Plato
APOLOGY
translated
by Benjamin Jowett
{Socrates’
Defense}
How you have felt,
O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell ;
but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was — such
was the effect of them ; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth.
But many as their falsehoods were, there was one of them which quite amazed
me ; — I mean when they told you to be upon your guard, and not to let
yourselves be deceived by the force of my eloquence. They ought to have been
ashamed of saying this, because they were sure to be detected as soon as I
opened my lips and displayed my deficiency ; they certainly did appear to
be most shameless in saying this, unless by the force of eloquence they mean the
force of truth ; for then I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. But in how
different a way from theirs ! Well, as I was saying, they have hardly
uttered a word, or not more than a word, of truth ; but you shall hear from
me the whole truth : not, however, delivered after their manner, in a set
oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No indeed ! but I shall use
the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment ; for I am certain
that this is right, and that at my time of life I ought not to be appearing
before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator — let no one
expect this of me. And I must beg of you to grant me one favor, which is this —
If you hear me using the same words in my defence which I have been in the habit
of using, and which most of you may have heard in the agora, and at the tables
of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised at
this, and not to interrupt me. For I am more than seventy years of age, and this
is the first time that I have ever appeared in a court of law, and I am quite a
stranger to the ways of the place ; and therefore I would have you regard
me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his
native tongue, and after the fashion of his country ; — that I think is not
an unfair request. Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good ;
but think only of the justice of my cause, and give heed to that : let the
judge decide justly and the speaker speak truly.
And first, I have
to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers, and then I will go to
the later ones. For I have had many accusers, who accused me of old, and their
false charges have continued during many years ; and I am more afraid of
them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own
way. But far more dangerous are these, who began when you were children, and
took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a
wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth
beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. These are the accusers whom
I dread ; for they are the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are
too apt to fancy that speculators of this sort do not believe in the gods. And
they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they made
them in days when you were impressible — in childhood, or perhaps in youth — and
the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And, hardest
of all, their names I do not know and cannot tell ; unless in the chance of
a comic poet. But the main body of these slanderers who from envy and malice
have wrought upon you — and there are some of them who are convinced themselves,
and impart their convictions to others — all these, I say, are most difficult to
deal with ; for I cannot have them up here, and examine them, and therefore
I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and examine when there is no
one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my
opponents are of two kinds — one recent, the other ancient ; and I hope
that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these
accusations you heard long before the others, and much
oftener.
Well, then, I will
make my defence, and I will endeavor in the short time which is allowed to do
away with this evil opinion of me which you have held for such a long
time ; and I hope I may succeed, if this be well for you and me, and that
my words may find favor with you. But I know that to accomplish this is not easy
— I quite see the nature of the task. Let the event be as God wills : in
obedience to the law I make my defence.
I will begin at the
beginning, and ask what the accusation is which has given rise to this slander
of me, and which has encouraged Meletus to proceed against me. What do the
slanderers say ? They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their
words in an affidavit. “Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who
searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse
appear the better cause ; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to
others.” That is the nature of the accusation, and that is what you have seen
yourselves in the comedy of Aristophanes ; who has introduced a man whom he
calls Socrates, going about and saying that he can walk in the air, and talking
a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend to know either
much or little — not that I mean to say anything disparaging of anyone who is a
student of natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if Meletus could lay that
to my charge. But the simple truth is, O Athenians, that I have nothing to do
with these studies. Very many of those here present are witnesses to the truth
of this, and to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your
neighbors whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in
many upon matters of this sort. (...) You hear their answer. And from what they
say of this you will be able to judge of the truth of the
rest.
As little
foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money ;
that is no more true than the other. Although, if a man is able to teach, I
honor him for being paid. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos,
and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to persuade
the young men to leave their own citizens, by whom they might be taught for
nothing, and come to them, whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they may
be allowed to pay them. There is actually a Parian philosopher residing in
Athens, of whom I have heard ; and I came to hear of him in this way :
— I met a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias the son of
Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him : “Callias,” I said,
“if your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding
someone to put over them ; we should hire a trainer of horses or a farmer
probably who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and
excellence ; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing
over them ? Is there anyone who understands human and political
virtue ? You must have thought about this as you have sons ; is there
anyone ?” “There is,” he said. “Who is he ?” said I, “and of what
country ? and what does he charge ?” “Evenus the Parian,” he
replied ; “he is the man, and his charge is five minae.” Happy is Evenus, I
said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a modest
charge. Had I the same, I should have been very proud and conceited ; but
the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind.
