Apology
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 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, 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 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.
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.
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.
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; and Adeimantus the son of Ariston, whose brother Plato
is present; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus, whom I
also see. I might mention a great many others, 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.
Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the defence which I
have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one who is
offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, or
even a less serious occasion, prayed and entreated the judges with many
tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving
spectacle, together with a host of relations and friends; whereas I,
who am probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things. The
contrast may occur to his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote
in anger because he is displeased at me on this account. Now if there
be such a person among you,—mind, I do not say that there is,—to him I
may fairly reply: My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature
of flesh and blood, and not “of wood or stone,” as Homer says; and I
have a family, yes, and sons, O Athenians, three in number, one almost
a man, and two others who are still young; and yet I will not bring any
of them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not?
Not from any self-assertion or want of respect for you. Whether I am or
am not afraid of death is another question, of which I will not now
speak. But, having regard to public opinion, I feel that such conduct
would be discreditable to myself, and to you, and to the whole state.
One who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, ought not
to demean himself. Whether this opinion of me be deserved or not, at
any rate the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to
other men. And if those among you who are said to be superior in wisdom
and courage, and any other virtue, demean themselves in this way, how
shameful is their conduct! I have seen men of reputation, when they
have been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner: they seemed to
fancy that they were going to suffer something dreadful if they died,
and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them to live; and I
think that such are a dishonour to the state, and that any stranger
coming in would have said of them that the most eminent men of Athens,
to whom the Athenians themselves give honour and command, are no better
than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those
of us who have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to
permit them; you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to
condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city
ridiculous, than him who holds his peace.