unjust or wrong. That government did not terrify me, strong as it was, into doing injustice; but when we came out of the Dome, the other four went to Salamis and brought Leon, but I went away home. And perhaps I should have been put to death for that, if the government had not been overthrown soon. You will find many witnesses of this.
Then do you think I should have survived all these years, if I had engaged in public business, and if then I had acted as a good man should, and defended the just, and made that, as is one’s duty, my chief concern? Far from it, gentlemen, nor would anyone else in the world. But through all my life I shall prove to have been just the same, both in public life, if I have done anything there, and in private life; I have never given way to anyone in anything contrary to right, including those whom my slanderers call my pupils. Yet I never was teacher to anyone; but if anyone desires to hear me speaking and doing my business, whether he be young or old, I have never grudged it to any; I do not converse for a fee and refuse without, but I offer myself both to rich and poor for questioning, and if a man likes he may hear what I say, and answer. And whether anyone becomes good after this or not, I could not fairly be called the cause of it, when I never promised any learning to anyone and never taught any; and if anyone says he ever learnt or heard anything from me privately which all the others did not, I assure you he does not tell the truth.
But why ever do some people enjoy spending a great deal of time with me? You have heard why, gentlemen; I have told you the whole truth, they enjoy hearing men cross-examined who think they are wise, and are not; indeed that is not unpleasant. And I maintain that I have been commanded by the god to do this, through oracles and dreams and in every way in which some divine influence or other has ever commanded a man to do anything. This, gentlemen, is both true and easy to test. For if I really do corrupt any of the young, or if I ever have, then either some of them as they grew older must have understood that I had once given them bad advice in their youth, so that they ought to have appeared now in this court and testified and had their revenge; or, if they did not wish to do it themselves, some of their relatives ought to have come instead—fathers and brothers and others of the family, if their own kinsmen had suffered any wrong from me—and they ought to tell it all now and have their revenge. At all events there are many of them whom I see here, first Criton yonder, my age-mate and fellow-parishioner, father of Critobulos here; then there is Lysanias the Sphettian,* father of Aischines here; also Antiphon the Cephisian yonder, father of Epigenes; then others yonder whose brothers have amused themselves in this way, Nicostratos, Theozotides’ son and brother of Theodotos—Theodotos himself is dead, so Nicostratos could not beg him to come—and Paralos here, Demodocos’ son, whose brother was Theages; here is Adeimantos, Ariston’s son, whose brother Plato† is there, and Aiantodoros, whose brother is Apollodoros here present. Many others I can mention to you, some of whom Meletos ought certainly to have called as witnesses in his speech, and if he forgot them, let him call them up now; I give place to him; so let him speak if he has any such evidence. But you will find exactly the opposite of this, gentlemen, all of them ready to support me, the corrupter, the injurer of their relatives, as Meletos and Anytos call me. The corrupted might have some reason for supporting me; but the uncorrupted, already—elderly men, their kinsmen—what other reason have they for supporting me but the right and just reason, that they know I am telling the truth and Meletos is lying?
Very well, gentlemen; the defence I could offer is this, and more perhaps of the same sort. But perhaps some one among you might be vexed when he remembers what he has done himself; he may have been in a case less important than this, and he may have entreated and prayed the jury with floods of tears, and paraded his children, to get all the pity he could, with many relatives and friends besides, but I, as it seems, will not do anything of the sort, and that too although I am probably at the last extremity of danger. Observing this perhaps someone might harden his heart against me because of it, and, being angry, might vote against me in anger. Then if any of you feels like that—I do not in the least expect it, but if he does—I may fairly say to him, My good sir, I too have relatives of my own somewhere, for to quote Homer,* no stick or stone is the origin of me, but humanity; so I have relatives and sons too, gentlemen—three of them, one a young man already, two still children—yet I shall parade none of them here and so entreat you to vote for my acquittal. Then why will I do none of these things? Not from obstinacy, gentlemen, not slighting you; whether I can face death confidently or not is another matter; but thinking of reputation, as regards me and you and the whole state, it does not seem to me to be decent that I should do any such thing, at my age and with my fame, whether true or false. At least it is common opinion that Socrates is in some way superior to most people. If, then, those of you who are considered superior, in wisdom or in courage or in any other virtue, are going to behave like these people, it would be a disgrace. I have often seen men of some reputation, when condemned, behaving in the strangest way, as if they thought it would be a cruel fate for them to die, as if indeed they would be immortal if you did not put them to death! But these seem to me to be fastening ashame about the city, so that a foreigner would naturally conceive that those of our Athenian nation who are distinguished for virtue, whom the people choose rather than themselves to place in government and office, are no better than so many women. Things of this kind, gentlemen, we who have any reputation at all should not do, and you should not allow us to do them if we tried; but you ought to show you would prefer to condemn a man who brings these pitiable exhibitions into court, and makes the city ridiculous, rather than one who behaves quietly.