I dare say,
Athenians, that someone among you will reply, “Why is this, Socrates, and what
is the origin of these accusations of you : for there must have been
something strange which you have been doing ? All this great fame and talk
about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men : tell us,
then, why this is, as we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.” Now I regard
this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavor to explain to you the origin of
this name of “wise,” and of this evil fame. Please to attend then. And although
some of you may think I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire
truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of
wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, such wisdom
as is attainable by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am
wise ; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom,
which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself ; and he who
says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O
men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say
something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer
you to a witness who is worthy of credit, and will tell you about my wisdom —
whether I have any, and of what sort — and that witness shall be the god of
Delphi. You must have known Chaerephon ; he was early a friend of mine, and
also a friend of yours, for he shared in the exile of the people, and returned
with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings,
and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether — as I was
saying, I must beg you not to interrupt — he asked the oracle to tell him
whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered
that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is
in court, will confirm the truth of this story.
Why do I mention
this ? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name.
When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean ? and what
is the interpretation of this riddle ? for I know that I have no wisdom,
small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men ?
And yet he is a god and cannot lie ; that would be against his nature.
After a long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the
question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I
might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, “Here is
a man who is wiser than I am ; but you said that I was the wisest.”
Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed to him
— his name I need not mention ; he was a politician whom I selected for
examination — and the result was as follows : When I began to talk with
him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was
thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself ; and I went and tried to
explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise ; and
the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who
were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went
away : Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything
really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is — for he knows nothing,
and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter
particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to
another, who had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was
exactly the same. I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides
him.
After this I went
to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked,
and I lamented and feared this : but necessity was laid upon me — the word
of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must
to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear
to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear ! — for I must tell you the truth —
the result of my mission was just this : I found that the men most in
repute were all but the most foolish ; and that some inferior men were
really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the
“Herculean” labors, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the
oracle irrefutable. When I left the politicians, I went to the poets ;
tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be
detected ; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are.
Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own
writings, and asked what was the meaning of them — thinking that they would
teach me something. Will you believe me ? I am almost ashamed to speak of
this, but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not
have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me
in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius
and inspiration ; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many
fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. And the poets appeared
to me to be much in the same case ; and I further observed that upon the
strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in
other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be
superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the
politicians.
At last I went to
the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and
I was sure that they knew many fine things ; and in this I was not
mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this
they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans
fell into the same error as the poets ; because they were good workmen they
thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them
overshadowed their wisdom — therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle,
whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their
ignorance, or like them in both ; and I made answer to myself and the
oracle that I was better off as I was.
This investigation
has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has
given occasion also to many calumnies, and I am called wise, for my hearers
always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in
others : but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise ;
and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or
nothing ; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an
illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows
that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go my way, obedient to the
god, and make inquisition into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or
stranger, who appears to be wise ; and if he is not wise, then in
vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise ; and this
occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public
matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by
reason of my devotion to the god.
There is another
thing : — young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come
about me of their own accord ; they like to hear the pretenders examined,
and they often imitate me, and examine others themselves ; there are plenty
of persons, as they soon enough discover, who think that they know something,
but really know little or nothing : and then those who are examined by them
instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me : This confounded
Socrates, they say ; this villainous misleader of youth ! — and then
if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or teach ? they do
not know, and cannot tell ; but in order that they may not appear to be at
a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all
philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and
having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause ; for they do
not like to confess that their pretence of knowledge has been detected — which
is the truth : and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and
are all in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears
with their loud and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my three
accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me ; Meletus, who has
a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets ; Anytus, on behalf of the
craftsmen ; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians : and as I said at
the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of this mass of calumny all in a
moment. And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth ; I
have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet I know that this
plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof
that I am speaking the truth ? — this is the occasion and reason of their
slander of me, as you will find out either in this or in any future
inquiry.
