APOLOGY
How you,
my Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that
they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet
they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by
them, there was one which quite amazed me;—I mean when they said that you
should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force
of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as
I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did
indeed appear to me most shameless—unless by the force of eloquence they mean
the force of truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent.
But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have
scarcely spoken the truth at all; but from me you shall hear the whole truth:
not, however, delivered after their manner in a set oration duly ornamented
with words and phrases. No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments
which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident in the justice of my cause: 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 it of me. And I must beg of
you to grant me a favour:—If I defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you
hear me using the words which I have been in the habit of using in the agora,
at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to
be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more than
seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I
am quite a stranger to the language 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:—Am I making
an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good;
but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker
speak truly and the judge decide justly.
And first, I have to reply to the older charges and
to my first accusers, and then I will go on to the later ones. For of old I
have had many accusers, who have accused me falsely to you 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 the others, 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. The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom I dread;
for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not believe in the
existence of the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of
ancient date, and they were made by them in the days when you were more
impressible than you are now—in childhood, or it may have been in youth—and the
cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And hardest of
all, I do not know and cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in the
chance case of a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have persuaded
you—some of them having first convinced themselves—all this class of men are
most difficult to deal with; for I cannot have them up here, and cross-examine
them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and
argue 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 must make my defence, and endeavour to clear away in a short time, a
slander which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to succeed be for my
good and yours, or likely to avail me in my cause! The task is not an easy
one; I quite understand the nature of it. And so leaving the event with God, in
obedience to the law I will now make my defence.
I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the
accusation which has given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has
encouraged Meletus to prefer this charge against me. Well, 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.’ Such is the
nature of the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen in the
comedy of Aristophanes, who
has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he
walks in 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 speak
disparagingly of any one who is a student of natural philosophy. I should be
very sorry if Meletus could bring so grave a charge against me. But the simple
truth is, O Athenians, that I have nothing to do with physical speculations.
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 neighbours whether
any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in many upon such
matters. . . . You hear their answer. And from what they
say of this part of the charge 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; this accusation has no more truth in it than the
other. Although, if a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive
money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an honour to him. 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 at this time a Parian philosopher residing in Athens, of whom I
have heard; and I came to hear of him in this way:—I came across 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 some one 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 any one who understands human and political virtue? You
must have thought about the matter, for you have sons; is there any one?’
‘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 moderate 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 some one among you will
reply, ‘Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are
brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been
doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you
had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we
should be sorry to judge hastily of you.’ Now I regard this as a fair
challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called
wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of
you may think that 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, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained 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; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you
about my wisdom (my practice of it arose out of a
declaration of the Delphian Oracle that I was the wisest of men), if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must
have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend
of yours, for he shared in the recent 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
any one was 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 what I am saying.
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 his riddle?
for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then 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 long consideration, I 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 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 still wiser by himself; and thereupon I 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 pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same.
Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Then 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 others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the
tale of my wanderings and of the ‘Herculean’ labours, as I may call them, which
I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I
went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to
myself, you will be instantly 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
confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who
would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. Then
I knew 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. 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 here 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; and
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 to the oracle that I was better off as I
was.
This inquisition 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 by his answer he intends to
show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of
Socrates, he is only using my name by way of 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 about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make
enquiry into the wisdom of any one, 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 my 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 proceed to
examine others; there are plenty of persons, as they quickly 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 drawn
up 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 and
politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said 24at
the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such a 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 my plainness
of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am
speaking the truth?—Hence has arisen the prejudice against me; and this is the
reason of it, as you will find out either in this or in any future enquiry.
I have said enough in my defence against the first
class of my accusers; I turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus,
that good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Against
these, too, I must try to make a defence:—Let their affidavit be read: it
contains something of this kind: It says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who
corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has
other new divinities of his own. Such is the charge; and now let us examine the
particular counts. He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but
I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, in that he pretends to
be in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring 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 endeavour to prove to you.
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. All
men are discovered to be improvers of youth with the single exception of
Socrates. 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 Herè, that is good news! There are
plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the 25audience,—do
they improve them?
Yes, they do.
And the senators?
Yes, the senators improve them.
But perhaps the members of the 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 you are right. But suppose
I ask you a question: How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the
world good? Is not the exact opposite the truth? 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 of any other animals? Most assuredly it is; whether you
and Anytus say yes or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if
they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their
improvers. But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a
thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about the
very things which you bring against me.
And now, Meletus, I will ask you another
question—by Zeus I will: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among
good ones? Answer, friend, I say; the question is one which may be easily
answered. Do not the good do their neighbours good, and the bad do them evil?
Certainly.
And is there any one who would rather be injured
than benefited by those who live with him? Answer, my good friend, the law
requires you to answer—does any one like to be injured?
Certainly not.
When I do harm to my neighbour I must do harm to
myself: and therefore I cannot be supposed to injure them intentionally. 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
neighbours 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—so you say, although neither I nor any other human being
is ever likely to be convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them,
or I corrupt them unintentionally; and 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; but you would have nothing
to say to me and refused to teach me. And now you bring me up in this court,
which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment.
It will be very clear to you, 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 by which
I 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 other men to acknowledge some
gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire
atheist—this you do not lay to my charge,—but only you say that they are not
the same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that they are different
gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?
I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.
What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think
so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or
moon, like other men?
I assure you, judges, that he does not: 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
illiterate to such a degree as not to know that these doctrines are found in
the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full of them. And so,
forsooth, the youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when there are not
unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre (price
of admission one drachma at the most); and they might pay their money, and
laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father these extraordinary views. 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.
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 He must always be a preacher of
philosophy.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 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. ‘Necessity
is laid upon me:’ ‘I must obey God rather than man.’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.
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 Neither you nor Meletus can ever injure me.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.
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, I
am the gadfly of the Athenian people, given to them by God, and they will never
have another, if they kill me.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 31and
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.
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 will fight for the right, if he would live even for a
brief space, must have a private station and not a public one.
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.
The reasons why people delight in talking to
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 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. He is always talking to the citizens, but he
teaches nothing; he takes no pay and has no secrets.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.
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; 34and
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, 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.
He will not demean himself by entreaties.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. 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.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.
The judge should not be influenced by his feelings,
but convinced by reason.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, Why could they not wait a few years?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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.