Apart from reputation, gentlemen, it does not seem to me right to entreat the judge,† or to be acquitted by entreating; one should instruct and persuade him. For why does the judge sit? Not to make a gracious gift of justice by favour, but to decide what is just; and he has sworn not to show favour as may please him, but to judge according to law. Then we must not get you into the habit of breaking that oath, nor must you let yourselves fall into that habit; one is as bad as the other in the sight of heaven. Then do not demand, gentlemen, that I should do before you such things as I hold neither honourable nor just nor permissible, most especially, by Zeus, for one who is prosecuted for impiety by Meletos here. For clearly if I should persuade you and compel you by entreaties when you are on oath, I should be teaching you not to believe in gods, and in my own defence I should actually accuse myself of not believing in gods. But I am far from that, gentlemen; I do believe, in a sense in which none of my accusers does; and I trust you, and God himself, to decide about me in the way that shall be best both for me and for you.
(The Court votes and finds him guilty, the voting being 281 for guilty, and 220 for innocent. Socrates then addresses them as to the penalty.)
You have voted for my condemnation, gentlemen of Athens; and if I am not resentful at this which has been done, many things contribute to that, and particularly that I expected this to be done which has been done. Indeed, I am much rather surprised at the actual number of votes on either side. I did not expect the voting to be so close, I thought there would be a large majority; but now, as it seems, if only thirty votes had been changed, I should have been acquitted. Even now to my mind I have been acquitted of Meletos,* and not only have I been acquitted, but this indeed is clear to everyone, that if Anytos and Lycon had not joined in accusing me, he would have been liable for the fine of a thousand drachmas as he did not get the fifth part of the votes.
Well, the man asks for the penalty of death. Good; and what penalty shall I propose against this, gentlemen? The proper penalty, it is clear surely? But what is that? What is proper for me to suffer or to pay, for not having the sense to be idle in my life, and for neglecting what most people care about, moneymaking and housekeeping and military appointments and oratory, and besides, all the posts and plots and parties which arise in this city—for believing myself to be really too honest to go after these things and survive? I did not go where I thought I should be of no use either to you or to myself, but I went where I hoped I might benefit each man separately with the greatest possible benefit, as I declare; I tried to persuade each one of you to take care for himself first, and how he could become most good and most wise, before he took care for any of his interests, and to take care for the state herself first before he took care of any of her interests: that in other things also, this was the proper order of his care. Then what do I deserve, since I am such as that? Something good, gentlemen, if I am to make the estimate what it ought to be in truth; and further, something good which would be suitable for me. Then what is suitable for a poor benefactor, who craves to have leisure for your encouragement? Nothing, gentlemen, is so suitable, as that such a man should be boarded free in the town hall, which he deserves much more than any one of you who has gained the prize at Olympia with a pair of horses or a four-in-hand: for this one makes you seem to be happy, but I make you be happy, and he is not in want for food, but I am. Then if I must estimate the just penalty according to my deserts, this is my estimate: free board in the town hall.