I have said enough
in my defence against the first class of my accusers ; I turn to the second
class, who are headed by Meletus, that good and patriotic man, as he calls
himself. And now I will try to defend myself against them : these new
accusers must also have their affidavit read. What do they say ? Something
of this sort : — That Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the
youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and has other new
divinities of his own. That is the sort of charge ; and now let us examine
the particular counts. He says that I am a doer of evil, who corrupt the
youth ; but I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, and the
evil is that he makes a joke of a serious matter, and is too ready at bringing
other men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he
really never had the smallest interest. And the truth of this I will endeavor to
prove.
Come hither,
Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You think a great deal about the
improvement of youth ?
Yes, I
do.
Tell the judges,
then, who is their improver ; for you must know, as you have taken the
pains to discover their corrupter, and are citing and accusing me before them.
Speak, then, and tell the judges who their improver is. Observe, Meletus, that
you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful, and
a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the
matter ? Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver
is.
The
laws.
But that, my good
sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person is, who, in the first
place, knows the laws.
The judges,
Socrates, who are present in court.
What do you mean to
say, Meletus, that they are able to instruct and improve
youth ?
Certainly they
are.
What, all of them,
or some only and not others ?
All of
them.
By the goddess
Here, that is good news ! There are plenty of improvers, then. And what do
you say of the audience, — do they improve them ?
Yes, they
do.
And the
senators ?
Yes, the senators
improve them.
But perhaps the
members of the citizen assembly corrupt them ? — or do they too improve
them ?
They improve
them.
Then every Athenian
improves and elevates them ; all with the exception of myself ; and I
alone am their corrupter ? Is that what you
affirm ?
That is what I
stoutly affirm.
I am very
unfortunate if that is true. But suppose I ask you a question : Would you
say that this also holds true in the case of horses ? Does one man do them
harm and all the world good ? Is not the exact opposite of this true ?
One man is able to do them good, or at least not many ; — the trainer of
horses, that is to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them
rather injure them ? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or any other
animals ? Yes, certainly. Whether you and Anytus say yes or no, that is no
matter. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter
only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. And you, Meletus, have
sufficiently shown that you never had a thought about the young : your
carelessness is seen in your not caring about matters spoken of in this very
indictment.
And now, Meletus, I
must ask you another question : Which is better, to live among bad
citizens, or among good ones ? Answer, friend, I say ; for that is a
question which may be easily answered. Do not the good do their neighbors good,
and the bad do them evil ?
Certainly.
And is there anyone
who would rather be injured than benefited by those who live with him ?
Answer, my good friend ; the law requires you to answer — does anyone like
to be injured ?
Certainly
not.
And when you accuse
me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them
intentionally or unintentionally ?
Intentionally, I
say.
But you have just
admitted that the good do their neighbors good, and the evil do them evil. Now
is that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life,
and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man
with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by
him, and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally, too ; — that is what you are
saying, and of that you will never persuade me or any other human being. But
either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on
either view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no
cognizance of unintentional offences : you ought to have taken me
privately, and warned and admonished me ; for if I had been better advised,
I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt I
should ; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you
indicted me in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of
punishment.
I have shown,
Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus has no care at all, great or small,
about the matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am
affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your
indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state
acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their
stead. These are the lessons which corrupt the youth, as you
say.
Yes, that I say
emphatically.
Then, by the gods,
Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer
terms, what you mean ! for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm
that I teach others to acknowledge some gods, and therefore do believe in gods
and am not an entire atheist — this you do not lay to my charge ; but only
that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes — the charge is that
they are different gods. Or, do you mean to say that I am an atheist simply, and
a teacher of atheism ?
I mean the latter —
that you are a complete atheist.
That is an
extraordinary statement, Meletus. Why do you say that ? Do you mean that I
do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, which is the common creed of
all men ?
I assure you,
judges, that he does not believe in them ; for he says that the sun is
stone, and the moon earth.
Friend Meletus, you
think that you are accusing Anaxagoras ; and you have but a bad opinion of
the judges, if you fancy them ignorant to such a degree as not to know that
those doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, who is
full of them. And these are the doctrines which the youth are said to learn of
Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre
(price of admission one drachma at the most) ; and they might cheaply
purchase them, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father such
eccentricities. And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any
god ?
