Apology
The Defense
How you have been affected by my accusers, men of Athens, I cannot tell. I know that they almost made me forget who I was, so persuasively did they speak, and yet they have hardly said a word of truth. Of the many falsehoods they told, one especially amazed me. They warned you to be on your guard and not let yourselves be deceived by the force of my eloquence. They knew that as soon as I opened my mouth, I would expose their shamelessness by proving myself anything but a great speaker, unless by eloquence they mean the force of truth. If that is what they mean, I admit that I am eloquent, but in a very different way from them.
As I was saying, they have scarcely spoken the truth at all. From me you will hear the whole truth, though it will not be delivered in their manner, as a formal speech carefully ornamented with words and phrases. No, by heaven! I will use whatever words and arguments occur to me at the moment, for I am confident that my cause is just. At my age, I should not appear before you, men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator. Let no one expect that of me.
I must ask you for one favor. If I defend myself in my customary manner, and you hear me using the language I have been accustomed to use in the marketplace, at the money changers’ tables, or anywhere else, do not be surprised or interrupt me because of it. I am more than seventy years old and am appearing in a court of law for the first time. I am therefore a complete stranger to the language of this place. Regard me as you would a foreigner, whom you would excuse for speaking in his native tongue and in the fashion of his country. Is that an unfair request? Never mind whether my manner is good or bad. Think only about the truth of my words and attend to that. Let the speaker speak truly, and the judge decide justly.
First I must answer the old charges and my first accusers, and then I will turn to the more recent ones. I have had many accusers who have falsely accused me before you for many years. I fear them more than Anytus and his associates, though they too are dangerous in their own way. The others are far more dangerous. They began when you were children, took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, and told you about a certain Socrates, a wise man who speculates about the heavens, investigates things beneath the earth, and makes the worse argument appear the better. Those who spread this story are the accusers I fear, because their hearers are inclined to suppose that people who make such inquiries do not believe in the gods.
These accusers are numerous, and their charges against me are old. They made them when you were more impressionable than you are now, in childhood or perhaps in youth. Their case went entirely unanswered because no one was there to defend me. Hardest of all, I do not know and cannot tell you their names, except perhaps in the case of a comic poet. All those who have persuaded you through envy and malice, some after first persuading themselves, are very difficult to deal with. I cannot bring them here and cross-examine them. I must simply fight with shadows in my own defense and argue when no one answers.
I ask you, then, to recognize with me that my opponents are of two kinds, as I said: the recent and the ancient. I hope you will see that I should answer the ancient ones first, because you heard their accusations long before the others and much more often.
Well, then, I must make my defense and try, in a short time, to clear away a slander that has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if success would be good for you and me or would help my cause! The task is not easy; I understand its nature very well. Leaving the outcome with God, I will obey the law and make my defense.
I will begin at the beginning and ask what accusation gave rise to this slander and encouraged Meletus to bring his charge against me. What do the slanderers say? Let them stand as my prosecutors, and I will summarize their words as if in a sworn indictment: “Socrates is an evildoer and a curious person who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, makes the worse argument appear the better, and teaches these doctrines to others.”
That is the nature of the accusation. It is just what you yourselves have seen in Aristophanes’ comedy, where he introduces a man he calls Socrates who goes about saying that he “walks in air” and talks a great deal of nonsense about matters of which I do not claim to know either much or little. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of anyone who studies natural philosophy. I would be very sorry if Meletus could bring so serious a charge against me. But the simple truth, Athenians, is that I have nothing to do with physical speculation.
Many people present here can testify to this truth, and I appeal to them. Speak, those of you who have heard me, and tell your neighbors whether any of you has ever known me to speak, briefly or at length, about such matters. You hear their answer. From what they say about this part of the charge, you can judge the truth of the rest.
