Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure
that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking,
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 27
riddle, thinking to try me? He said to himself:—I shall
see whether the wise Socrates will discover my facetious
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 is not like a person who is in
earnest.
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 the audience
of my request that they would not make a disturbance if
I speak in my accustomed manner:
[Sidenote: How can Socrates believe in divine agencies and not believe in
gods?]
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.
How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by the
assistance of the court! But then 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,—so you say and swear in the
affidavit; and yet if I believe in divine beings, how can I help
believing in spirits or demigods;—must I not? To be sure
I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives
consent. Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not
either gods or the sons of gods?
Certainly they are.
[Sidenote: _The example of Achilles._]
But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented by
you: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that
I do not 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, of whom they are said to be the
sons—what human being will ever believe that there are
no gods if they are the sons of gods? 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 to make 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 men can believe
in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that
there are gods and demigods and heroes. 28
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus:
any elaborate defence is unnecessary; but I know only too
well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and
this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed;—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.
[Sidenote: Let no man fear death or fear anything but disgrace.]
Some one 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, upon 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 he was so eager to slay
Hector, his goddess mother said to him, that if he avenged
his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die
himself—‘Fate,’ she said, in these or the like words, ‘waits
for you next after Hector;’ he, receiving this warning,
utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing
them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and not to avenge
his friend. ‘Let me die forthwith,’ he replies, ‘and be
avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked
ships, a laughing-stock 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.
[Sidenote: _The motives of Socrates explained by himself._]
[Sidenote: Socrates, who has often faced death in battle, will not make
any condition in order to save his own life; for he does not know whether
death is a good or an evil.]
[Sidenote: He must always be a preacher of philosophy.]
[Sidenote: ‘Necessity is laid upon me:’ ‘I must obey God rather than
man.’]
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 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 29
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, fancying that I was wise when I was not
wise. For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of
wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing
the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men
in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be
the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful
sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows
what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe
myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim
to be wiser than they are:—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 dishonourable, and I will never fear
or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And
therefore if you let me go now, and are not convinced by
Anytus, who said that since I had been prosecuted I must be
put to death; (or if not that I ought never to have been
prosecuted at all); 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 you
shall be let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to
enquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you
are caught doing so again you shall die;—if this was the
condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of
Athens, I honour 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
any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner:
You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise
city of Athens,—are you not ashamed of heaping up the
greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and
caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest
improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at
all? And if the person with whom I am arguing, says:
Yes, but I do care; then I do not leave him or let him go at
once; but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine
him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him, but
only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the
greater, and overvaluing the less. And I shall repeat the 30
same words to every one whom I meet, young and old,
citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as
they are my brethren. For know that this is the command
of God; and I believe that 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 or 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 comes 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, I am
a mischievous person. But if any one 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 whichever you do,
understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I
have to die many times.
[Sidenote: _The disinterestedness of Socrates._]
[Sidenote: Neither you nor Meletus can ever injure me.]
Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was
an understanding between us that you should hear me to the
end: I have something more to say, at which you may be
inclined to cry out; but I believe that to hear me will be
good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry out.
I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am,
you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.
Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they
cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than
himself. I do not deny that Anytus 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 inflicting
a great injury upon him: but there I do not agree. For the
evil of doing as he is doing—the evil of unjustly taking away
the life of another—is greater far.
[Sidenote: I am the gadfly of the Athenian people, given to them by God,
and they will never have another, if they kill me.]
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 by condemning me, who am his gift to you.
For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me,
who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a
sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is
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 attached to the state, and all day long 31
and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and
persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find
another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare
me. I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a
person who is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think
that you might easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, and
then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless
God in his care of you sent you another gadfly. When
I say that I am given to you by God, the proof of my mission
is this:—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; such conduct, I say, would
be unlike human nature. If I had gained anything, or if my
exhortations had been paid, there would have been some
sense in my doing so; 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 any one; of that they have no
witness. And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what
I say—my poverty.
[Sidenote: _His fearlessness in the performance of public duties._]
[Sidenote: The internal sign always forbade him to engage in politics;
and if he had done so, he would have perished long ago.]
Some one 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 why. You have heard me speak at
sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which
comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in
the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first
began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids
but never commands me to do anything which I am going to
do. This is what deters me from 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 do not
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 striving against the many lawless and unrighteous
deeds which are done in a state, will save his life; he who 32
will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief space,
must have a private station and not a public one.