I swear by Zeus
that you believe absolutely in none at all.
You are a liar,
Meletus, not believed even by yourself. For I cannot help thinking, O men of
Athens, that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has written this
indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. Has he not
compounded a riddle, thinking to try me ? He said to himself : — I
shall see whether this wise Socrates will discover my ingenious contradiction,
or whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them. For he certainly
does appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said
that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of believing in
them — but this surely is a piece of fun.
I should like you,
O men of Athens, to join me in examining what I conceive to be his
inconsistency ; and do you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind you that you
are not to interrupt me if I speak in my accustomed
manner.
Did ever man,
Meletus, believe in the existence of human things, and not of human
beings ? ... I wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always
trying to get up an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and
not in horses ? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players ? No, my
friend ; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for
yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer the next
question : Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and not in
spirits or demigods ?
He
cannot.
I am glad that I
have extracted that answer, by the assistance of the court ; nevertheless
you swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual
agencies (new or old, no matter for that) ; at any rate, I believe in
spiritual agencies, as you say and swear in the affidavit ; but if I
believe in divine beings, I must believe in spirits or demigods ; — is not
that true ? Yes, that is true, for I may assume that your silence gives
assent to that. Now what are spirits or demigods ? are they not either gods
or the sons of gods ? Is that true ?
Yes, that is
true.
But this is just
the ingenious riddle of which I was speaking : the demigods or spirits are
gods, and you say first that I don’t believe in gods, and then again that I do
believe in gods ; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods
are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the Nymphs or by any other
mothers, as is thought, that, as all men will allow, necessarily implies the
existence of their parents. You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and
deny that of horses and asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been
intended by you as a trial of me. You have put this into the indictment because
you had nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one who has a particle of
understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same man can believe in
divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that there are gods and
demigods and heroes.
I have said enough
in answer to the charge of Meletus : any elaborate defence is
unnecessary ; but as I was saying before, I certainly have many enemies,
and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed ; of that I am
certain ; — not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the
world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death
of many more ; there is no danger of my being the last of
them.
Someone will
say : And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is
likely to bring you to an untimely end ? To him I may fairly answer :
There you are mistaken : a man who is good for anything ought not to
calculate the chance of living or dying ; he ought only to consider whether
in doing anything he is doing right or wrong — acting the part of a good man or
of a bad. Whereas, according to your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not
good for much, and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger
in comparison with disgrace ; and when his goddess mother said to him, in
his eagerness to slay Hector, that if he avenged his companion Patroclus, and
slew Hector, he would die himself — “Fate,” as she said, “waits upon you next
after Hector” ; he, hearing this, utterly despised danger and death, and
instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonor, and not to avenge
his friend. “Let me die next,” he replies, “and be avenged of my enemy, rather
than abide here by the beaked ships, a scorn and a burden of the earth.” Had
Achilles any thought of death and danger ? For wherever a man’s place is,
whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a
commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger ; he should not
think of death or of anything, but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a
true saying.
Strange, indeed,
would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the
generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium,
remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death ; if, I
say, now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the
philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert
my post through fear of death, or any other fear ; that would indeed be
strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of
the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death : then I
should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death
is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of
knowing the unknown ; since no one knows whether death, which they in their
fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there
not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance ?
And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and
in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, — that whereas I
know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know : but I do
know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil
and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a
certain evil. And therefore if you let me go now, and reject the counsels of
Anytus, who said that if I were not put to death I ought not to have been
prosecuted, and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by
listening to my words — if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind
Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that are to inquire and
speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing this again you
shall die ; — if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should
reply : Men of Athens, I honor and love you ; but I shall obey God
rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the
practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my
manner, and convincing him, saying : O my friend, why do you who are a
citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about
laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little
about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never
regard or heed at all ? Are you not ashamed of this ? And if the
person with whom I am arguing says : Yes, but I do care ; I do not
depart or let him go at once ; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine
him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach
him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And this I should
say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to
the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command of God,
as I would have you know ; and I believe that to this day no greater good
has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but
go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your
persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest
improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that
from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private.