There is just as little foundation for the report that I am a teacher and take money. This accusation is no truer than the other. Still, if a man were truly able to instruct humanity, I think it would be an honor for him to receive payment for doing so. Gorgias of Leontium, Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis travel from city to city. They can persuade young men to leave their own fellow citizens, from whom they might learn without payment, and to come to them, pay them, and be grateful for permission to do so.
At this very time, I have heard, a philosopher from Paros is staying in Athens. I learned about him in this way. I happened to meet Callias, son of Hipponicus, who has spent a fortune on the Sophists. Knowing that he had sons, I asked him, “Callias, if your two sons were foals or calves, we would have no difficulty finding someone to supervise them. We would probably hire a horse trainer or a farmer who could develop and perfect the excellence proper to them. But since they are human beings, whom do you intend to place over them? Is there anyone who understands human and civic virtue? You must have considered the question, since you have sons. Is there anyone?”
“There is,” he said.
“Who is he?” I asked. “Where is he from, and what does he charge?”
“Evenus of Paros,” he replied. “He is the man, and his fee is five minas.”
Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he truly possesses this wisdom and teaches for such a modest fee. If I had that knowledge, I would be very proud and conceited. The truth, however, is that I have no knowledge of the kind.
Perhaps one of you will reply, “Yes, Socrates, but where did these accusations against you come from? You must have been doing something unusual. All these rumors and all this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men. Tell us what caused them, so that we do not judge you hastily.”
I consider that a fair challenge, and I will try to explain why I am called wise and have acquired such a bad reputation. Please pay attention. Although some of you may think I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth.
Men of Athens, my reputation has arisen from a certain kind of wisdom that I possess. What kind of wisdom? Perhaps merely human wisdom, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise. The people I mentioned before have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe because I do not possess it myself. Whoever says that I do is lying and slandering me.
Men of Athens, please do not interrupt me, even if what I say seems extravagant. The statement I am about to report is not my own. I will refer you to a trustworthy witness: the god at Delphi. He will tell you whether I have wisdom and what kind it is.
You must have known Chaerephon. He was a friend of mine from early days and a friend of yours as well, for he shared your recent exile and returned with you. As you know, Chaerephon was very impulsive in everything he did. He went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle whether anyone was wiser than I was. Again, I ask you not to interrupt. The Pythian prophetess answered that no man was wiser. Chaerephon himself is dead, but his brother, who is here in court, will confirm what I say.
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain why I have such a bad name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, “What can the god mean? How should I interpret his riddle? I know that I possess no wisdom, great or small. What, then, can he mean by saying that I am the wisest of men?” Yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be contrary to his nature.
After thinking for a long time, I devised a way to test the question. I reasoned that if I could find a man wiser than myself, I could go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I would say, “Here is a man wiser than I am, although you said I was the wisest.”
Accordingly, I visited someone reputed to be wise. I need not give his name; he was a politician whom I selected for examination. This was the result: as I talked with him, I came to think that he was not truly wise, though many people thought him wise and he thought himself wiser still. I tried to show him that he believed himself wise but was not. Consequently, he hated me, and his hostility was shared by several people who were present and heard us.
As I left, I said to myself, “Neither of us, I suppose, knows anything truly beautiful and good. But I am better off than he is, because he knows nothing and thinks he knows, while I neither know nor think that I know.” In this one respect, then, I seemed to have a slight advantage over him.
Next I visited another man with still greater claims to wisdom, and I reached exactly the same conclusion. In this way I made another enemy of him and of many others besides.
I went from one man to another, fully aware of the hostility I was provoking. I grieved and feared it, but necessity had been laid upon me. I thought the word of God must come first. I told myself, “I must go to everyone who appears to know and discover the meaning of the oracle.”
And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog! I must tell you the truth. The result of my mission was this: I found that the men with the highest reputations were almost the most foolish, while others who were less esteemed were truly wiser and better.
I will tell you the story of my wanderings and of the “Herculean” labors, as I may call them, which I endured only to find in the end that the oracle could not be refuted. After the politicians, I went to the poets, tragic poets, dithyrambic poets, and every other kind. There, I told myself, I would be caught at once and discover that I was more ignorant than they were.
