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 injurer 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 a liar.
Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the defence which I have
to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one who is offended
at me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, or even a less
serious occasion, prayed and entreated the judges with many tears, and how
he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together
with a host of relations and friends; whereas I, who am probably in danger
of my life, will do none of these things. The contrast may occur to his
mind, and he may be set against me, and vote in anger because he is
displeased at me on this account. Now if there be such a person among
you,--mind, I do not say that there is,--to him I may fairly reply: 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 almost a man, and two others who 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-assertion
or want of respect for you. Whether I am or am not afraid of death is
another question, of which I will not now speak. But, having regard to
public opinion, I feel that such conduct would be discreditable to myself,
and to you, and to the whole state. One who has reached my years, and who
has a name for wisdom, ought not to demean himself. Whether this opinion
of me be deserved or not, 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 such are a dishonour to the state, and that
any stranger coming in would have said of them that the most eminent men of
Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honour and command, are no
better than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by
those of us who have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to
permit them; you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to
condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous,
than him who holds his peace.
But, setting aside the question of public opinion, there seems to be
something wrong in asking a favour of 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 we ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow
yourselves to be encouraged, in this habit of perjury--there can be no
piety in that. Do not then require me to do what I consider dishonourable
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 in defending should simply convict
myself of the charge of not believing in them. But that is not so--far
otherwise. For I do believe that there are gods, and in a sense higher
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.
...
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, I think, that I have escaped
Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon,
any one may see that 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.
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 my due?
What return shall be made 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 for--
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 be a politician 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 every one 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 an
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, and who desires leisure that
he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as 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 fairly, I
should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.
Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what
I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak
rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one,
although I cannot convince you--the time has been too short; if there were
a law at Athens, 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 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 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 am so irrational as to expect that when
you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and
have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of 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, ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out! For I
am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock
to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their
request; and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me
out for their sakes.
Some one 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 to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God,
and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am
serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of
those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is
the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living,
you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although
a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never
been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I
might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have
been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to
proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, 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. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will be
ample security to you.
...
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 not to all of you, but only to those who have condemned me
to death. And I have another thing to say to them: you think that I was
convicted because I had no words of the sort which would have procured my
acquittal--I mean, if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone or unsaid.
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 do, weeping and wailing and
lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed
to hear from others, and which, as I maintain, are unworthy of me. I
thought at the time that I ought not to do anything common or mean when in
danger: nor do I now repent of the style of my defence; 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 I or any man to use every way of
escaping death. Often in battle there can be 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 to avoid death, but to avoid 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,--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 in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic
power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after
my departure 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 inconsiderate with you, and you will be
more offended at them. If you think that by killing men you can prevent
some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a
way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and the
noblest way is not to be disabling 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 the thing which has come to pass, while the magistrates are busy, and
before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, 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 divine faculty of which the
internal oracle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing
me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error in any
matter; 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 when I was leaving my house in
the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking,
at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in