This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my
influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he
is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus
bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not ; but whatever you
do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many
times.
Men of Athens, do
not interrupt, but hear me ; there was an agreement between us that you
should hear me out. And I think that what I am going to say will do you
good : for I have something more to say, at which you may be inclined to
cry out ; but I beg that you will not do this. I would have you know that,
if you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will
injure me. Meletus and Anytus will not injure me : they cannot ; for
it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than
himself. I do not deny that he may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile,
or deprive him of civil rights ; and he may imagine, and others may
imagine, that he is doing him a great injury : but in that I do not agree
with him ; for the evil of doing as Anytus is doing — of unjustly taking
away another man’s life — is greater far. And now, Athenians, I am not going to
argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin
against the God, or lightly reject his boon by condemning me. For if you kill me
you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous
figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God ; and
the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to
his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God
has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon
you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And as you will not easily
find another like me, I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may
feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping ; and
you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anytus advises, which you
easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless
God in his care of you gives you another gadfly. And that I am given to you by
God is proved by this : — that if I had been like other men, I should not
have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during
all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a
father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue ; this I say, would
not be like human nature. And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had
been paid, there would have been some sense in that : but now, as you will
perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever
exacted or sought pay of anyone ; they have no witness of that. And I have
a witness of the truth of what I say ; my poverty is a sufficient
witness.
Someone may wonder
why I go about in private, giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of
others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I
will tell you the reason of this. You have often heard me speak of an oracle or
sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the
indictment. This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice
which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do,
but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my
being a politician. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens,
that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no
good either to you or to myself. And don’t be offended at my telling you the
truth : for the truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any other
multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of unrighteousness and
wrong in the state, will save his life ; he who will really fight for the
right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and
not a public one.
I can give you as
proofs of this, not words only, but deeds, which you value more than words. Let
me tell you a passage of my own life, which will prove to you that I should
never have yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that if I had not
yielded I should have died at once. I will tell you a story — tasteless,
perhaps, and commonplace, but nevertheless true. The only office of state which
I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of senator ; the tribe Antiochis,
which is my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not
taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae ; and you
proposed to try them all together, which was illegal, as you all thought
afterwards ; but at the time I was the only one of the Prytanes who was
opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against you ; and when the
orators threatened to impeach and arrest me, and have me taken away, and you
called and shouted, I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and
justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared
imprisonment and death. This happened in the days of the democracy. But when the
oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the
rotunda, and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to
execute him. This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were always
giving with the view of implicating as many as possible in their crimes ;
and then I showed, not in words only, but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to
use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my only fear was
the fear of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that
oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong ; and when we came
out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went
quietly home. For which I might have lost my life, had not the power of the
Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. And to this many will
witness.
Now do you really
imagine that I could have survived all these years, if I had led a public life,
supposing that like a good man I had always supported the right and had made
justice, as I ought, the first thing ? No, indeed, men of Athens, neither I
nor any other. But I have been always the same in all my actions, public as well
as private, and never have I yielded any base compliance to those who are
slanderously termed my disciples or to any other. For the truth is that I have
no regular disciples : but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am
pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I
converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay ; but
anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my
words ; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot
be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone says
that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the
world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an
untruth.
But I shall be
asked, Why do people delight in continually conversing with you ? I have
told you already, Athenians, the whole truth about this : they like to hear
the cross-examination of the pretenders to wisdom ; there is amusement in
this. And this is a duty which the God has imposed upon me, as I am assured by
oracles, visions, and in every sort of way in which the will of divine power was
ever signified to anyone. This is true, O Athenians ; or, if not true,
would be soon refuted. For if I am really corrupting the youth, and have
corrupted some of them already, those of them who have grown up and have become
sensible that I gave them bad advice in the days of their youth should come
forward as accusers and take their revenge ; and if they do not like to
come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or other kinsmen,
should say what evil their families suffered at my hands. Now is their time.