I took some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings and asked what they meant, expecting them to teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that nearly anyone present could have spoken better about their poetry than they did themselves.
Then I understood that poets do not write poetry through wisdom, but through a kind of genius and inspiration. They are like diviners and soothsayers, who also say many fine things without understanding their meaning. The poets seemed to me to be in much the same condition. I also observed that, because of their poetry, they believed themselves the wisest of men in other matters where they were not wise. So I left them, considering myself superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.
At last I went to the craftsmen. I was conscious that I knew virtually nothing, and I was sure that they knew many fine things. In this I was not mistaken. They knew many things that I did not, and in that respect they were certainly wiser than I was.
But I observed that even the good craftsmen fell into the same error as the poets. Because they were good at their trades, each thought he also understood all sorts of higher matters. This fault overshadowed their wisdom. On behalf of the oracle, I therefore asked myself whether I would prefer to remain as I was, possessing neither their knowledge nor their ignorance, or to possess both as they did. I answered myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was.
This investigation has made me many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind and has also given rise to many slanders. I am called wise because my hearers always imagine that I possess the wisdom I find lacking in others. But the truth, men of Athens, is that God alone is wise. By his answer, he means to show that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. He is not speaking literally about Socrates. He is using my name as an illustration, as if to say, “That man among you is wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is truly worth nothing.”
So I continue to go about, obedient to the god, searching into the wisdom of anyone, citizen or foreigner, who appears to be wise. If he is not wise, then, in vindication of the oracle, I show him that he is not. This occupation absorbs me so completely that I have no time for public affairs or my own concerns, and I live in utter poverty because of my devotion to the god.
There is something else. Young men from the wealthier classes, who have little to do, come to me of their own accord. They enjoy hearing pretenders examined, and they often imitate me and examine others. They quickly discover plenty of people who think they know something but really know little or nothing.
Those whom they examine become angry with me instead of with themselves. “That confounded Socrates,” they say. “That villainous corrupter of youth!” If someone asks what evil I practice or teach, they do not know and cannot say. To avoid appearing at a loss, they repeat the stock accusations used against all philosophers: teaching things in the clouds and beneath the earth, not believing in the gods, and making the worse argument appear the better. They do not like to admit the truth, which is that their pretense of knowledge has been exposed.
Because they are numerous, ambitious, energetic, drawn up in battle formation, and persuasive in speech, they have filled your ears with their loud and persistent slanders. That is why my three accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, have attacked me. Meletus quarrels with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; and Lycon on behalf of the orators.
As I said at the beginning, I cannot expect to remove such a mass of slander in a moment. This, men of Athens, is the truth, the whole truth. I have hidden nothing and disguised nothing. Yet I know that my plain speech makes them hate me. What is their hatred but evidence that I speak the truth? This is the source and cause of the prejudice against me, as you will discover either in this inquiry or in any future one.
I have said enough in defense against my first group of accusers. I turn now to the second group, led by Meletus, that good and patriotic man, as he calls himself. Against them too I must try to defend myself.
Let us read their sworn charge. It says something like this: Socrates is an evildoer who corrupts the young and does not believe in the gods recognized by the state, but in other new divinities of his own.
That is the charge. Let us examine its individual parts. Meletus says that I do evil and corrupt the young. I say, men of Athens, that Meletus does evil because he pretends to be serious when he is only playing. He is eager to put people on trial through a pretended zeal for matters in which he has never taken the slightest interest. I will try to prove this to you.
Come here, Meletus, and answer me. You care greatly about improving the young, do you not?
“Yes, I do.”
Then tell the judges who improves them. You must know, since you have taken the trouble to discover who corrupts them and have brought me before the judges to accuse me. Speak and tell them who improves the young.