[Sidenote: He had shown that he would sooner die than commit injustice at
the trial of the generals and under the tyranny of the Thirty.]
I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not
words only, but what you value far more—actions. Let me
relate to 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 ‘as I should have refused to yield’ I must have
died at once. I will tell you a tale of the courts, not very
interesting perhaps, 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 in a body, contrary to law, 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 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 put him to death. 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 word 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 great and only care was lest I should do
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 many will
witness to my words.
[Sidenote: _The reason why people delight in talking to him._]
[Sidenote: He is always talking to the citizens, but he teaches nothing;
he takes no pay and has no secrets.]
[Sidenote: The parents and kinsmen of those whom he is supposed to have
corrupted do not come forward and testify against him.]
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 maintained the right and had made
justice, as I ought, the first thing? No indeed, men of
Athens, neither I nor any other man. But I have been 33
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. Not
that I have any regular disciples. But if any one likes to
come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether
he be young or old, he is not excluded. Nor do I converse
only with those who pay; but any one, 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, neither
result can be justly imputed to me; for I never taught or professed
to teach him anything. And if any one says that he
has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which
all the world has not heard, let me tell you that he is lying.
[Sidenote: _Who are his accusers?_]
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 matter: they like to hear the
cross-examination of the pretenders to wisdom; there is amusement
in it. Now this duty of cross-examining other men has been
imposed upon me by God; and has been signified to me by
oracles, visions, and in every way in which the will of divine
power was ever intimated to any one. This is true, O
Athenians; or, if not true, would be soon refuted. If I am or
have been corrupting the youth, those of them who are now
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; or if they do not like to
come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or
other kinsmen, should say what evil their families have
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 Epigenes; 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 34
present; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus,
whom I also see. I might mention a great many others, some
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 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.
[Sidenote: _He will not demean himself by entreaties._]
[Sidenote: He is flesh and blood, but he will not appeal to the pity of
his judges: or make a scene in the court such as he has often witnessed.]
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 35
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.
[Sidenote: The judge should not be influenced by his feelings, but
convinced by reason.]
[Sidenote: _The reward which Socrates truly merits._]
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 36
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.
[Sidenote: _Socrates accepts his fate._]
[Sidenote: Socrates all his life long has been seeking to do the greatest
good to the Athenians.]
[Sidenote: Should he not be rewarded with maintenance in the Prytaneum?]
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 37
is the just return.
[Sidenote: The consciousness of innocence gives him confidence.]
[Sidenote: He has not deserved imprisonment.]
[Sidenote: And if he is exiled, how wretched will be his fate!]
[Sidenote: _The penalty—death._]
[Sidenote: He cannot be silent, and he will be driven from city to city.]
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.
[Sidenote: Money he has none, or he would propose a fine. His friends bid
him offer 30 minae on their security.]
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 38
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.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: They will be accused of killing a wise man.]
[Sidenote: _The prophecy of Socrates._]
[Sidenote: Why could they not wait a few years?]
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. 39
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.
[Sidenote: _The silence of his familiar spirit._]
[Sidenote: They are about to slay Socrates because he has been their
accuser; other accusers will rise up and denounce them more vehemently.]
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.
[Sidenote: He believes that what is happening to him will be good,
because the internal oracle gives no sign of opposition.]
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, 40
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 the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either
said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle opposed
me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence?
I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened
to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is
an evil are in error. For the customary sign would surely
have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.
[Sidenote: Death either a good or nothing: = a profound sleep.]
[Sidenote: _The Homeric heroes._]
[Sidenote: How blessed to have a just judgment passed on us; to converse
with Homer and Hesiod; to see the heroes of Troy, and to continue the
search after knowledge in another world!]
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 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 be of such a nature, 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 abide, 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 41
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 myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in
there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax
the son of Telamon, and any other ancient hero who has
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 then be able to
continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this
world, so also in the next; and 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! In another world they do not put a man
to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides
being happier than we are, they will be immortal, if what is
said is true.
[Sidenote: _The last word._]
Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and
know of a certainty, 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 the time had arrived
when it was better for me to die and be released from
trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which
reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with
my accusers; they have done me no harm, although they
did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently
blame them.
[Sidenote: Do to my sons as I have done to you.]
Still I have a favour 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, both I and my sons will have 42
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.