Many of them I see in the court. There is Crito, who is of the same age and of
the same deme with myself ; and there is Critobulus his son, whom I also
see. Then again there is Lysanias of Sphettus, who is the father of Aeschines —
he is present ; and also there is Antiphon of Cephisus, who is the father
of Epignes ; and there are the brothers of several who have associated with
me. There is Nicostratus the son of Theosdotides, and the brother of Theodotus
(now Theodotus himself is dead, and therefore he, at any rate, will not seek to
stop him) ; and there is Paralus the son of Demodocus, who had a brother
Theages ; and Adeimantus the son of Ariston, whose brother Plato is
present ; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus, whom I also
see. I might mention a great many others, any of whom Meletus should have
produced as witnesses in the course of his speech ; and let him still
produce them, if he has forgotten — I will make way for him. And let him say, if
he has any testimony of the sort which he can produce. Nay, Athenians, the very
opposite is the truth. For all these are ready to witness on behalf of the
corrupter, of the destroyer of their kindred, as Meletus and Anytus call
me ; not the corrupted youth only — there might have been a motive for that
— but their uncorrupted elder relatives. Why should they too support me with
their testimony ? Why, indeed, except for the sake of truth and justice,
and because they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is
lying.
Well, Athenians,
this and the like of this is nearly all the defence which I have to offer. Yet a
word more. Perhaps there may be someone who is offended at me, when he calls to
mind how he himself, on a similar or even a less serious occasion, had recourse
to prayers and supplications with many tears, and how he produced his children
in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a posse of his relations
and friends ; whereas I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none
of these things. Perhaps this may come into his mind, and he may be set against
me, and vote in anger because he is displeased at this. Now if there be such a
person among you, which I am far from affirming, I may fairly reply to
him : My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and
blood, and not of wood or stone, as Homer says ; and I have a family, yes,
and sons. O Athenians, three in number, one of whom is growing up, and the two
others are still young ; and yet I will not bring any of them hither in
order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not ? Not from any
self-will or disregard of you. Whether I am or am not afraid of death is another
question, of which I will not now speak. But my reason simply is that I feel
such conduct to be discreditable to myself, and you, and the whole state. One
who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, whether deserved or
not, ought not to debase himself. At any rate, the world has decided that
Socrates is in some way superior to other men. And if those among you who are
said to be superior in wisdom and courage, and any other virtue, demean
themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct ! I have seen men of
reputation, when they have been condemned, behaving in the strangest
manner : they seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer something
dreadful if they died, and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them
to live ; and I think that they were a dishonor to the state, and that any
stranger coming in would say of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to
whom the Athenians themselves give honor and command, are no better than women.
And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who are of
reputation ; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them ; you
ought rather to show that you are more inclined to condemn, not the man who is
quiet, but the man who gets up a doleful scene, and makes the city
ridiculous.
But, setting aside
the question of dishonor, there seems to be something wrong in petitioning a
judge, and thus procuring an acquittal instead of informing and convincing him.
For his duty is, not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment ;
and he has sworn that he will judge according to the laws, and not according to
his own good pleasure ; and neither he nor we should get into the habit of
perjuring ourselves — there can be no piety in that. Do not then require me to
do what I consider dishonorable and impious and wrong, especially now, when I am
being tried for impiety on the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens,
by force of persuasion and entreaty, I could overpower your oaths, then I should
be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and convict myself, in my own
defence, of not believing in them. But that is not the case ; for I do
believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of
my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be
determined by you as is best for you and me.
[The jury finds Socrates
guilty.]
{Socrates’ Proposal for
his Sentence}
There are many
reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I
expected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal ; for
I had thought that the majority against me would have been far larger ; but
now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted.
And I may say that I have escaped Meletus. And I may say more ; for without
the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, he would not have had a fifth part of the
votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a
thousand drachmae, as is evident.
And so he proposes
death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of
Athens ? Clearly that which is my due. And what is that which I ought to
pay or to receive ? What shall be done to the man who has never had the wit
to be idle during his whole life ; but has been careless of what the many
care about — wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in
the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was
really too honest a man to follow in this way and live, I did not go where I
could do no good to you or to myself ; but where I could do the greatest
good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every
man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he
looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the
interests of the state ; and that this should be the order which he
observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one ? Doubtless
some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward ; and the good
should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor
man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you ?