Notice, Meletus, that you are silent and have nothing to say. Is this not disgraceful and considerable proof of what I said, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak, my friend, and tell us who improves them.
“The laws.”
But that, my good sir, is not what I mean. I want to know which person understands the laws in the first place.
“The judges present in court, Socrates.”
What, Meletus? Do you mean that they can instruct and improve the young?
“Certainly.”
All of them, or only some and not others?
“All of them.”
By the goddess Hera, that is good news! We have plenty of people to improve them. What about the audience? Do they improve them too?
“Yes.”
And the senators?
“Yes, the senators improve them.”
Perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt them, then? Or do they also improve them?
“They improve them.”
Then every Athenian improves and elevates the young except me, and I alone corrupt them. Is that what you maintain?
“That is exactly what I maintain.”
If you are right, I am very unfortunate. But let me ask you a question. What about horses? Does one person harm them while everyone else does them good? Is not precisely the opposite true? One person, or at least only a few, can improve them. The horse trainer does them good, while most of those who handle them do them harm. Is that not true, Meletus, of horses and every other animal? It certainly is, whether you and Anytus say yes or no.
The young would indeed be fortunate if they had only one corrupter and everyone else improved them. But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you have never given any thought to the young. Your carelessness is clear from your lack of concern about the very matters for which you prosecute me.
Now, Meletus, I will ask you another question, by Zeus. Is it better to live among bad citizens or good ones? Answer, my friend. The question is easy. Do not good people benefit their neighbors, while bad people harm them?
“Certainly.”
Does anyone prefer to be harmed rather than benefited by those who live with him? Answer, my good friend. The law requires you to answer. Does anyone like to be harmed?
“Certainly not.”
When you accuse me of corrupting and degrading the young, do you claim that I do so intentionally or unintentionally?
“Intentionally, I say.”
But you have just admitted that good people benefit their neighbors and bad people harm them. Has your superior wisdom recognized this truth so early in life, while at my age I remain so deeply ignorant that I do not know that if I corrupt someone with whom I must live, he is very likely to harm me? And yet, according to you, I corrupt him intentionally. Neither I nor any other human being is likely to be convinced by you.
Either I do not corrupt the young, or I do so unintentionally. On either account, you are lying. If my offense is unintentional, the law does not deal with unintentional offenses in this way. You should have taken me aside privately and warned and instructed me. If I had been properly advised, I would undoubtedly have stopped doing what I was doing unintentionally. But you avoided me, refused to teach me, and now bring me into this court, a place of punishment rather than instruction.
It will be perfectly clear to you, Athenians, as I said, that Meletus has never cared about this matter at all, either greatly or slightly. Still, I would like to know, Meletus, how you claim that I corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods acknowledged by the state, but to recognize other new divinities or spiritual agencies instead. Are these the teachings by which you say I corrupt them?
“Yes, that is emphatically what I say.”
Then, by the very gods we are discussing, Meletus, explain your meaning more clearly to me and to the court. I still do not understand whether you affirm that I teach people to acknowledge certain gods, which would mean that I do believe in gods and am not a complete atheist. You do not charge me with atheism on that account, but with believing in gods different from those the city recognizes. Or do you mean simply that I am an atheist and teach atheism?
“I mean the latter. You are a complete atheist.”
What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe the sun and moon are gods, as other men do?
“I assure you, judges, that he does not. He says the sun is stone and the moon earth.”
My friend Meletus, you think you are accusing Anaxagoras. You must have a very poor opinion of the judges if you imagine them so illiterate that they do not know these doctrines fill the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Are the young supposed to learn them from Socrates when they can sometimes hear them at the theater, paying no more than one drachma, and then laugh at Socrates if he pretends these extraordinary views are his own? So, Meletus, do you truly think I believe in no god at all?
“I swear by Zeus that you believe in absolutely none.”
No one will believe you, Meletus, and I am quite sure you do not believe yourself. Men of Athens, I cannot help thinking that Meletus is reckless and insolent, and that he wrote this indictment out of mere wantonness and youthful bravado.