Perhaps you think that in saying this, very much as I spoke of appeals for pity, I am just showing off; no such thing, gentlemen; I will tell you what I mean. I am convinced that I never willingly wronged anyone, but I cannot convince you, for we have conversed together only a short time. If we had a law, as other people have, that a trial for life or death is to be spread over many days and not confined to one, I think you would have been convinced; but as it is I cannot disperse great prejudices in a moment. But being convinced that I have wronged no man, I certainly will not wrong myself; I will not give sentence against myself, and say that I am worthy of something bad, I will not estimate anything bad for myself. Why should I? For fear of suffering what Meletos demands as penalty, when I say I do not know whether it is good or bad? Instead of that shall I choose one of the things which I know are bad, and propose that as penalty? Shall it be prison? And why must I live in prison, a slave to those appointed at any time as the officials of the place—the Eleven? Shall it be a fine, and prison until I pay? But that is the same to me, as I told you, for I have no money to pay. Then shall the penalty be banishment? Perhaps you might accept that penalty for me. Indeed, I should be very fond of life to choose that. Could I be so unreasonable! You, my own fellow-countrymen, could not endure my doings and my talkings, they were too burdensome and too detestable for you, so you are now trying to get rid of them; others will easily put up with them, it seems. What a notion! No, Athenians—far from it. A fine life it would be for me if I migrated, at my age, moving from city to city and living on the run. For I am quite sure that wherever I go young men will listen to my talk as they do here; and if I drive these away, they will drive me out themselves, persuading the older men to let them, but if I don’t drive them away, their fathers and families will do it for their sakes.
Perhaps someone might say, Can’t you go away from us, Socrates, and keep silent and lead a quiet life? Now here is the most difficult thing of all to make some of you believe. For if I say that this is to disobey the god, and therefore I cannot keep quiet, you will not believe me but think I am a humbug. If again I say it is the greatest good for a man every day to discuss virtue and the other things, about which you hear me talking and examining myself and everybody else, and that life without enquiry is not worth living for a man, you will believe me still less if I say that. And yet all this is true, gentlemen, as I tell you, but to convince you is not easy. And at the same time I have never been accustomed to think I deserve anything bad. If I had money, I would have proposed to pay all I was bound to pay, as a fine, for I should have had no harm by that; but, as it is, I have none, unless, indeed, you are willing to put it at just as much as I am able to pay. Perhaps I could pay you a mina of silver:* then I propose that as penalty—Plato here, gentlemen, and Criton and Critobulos and Apollodoros tell me to fix it at thirty minas, and they will be sureties: then I propose so much and these men will be sureties for the money—ample sureties in your view.
(The Court then votes again, and condemns him to death.)
You would not have had long to wait, gentlemen, but that short time will have given you the name and the blame of killing Socrates, a wise man: so those will say who wish to speak evil of our city, for they will certainly call me wise, even if I am not, when they wish to taunt you. If you had only waited a short time, this would have come to you of itself; look at my age, which is well advanced, and near death already. This I say not to you all, but to those who voted for my death; and I have something else to say to those same men. Perhaps you think, gentlemen, it was lack of words which defeated me, such words as might have persuaded you, if I had thought it right to do and say anything and everything so as to be acquitted. Far from it. But it was a lack which defeated me, although not of words; it was lack of effrontery and shamelessness, and of a willingness to make you the sort of addresses you would have liked best to hear—to hear me wailing and weeping and saying and doing many things, unworthy of me, as I declare—such indeed as you are accustomed to hear from others. But then I did not think I ought to do anything servile because of my danger; and now I do not regret that such was the manner of my defence; I much prefer to die after such a defence than to live by the other sort. Neither in court nor in war ought I or anyone else to do anything and everything to contrive an escape from death. In battle it is often clear that a man might escape by throwing away his arms and by begging mercy from his pursuers; and there are many other means in every danger, for escaping death, if a man can bring himself to do and say anything and everything. No, gentlemen, the difficult thing is not to escape death, I think, but to escape wickedness—that is much more difficult, for that runs faster than death. And now I, being slow and old, have been caught by the slower one; but my accusers, being clever and quick, have been caught by the swifter, badness. And now I and they depart, I, condemned by you to death, but these, condemned by truth to depravity and injustice. I abide by my penalty, they by theirs. Perhaps this was to be so, and I think it is fair enough.
But as to the future I wish to chant this prophecy to you whose votes have condemned me; for I am now in the place where men chiefly prophesy, in sight of coming death. I foretell, gentlemen, my slayers, that a punishment will come upon you straight after my death, much harder, I declare, than execution at your hands is to me; for now you have done this, thinking to shake yourselves free from giving account of your life, but it will turn out for you something very different, as I foretell. More than one shall be those who demand from you that account, those whom I have restrained now although you did not perceive it; and they will be harder upon you inasmuch as they are younger, and you will resent it more. For if you believe that by putting men to death you will stop everyone from reproaching you because your life is wrong,* you make a great mistake; for this riddance is neither possible nor honourable; but another is most honourable and most easy, not to cut off lives, but to offer yourselves readily to be made as good as you can be. There is my prophecy for those who condemned me, and there I make an end.
