Aristocles, the son of Ariston, whose birth name is almost
forgotten because the whole world knows him as Plato, was born at
Athens about the year 427 B.C. As he grew up he became a devoted
disciple of Socrates, and when the Athenian people had put the
master to death, the disciple gave up his life to expounding the
wisdom of his teacher. How much of that teaching was really
implicitly contained in the doctrines of Socrates, it is difficult
to say, since very definite developments evidently took place in
Plato's own views. Plato himself lived to the age of eighty, and
died, as he had for the most part lived, at Athens, in 347. When
Socrates was indicted for "corrupting the youth" of Athens and on
other corresponding charges, Plato was himself present at the
trial. We may believe that the "Apology" is substantially a
reproduction of the actual defence made by Socrates. The "judges"
in the Athenian court were practically the assembled body of free
Athenian citizens. When an adverse verdict was given, the accused
could propose a penalty as an alternative to that which had been
named by the accuser, and the court could choose between the two
penalties. Socrates was found guilty by a small majority of votes,
and sentence of death was passed, as set forth in the last section
of the "Apology."
_I.--The Official Indictment, and the Real Charges_
What my accusers have said, Athenians, has been most specious, but none
of it is true. The falsehood which most astonished me was that you must
beware of being beguiled by my consummate eloquence; for I am not
eloquent at all, unless speaking pure truth be eloquence. You will hear
me speak with adornments and without premeditation in my everyday
language, which many of you have heard. I am seventy years old, yet this
is my first appearance in the courts, and I have no experience of
forensic arts. All I ask is that you will take heed whether what I say
be just.
It is just that I should begin by defending myself against my accusers
from of old, in priority to Anytus and these other latter-day accusers.
For, skilful as these are, I fear those more--those who from your youth
have been untruthfully warning you against one Socrates, a wise man, who
speculates about everything in heaven and under the earth, and tries to
make the worse cause the better. Their charge is the craftier, because
you think that a man who does as they say has no thought for the gods. I
cannot name these gentlemen precisely, beyond indicating that one is a
writer of comedies; I cannot meet and refute them individually. However,
I must try to enter a brief defence. I think I know where my difficulty
will lie; but the issue will be as the gods choose.
Now, what is the basis of this charge, on which Meletus also relies?
"Socrates is an evil doer, a busybody, who pries into things in heaven
and under the earth, and teaches these same things to others." You all
saw the Socrates in the comedy of Aristophanes engaged in these
pursuits. I have nothing to say against such inquiries; but do not let
Meletus charge me with them, for I have no part nor lot in them. Many of
you have heard me talk, but never one on these subjects. Witness you
yourselves. From this you should be able to gauge the other things that
are said against me.
Equally untrue is the charge that I make a paid business of teaching my
neighbours. It is a fine thing to be able to impart knowledge, like
Gorgias, and Prodicus, and Hippias, who can go from city to city and
draw to converse with them young men who pay for the privilege instead
of enjoying their companions' society for nothing. I am told there is
one Evenus, a Parian, practising now, whose fee is five minas. It must
be delightful to possess such valuable knowledge and to impart it--if
they do possess it. I should like to do it myself, but I do not possess
the knowledge.
"Whence, then, comes the trouble, Socrates?" you will say; "if you have
been doing nothing unusual, how have these rumours and slanders arisen?"
I will tell you what I take to be the explanation. It is due to a
certain wisdom with which I seem to be endowed--not superhuman at all
like that of these gentlemen. I speak not arrogantly, but on the
evidence of the Oracle of Delphi, who told Chaerephon, a man known to
you, that there was no wiser man than Socrates. Now, I am not conscious
of possessing wisdom; but the God cannot lie. What did he mean?
Well, I tried to find out, by going to a man reputed wise, thinking to
prove that there were wiser men. But I found him not wise at all, though
he fancied himself so. I sought to show him this, but he was only very
much annoyed. I concluded that, after all, I was wiser than he in one
particular, because I was under no delusion that I possessed knowledge,
as he was. I tried all the men reputed wise, one after the other, and
made myself very unpopular, for the result was always the same. It was
the same with the poets as with the politicians, and with the craftsmen
as with the poets. The last did know something about their own
particular art, and therefore imagined that they knew all about
everything.
I went on, taking every opportunity of finding out whether people
reputed wise, and thinking themselves so, were wise in reality, and
pointing out that they were not. And because of my exposing the
ignorance of others, I have got this groundless reputation of having
knowledge myself, and have been made the object of many other calumnies.