There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of
Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the
prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn
by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough ; and he only
gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am
to estimate the penalty justly, I say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the
just return. Perhaps you may think that I am braving you in saying this, as in
what I said before about the tears and prayers. But that is not the case. I
speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged anyone,
although I cannot convince you of that — for we have had a short conversation
only ; but if there were a law at Athens, such as there is in other cities,
that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I
should have convinced you ; but now the time is too short. I cannot in a
moment refute great slanders ; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged
another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I
deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I ? Because I am
afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes ? When I do not know
whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would
certainly be an evil ? Shall I say imprisonment ? And why should I
live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year — of the
Eleven ? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is
paid ? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for
money I have none, and I cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly
be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of
life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure
my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you
would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men
of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age,
wandering from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being
driven out ! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so
also there, the young men will come to me ; and if I drive them away, their
elders will drive me out at their desire : and if I let them come, their
fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.
Someone will
say : Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go
into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you ? Now I have great
difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that
this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot
hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious ; and if I say again
that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that
concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life
which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to
believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me
to persuade you. Moreover, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any
punishment. Had I money I might have proposed to give you what I had, and have
been none the worse. But you see that I have none, and can only ask you to
proportion the fine to my means. However, I think that I could afford a minae,
and therefore I propose that penalty ; Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and
Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the
sureties. Well then, say thirty minae, let that be the penalty ; for that
they will be ample security to you.
[The jury condemns
Socrates to death.]
{Socrates’ Comments on his
Sentence}
Not much time will
be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the
detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man ;
for they will call me wise even although I am not wise when they want to
reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been
fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may
perceive, and not far from death. I am speaking now only to those of you who
have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them : You
think that I was convicted through deficiency of words — I mean, that if I had
thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an
acquittal. Not so ; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of
words — certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to
address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and
lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to
hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I
ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger : nor do I
now repent of the manner of my defence, and I would rather die having spoken
after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet
at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle
there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees
before his pursuers, he may escape death ; and in other dangers there are
other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The
difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding
unrighteousness ; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move
slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and
quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And
now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they,
too, go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and
wrong ; and I must abide by my award — let them abide by theirs. I suppose
that these things may be regarded as fated, — and I think that they are
well.
And now, O men who
have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you ; for I am about to die,
and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. And I
prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment
far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have
killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of
your lives. But that will not be as you suppose : far otherwise. For I say
that there will be more accusers of you than there are now ; accusers whom
hitherto I have restrained : and as they are younger they will be more
severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by
killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are
mistaken ; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or
honorable ; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but
to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my
departure, to the judges who have condemned me.
Friends, who would
have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has
happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which
I must die. Stay then awhile, for we may as well talk with one another while
there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of
this event which has happened to me. O my judges — for you I may truly call
judges — I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the
familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even
about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything ; and
now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is
generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign
of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or
when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which
I was going to say ; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a
speech ; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has
the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this ? I
will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good,
and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a
great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have
opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.
Let us reflect in
another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a
good, for one of two things : — either death is a state of nothingness and
utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the
soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no
consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the
sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to
select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to
compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell
us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and
more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private
man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when
compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is
gain ; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the
journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O
my friends and judges, can be greater than this ? If indeed when the
pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of
justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment
there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God
who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What
would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod
and Homer ? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall
have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and
Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death
through an unjust judgment ; and there will be no small pleasure, as I
think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to
continue my search into true and false knowledge ; as in this world, so
also in that ; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise,
and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the
leader of the great Trojan expedition ; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or
numberless others, men and women too ! What infinite delight would there be
in conversing with them and asking them questions ! For in that world they
do not put a man to death for this ; certainly not. For besides being
happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is
true.
Wherefore, O
judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth — that no evil
can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not
neglected by the gods ; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere
chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me ;
and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry
with my accusers, or my condemners ; they have done me no harm, although
neither of them meant to do me any good ; and for this I may gently blame
them.
Still I have a
favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends,
to punish them ; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you,
if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue ; or
if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, — then reprove
them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to
care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if
you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your
hands.
The hour of
departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is
better God only knows.