But with those who voted to acquit me I would gladly converse about this event which has taken place here, while the magistrates are busy and I go not yet to the place where I must die. Pray gentlemen, be patient with me so long; for nothing hinders from storytelling a bit together while we may. To you as my friends I wish to show what is the real meaning of what has happened to me. What has happened to me, gentlemen of the jury, my judges, for you I could rightly call judges—is a wonderful thing. My familiar prophetic voice of the spirit in all time past has always come to me frequently, opposing me even in very small things, if I was about to do something not right;* but now there has happened to me what you see yourselves, what one might think and what is commonly held to be the extremest of evils, yet for me, as I left home this morning, there was no opposition from the signal of God, nor when I entered this place of the court, nor anywhere in my speech when I was about to say anything; although in other speeches of mine it has often checked me while I was still speaking, yet now in this action it has not opposed me anywhere, either in deed or in word. Then what am I to conceive to be the cause? I will tell you; really this that has happened to me is good, and it is impossible that any of us conceives it aright who thinks it is an evil thing to die. A strong proof of this has been given to me; for my usual signal would certainly have opposed me, unless I was about to do something good.
Let us consider in another way, how great is the hope that it is good. Death is one of two things; either the dead man is nothing, and has no consciousness of anything at all, or it is, as people say, a change and a migration for the soul from this place here to another place. If there is no consciousness and it is like a sleep, when one sleeping sees nothing, not even in dreams, death would be a wonderful blessing. For I think that if a man should select that night in which he slumbered so deep that he saw not even a dream, and should put beside that night all other nights and days of his life, and were to say, after considering, how many sweeter days and nights than that night he had spent in his whole life, I think that anyone, not only some ordinary man but the Great King of Persia himself, would find few such indeed to compare with it in the other days and nights. If, then, death is like that, I call it a blessing; for so eternity seems no more than one night. But if, again, death is a migration from this world into another place, and if what they say is true, that there all the dead are, what greater good could there be than this, judges of the court? For if one comes to the house of Hades, rid of those who dub themselves judges, and finds those who truly are judges, the same who are said to sit in judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthys and Aiacos and Triptolemos, and the other demigods who were just in their life, would that migration be a poor thing? On the contrary, to be in company with Orpheus and Musaios and Hesiod and Homer, how much would one of you give for that? For myself, I am willing to die many times, if this is true; since I myself should find staying there a wonderful thing; then I could meet Palamedes, and Aias, Telamon’s son, and any other of the ancients who died by an unjust judgment, and to compare my experience with theirs, I think, would be quite agreeable. And best of all, to go on cross-examining the people there, as I did those here, and investigating, which of them is wise, and which thinks he is, but is not! How much would one give, judges of the court, to cross-examine him who led the great invasion against Troy, or Odysseus or Sisyphos, or thousands of other men and women? To converse with them there, and to be with them, and cross-examine them would be an infinity of happiness! There, at all events, I don’t suppose they put anyone to death for that; for in that world they are happier than we are here, particularly because already for the rest of time they are immortal, if what people say is true.
But you also, judges of the court, must have good hopes towards death, and this one thing you must take as true—no evil can happen to a good man either living or dead, and his business is not neglected by the gods; nor has my business now come about of itself, but it is plain to me that to die now and to be free from trouble was better for me. That is why my signal did not warn me off, and why I am not at all angry with those who condemned me, or with my accusers. Yet this was not their notion when they condemned and accused me; they thought they were hurting me, and that deserves blame in them. However, one thing I ask them: Punish my sons, gentlemen, when they grow up; give them this same pain I gave you, if you think they care for money or anything else before virtue; and if they have the reputation of being something when they are nothing, reproach them, as I reproach you, that they do not take care for what they should, and think they are something when they are worth nothing. And if you do this, we shall have been justly dealt with by you, both I and my sons.
And now it is time to go, I to die, and you to live; but which of us goes to a better thing is unknown to all but God.