Classic Audiobook Collection - Apology by Plato ~ Full Audiobook [philosophy]

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Apology by Plato audiobook. Genre: philosophy Plato's Apology is not an apology in the modern sense, but a powerful courtroom defense in which Socrates speaks for himself before an Athenian jury. Set during the famous trial that threatens his reputation, freedom, and life, the book presents Socrates as an unshaken seeker of truth, answering charges that he corrupts the young and disrespects the city's gods. Through a speech that is at once logical, provocative, and deeply personal, he examines the rumors that have followed him for years and explains why his relentless questioning of politicians, poets, and craftsmen has made him both admired and feared. Rather than pleading for sympathy, Socrates turns the trial into a meditation on wisdom, virtue, justice, and the duty to live an examined life. Plato captures the tension between the individual conscience and the demands of society, showing how dangerous honesty can become in a world that prefers comfort to self-scrutiny. Clear, dramatic, and surprisingly vivid, Apology remains one of the most influential portraits of moral courage ever written, and an essential introduction to Socratic thought. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:36:59) Chapter 2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

apology by plato translated by benjamin joad part one how you o'etthenians 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 on 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, and how different away from theirs? Well, as I was saying, they have scarcely spoken to 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. Or I am certain that I am right in taking this course. 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 favor. If I defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have, 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 the

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. At first I have to reply to the older charges, and to my first accusation.

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 Anitus and his associates who are dangerous to 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's Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heavens above, and searched into the earth below, 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 inquirers 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 thought first convince 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 defense, 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 defense, and endeavor to clear away in a short time, a slender which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to succeed, be from 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 defense. 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 prove this charge against me?

Well, what do the slanderer 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 neighbors 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 true 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 honor to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Kios, and Nepius of Ellis, who go to the rounds 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 sopests, Callius, the son of Hippineus, and knowing that he had sons I asked him, "'Callius,' I said, "'if your two sons were foals or calves, There would be no difficulty in finding someone 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 anyone who understands human and political virtue? You must have thought about the matter, for you have sons. Is there anyone? There is, he said. Who is he? said I. And of what country?

And what does he charge? A venus the Parian, he replied. He is the man, and his charge is five minet. Happy is avenus, 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 rumors 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 endeavor to explain to you the reason why i am called wise and have such an evil fame pleased 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 am 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, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Cheraphone, he was an early friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Cheraphan, 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 anyone was wiser than I was. And the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. Cheraphone 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. system, 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 me. many, and still wiser by himself. And thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but he 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 last particular, then, I seemed 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 beside 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 labors, 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 in 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 them 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 will 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 believe themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they are 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. I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as to the politicians. 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 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 inquiry into the world-and-and-so i go about the world obedient to the god and search and make inquiry into the world wisdom of anyone, 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 practice 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 pretense 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, Miletus, and Anarchus, and Anon, Anitus and Lycon have sat upon me. Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets. Anitus on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians. Lycon on behalf of the rhetoricians.

And as I said at 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 inquiry.

I have said enough in my defense against the first class of my accusers. I turn to the second class. They are headed by Miletus, that good man and true lover of his country as he calls himself. Against these two I must try to make a defense. 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. But 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 Miletus 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 endeavor to try and,

approved 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 pain to discover their corruptor, and reciting and accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their improver is. Observe, Meletus, that you are silent. and have nothing to say. But is this not 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, Miletus, that they are able to instruct and improve youth? Certainly they are.

What? All of them, are some only, and not others? All of them. By the goddess hare, that is good news. There are plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of this audience? 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 corruptor, 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 in 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 that not true maledious of horses or of any other amy other animals most assuredly it is whether you and anita say yes or no happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corruptor 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 neighbors 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 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 neighbors good and the evil do them evil now is that a truth which your superior Wisdom has recognized this early in life?

Or am I at my age in such darkness and ignorance as to not 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 offense is unintentional the law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses you ought to have taken me privately and warned me and admonished me or 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 you would have nothing to say to me and now you would have nothing to say to me and now you 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

greater small about the matter. But still I should like to know, Miletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the youth. 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 are spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons by which I corrupt the youth, as you say. Yes, I say that emphatically. Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me in the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean!