And young gentlemen of position who have heard me follow my example, and
annoy people by exposing their ignorance; and this is all visited on me;
and I am called an ill-conditioned person who corrupts youth. To prove
which my calumniators have to fall back on charging me with prying into
all things in heaven and under the earth, and the rest of it.
_II.--The Cross-Examining of Meletus_
Such is my answer to the charges which have been poured into your ears
for a long time. Now let me defend myself against these later
accusations of Meletus and the rest--the virtuous patriot Meletus. I am
an evil-doer, a corrupter of youth, who pays no reverence to the gods
who the city reveres, but to strange daemons. Not I, but Meletus is the
evil-doer, who rashly makes accusations so frivolous, pretending much
concern for matters about which he has never troubled himself. Answer
me, Meletus. You think it of the utmost importance that our youth should
be made as excellent as possible.
MELETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Tell us, then, who is it that makes them better; for of
course, you know. You are silent. The laws, you say? The question was,
"Who?"
MELETUS: The judges; all the judges.
SOCRATES: In other words, all the Athenian people--everyone but me? And
I alone corrupt them? Truly, I am in an ill plight! But in the case of
all other animals, horses, for instance, there are only a few people who
are able to improve them. Your answer shows that you have never bestowed
attention on the care of young people. Next, tell me is it better for a
man to dwell among good citizens or bad? The good, since the bad will
injure him. I cannot, then, set about making bad citizens designedly. My
friend, no man designedly brings injury upon himself. If I corrupt them,
it must be undesignedly--reason good for admonishing and instructing me,
which you have not done; but not for bringing me into court, which you
have done! However, I corrupt them by teaching them not to believe in
the gods in whom the city believes, but in strange deities? Do I teach
that there are some gods, or that there are no gods at all?
MELETUS: I say that you believe in no gods. You say the sun is a stone,
and the moon earth.
SOCRATES: Most excellent Meletus, everyone knows that Anaxagoras says
so; you can buy that information for a drachma! Do I really appear to
you to revere no gods?
MELETUS: No, no gods at all.
SOCRATES: Now, that is incredible! You must have manufactured this
riddle out of sheer wantonness, for in the indictment you charge me with
reverencing gods! Can anyone believe that there are human affairs, or
equine affairs, or instrumental affairs without believing that there are
men, or horses, or instruments? You say expressly that I believe in
daemonic affairs, therefore in daemons; but daemons are a sort of gods or
the offspring of gods. Therefore, you cannot possibly believe that I do
not believe in gods. Really, I have sufficiently answered the
indictment. If I am condemned, it will not be on the indictment of
Meletus, but on popular calumnies; which have condemned good men before
me, and assuredly I shall not be the last.
_III.--The Defence_
It may be suggested that I ought to be ashamed of practices which have
brought you in danger of death. Risk of death is not to be taken into
account in any action which really matters at all. If it ought to be,
the heroes before Troy were bad characters! Every man should stand to
his post, come life, come death. Should I have stood to my post and
faced death when on service at Potidaca, but have failed through fear of
death when the deity imposed on me a certain course of action? Whether
to die be evil or good, I know not, though many think they know it to be
evil. But to disobey authority, human or divine, I know to be evil; and
I will not do what I know to be evil to avoid what may in fact be a
good. Insomuch that if you now offer to set me free on condition that I
should cease from these pursuits on pain of death, I should reply: "Men
of Athens, I love and honour you, but I will obey the god rather than
you; and while I breathe and have the power I will not cease from the
pursuit of philosophy, or from exhorting and warning you as I have done
hitherto, against caring much for riches and nothing for the perfecting
of your souls. This is the bidding of the god. If to speak thus be to
corrupt youth, then I corrupt youth. But he who says I speak other
things than this talks vanity; and this I will do, though the penalty
were many deaths."
Do not murmur, but listen, for you will profit. If you put me to death,
you will harm yourselves more than me, for it is worse to do wrong than
to suffer it. You will not easily find another to serve as the gadfly
which rouses a noble horse--as I have done, being commissioned thereto
by the god. For that I have made no profit for myself from this course,
my poverty proves. If it seems absurd that I should meddle thus with
each man privately, but take no part in public affairs, that is because
of the divine or daemonic influence of which I have spoken, named also in
mockery by Meletus in the indictment. This is a voice which checks but
never urges me on. Indeed, had I meddled with politics, I should have
been dead long ago.
That I will prove by facts. When you chose to condemn the ten generals,
my phyle supplied the Prytanes, and I alone stood out against you. And
in the time of the thirty, I was ordered with four others to bring Leon
from Salamis to be executed, and I alone would not; and it may be that
my own life was saved only because that government was broken up. Judge,
then, if my life would not have been shorter, had I taken part in public
life.