For I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach other men men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheists. 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, Miletus? 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 book of Anaxagoras the Chlasomenian, 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? Probably an allusion to Aristophanes who caricatured, and to Euripides who borrowed the notions of Annexagoras as well as other dramatic. poets. Price of admission won Drachma at the most. And they might pay their money and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to follow 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 imprudent, 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 of 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 to you melita's answer and i must remind the audience of my request that they would not make a disturbance by speaking in my accustomed manner.

Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human beings 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? Are 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 to for yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now, pleased 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 gods, 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, Boletus, 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 supernatural things and yet not believe that there are gods and demi-gods 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

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 was no danger of my being the last of the world-buttain the death of many more there was no danger of my being the last of them some will say 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 petroclus and slew hector he would die himself fate she said in these are the last words, waits for you next after Hector. He received this warning, utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonor 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 end of part one part two of the apology of socrates by plato translated by benjamin joit this librivox recording is in the public domain part two 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 potidier 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 fulfill 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 pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense 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 dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And therefore, if you will let me go now and are not convinced by Anitus, 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, Anitus, and you shall be let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to inquire 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 honor and love you, and 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 anyone whom I meet and saying to him after my manner,

You are 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 honor and reputcheon? 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'm 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 everyone 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 anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as anitus bids or not as anitus 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 a one as i am you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me nothing will injure me not meletus nor yet anitis they cannot for a bad man is not persuaded to injure a better than himself i do not deny that anitus 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 the night as 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 perceive not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that i have ever exacted or sought pay of any one or that they have no witnesses 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 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, or 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 would 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 the state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of Senator. The tribe Antiochus, 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 Argenus, 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 Pritanez, who was a person. 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 V-30 was in power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda. and bade us bring Leon the Salamanian 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 indeed, 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 anyone 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 me.

But anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my word. 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 anyone 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 anyone.

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 Kretto, who is of the same age and of the same deem with myself. There is Kretobulus, his son, whom I also see. Then again there is Lysanius of Spetus, who is the father of Escanines. He is present. And also there is Antiphon of Sefius, who is the father of Epigenas. There are the brothers of several who have associated with me. There is Nicostratus, the son of Theodotis, and the brother of Theodotus.

Now Theodotus himself is dead, and therefore he at any rate will not seek to stop him. there is farlus the son of democulus who had a brother the aeges and adamatus the son of ariston whose brother plato is present and a trodulus 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 corruptor of the injurer of their kindred as meletus and anitus and anitus 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 defense which I have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be someone 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 that 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. I think that such are a dishonor 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 honor and command, are no better than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who have a reputation,

and if they are done, you ought not to permit them. You ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous than him who holds his peace. but setting aside the question of public opinion there seems to be something wrong in asking a favor 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 dishonorable and impious and wrong especially now when i am being tried for impiety on the indictment of meletus for 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 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-i do 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 Miletus. I may say more, for without the assistance of Anteus 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 trekmae. 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 stither 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 interest 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 pritoneum o men of athens a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won't be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the pritonium 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 pritoneum 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 anyone, although I cannot convince you, the time has been too short. If there had been 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 have fixed,

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 disclosures in 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, wondering from sin, 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. Someone will say, yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold you, 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 offense 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 minna, and therefore I propose that penalty. Plato, Crito, Cretobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here,

bid me say thirty minne, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minne be the penalty, for which some 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 though 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 defense. 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 means 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 wake, 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 someone from censoring your evil lives.

You are mistaken. That is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable. 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 also like 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 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 to be a thing either death is a state of nothingness and to be a good and to see that there is a great reason to hope that death is a state of nothingness and to a 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 asleep like the sleep of him who was 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 or 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, oh, 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 Rondamontus and Akus 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 Musae, and Hesod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I myself too so have a wonderful interest in their meeting and conversing with Palomides,

and Ajax the son of Talaimon, 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 and 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, Ossophysus, 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.

far 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 has 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 favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, oh 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.

End of Apology by Plato.