But I have never posed as an instructor or taken money for giving
instruction. Anyone who chooses can question me and hear what I have to
say. People take pleasure in my society, because they like to hear those
exposed who deem themselves wise but are not. This duty the god has laid
on me by oracles and dreams and every mode of divine authority. If I am
corrupting or have corrupted youth, why do none of them bear witness
against me, or their fathers or brothers or other kinsmen? Many I see
around me who should do so if this charge were true; yet all are ready
to assist me.
This, and the like, is what I have to say in my defence. Perhaps some of
you, thinking how, in a like case with mine but less exigent, he has
sought the compassion of the court with tears and pleadings of his
children and kinsfolk, will be indignant that I do none of these things,
though I have three boys of my own. That is not out of disrespect to
you, but because I think it would be unbeseeming to me. Such displays,
as though death were something altogether terrifying, are to me
astonishing and degrading to our city in the sight of strangers, for
persons reputed to excel in anything, as in some respects I am held to
excel the generality.
But apart from credit, I count that we ought to inform and convince our
judges, not seek to sway them by entreaties; that they may judge rightly
according to the laws, and not by favor. For you are sworn. And how
should I persuade you to break your oath, who am charged by Meletus with
impiety. For by so doing, I should be persuading you to disbelief in the
gods, and making that very charge against myself. To you and to the god
I leave it, that I may be judged as shall be best for you and for me.
_IV.--After the Verdict_
Your condemnation does not grieve me for various reasons, one of which
is that I fully expected it. What surprises me is the small majority by
which it was carried. Evidently Meletus, if left to himself, would have
failed to win the few votes needed to save him from the fine. Well, the
sentence he fixes is death, and I have to propose an
alternative--presumably, the sentence I deserve. I have neglected all
the ordinary pursuits and ambitions of men--which would have been no
good either to me or to you--that I might benefit each man privately, by
persuading him to give attention to himself first--how to attain his own
best and wisest--and his mere affairs afterwards, and the city in like
manner. The proper reward is that I should be maintained in the
Prytaneum as a public benefactor.
You may think this merely a piece of insolence, but it is not so. I am
not conscious of having wronged any man. Time does not permit me to
prove my case, and I will not admit guilt by owning that I deserve
punishment by a fine. What have I to fear? The penalty fixed by Meletus,
as to which I do not know whether it is good or bad? Shall I, to escape
this, choose something which is certainly bad? Imprisonment, to be the
slave of the Eleven? A fine, to be a prisoner till I pay it?--which
comes to the same thing, as I cannot pay. Exile? If my fellow-citizens
cannot put up with me, how can I expect strangers to do so? The young
men will come to listen to me. If I repulse them, they will drive me
out; and if I do not their elders will drive me out, and I shall live
wandering from city to city.
Why cannot I go and hold my tongue, you may ask. That is the one thing
which I cannot do. That would be to disobey the god, and the life would
not be worth living, though you do not believe me. I might undertake to
pay a mina. However, as Plato and Crito and Apollodorus urge me to name
thirty minae, for which they will be security, I propose thirty minae.
* * * * *
Your enemies will reproach you, Athenians, for having put to death that
wise man Socrates. Yet you would have had but a short time to wait, for
I am old. I speak to those of you who have condemned me. I am condemned,
not for lack of argument, but because I have not chosen to plead after
the methods that would have been pleasant and flattering to you, but
degrading to me. There are things we may not do to escape death, for
baseness is worse than death, and swifter. Death has overtaken me, who
am old, but baseness my accusers, who are strong. Truth condemns them,
as you have condemned me, and each of us abides sentence, And for you
who have condemned me there will be a penalty swift and sure, and so I
take my leave of you.
But to you, my true judges, who voted for my acquittal, I would speak
while yet we may. I have to tell you that my warning daemon has in no way
withstood the course I have taken, and the reason, assuredly, is that I
have done what is best, gaining blessing, death being no evil at all.
For death is either only to cease from sensations altogether as in a
dreamless sleep, and that is no loss; or else it is a passing to another
place where all the dead are--the heroes, the poets, the wise men of
old. How priceless were it to hold converse with them and question them!
And surely the judges there pass no death-sentences!
But be you hopeful with regard to death, for to the good man, neither in
life nor in death is there anything that can harm him. And for me, I am
confident that it is better to die than to live. Therefore the daemon did
not check me, and I have no resentment against those who have caused my
death. And now we go, I to death and you to life; but which of us to the
better state, God knoweth alone.