Has he not composed a riddle to test me? He said to himself, “I will see whether the wise Socrates discovers my clever contradiction or whether I can deceive him and everyone else.” He clearly contradicts himself in the indictment, as though he had said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods and yet of believing in them. This is not the conduct of someone who is serious.
Men of Athens, join me in examining what I take to be his inconsistency. Meletus, you must answer. And I remind the audience of my request not to make a disturbance if I speak in my customary manner.
Did any man, Meletus, ever believe in human activities but not in human beings? Men of Athens, I wish he would answer instead of continually trying to provoke an interruption. Did anyone ever believe in horsemanship but not in horses, or in flute playing but not in flute players? No, my friend. Since you refuse to answer, I will answer you and the court: no one ever did.
Now please answer the next question. Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies but not in spirits or demigods?
“He cannot.”
How fortunate I am to have extracted that answer with the court’s help! Yet in your indictment you swear that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual agencies, whether new or old makes no difference. At any rate, you say under oath that I believe in spiritual agencies. If I believe in divine beings, how can I avoid believing in spirits or demigods? Surely I must, and I will take your silence as agreement.
What are spirits or demigods? Are they not either gods or children of gods?
“Certainly.”
This is what I call your clever riddle. You say first that I do not believe in gods and then that I do believe in gods, since I believe in demigods. If demigods are the illegitimate children of gods, whether by nymphs or by any other mothers from whom they are said to descend, what human being could believe that the children of gods exist but that gods do not? One might as well affirm the existence of mules while denying the existence of horses and donkeys.
Such nonsense, Meletus, can only have been included in the indictment to test me. You put it there because you had no genuine charge to bring. No one with the least understanding will ever be convinced that the same person can believe in divine and superhuman things yet not believe in gods, demigods, and heroes.
I have said enough in answer to Meletus’s charge. No elaborate defense is needed. But I know very well how many enemies I have made, and this is what will destroy me if I am destroyed. It will not be Meletus or Anytus, but the envy and slander of the world, which have caused the deaths of many good men and will probably cause the deaths of many more. There is no danger that I will be the last.
Someone may say, “Socrates, are you not ashamed of following a way of life likely to bring you to an early death?”
I may fairly answer him: “You are mistaken. A man who is good for anything should not calculate his chances of living or dying. He should consider only whether what he is doing is right or wrong, and whether he is acting as a good man or a bad one.”
According to your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were worth little, especially the son of Thetis, who completely despised danger when compared with disgrace. When he was eager to kill Hector, his divine mother told him that if he avenged his companion Patroclus and killed Hector, he himself would die. “Fate,” she said, in these or similar words, “waits for you next after Hector.”
When Achilles heard this warning, he utterly despised danger and death. Instead of fearing them, he feared living in dishonor without avenging 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.” Did Achilles give any thought to death and danger?
Wherever a man’s post is, whether he has chosen it himself or been placed there by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger. He should think neither of death nor of anything else before disgrace. Men of Athens, this is true.
My conduct would indeed be strange if, when the generals you elected placed me at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium, I remained at my post like any other man and faced death, but now, when as I conceive and believe God commands me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission by examining myself and others, I deserted my post through fear of death or any other fear.
That would truly be strange. I might then justly be prosecuted for denying the existence of the gods, because I disobeyed the oracle out of fear of death and imagined myself wise when I was not. The fear of death is only a pretense of wisdom, not true wisdom, because it pretends to know what is unknown. No one knows whether death, which people fear as the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
Is this not a disgraceful kind of ignorance, the conceit that a person knows what he does not know? In this respect alone, I believe I differ from people in general and may perhaps claim to be wiser. Although I know little about the world below, I do not suppose that I know. But I do know that injustice and disobedience to one’s superior, whether god or man, are evil and dishonorable. I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.
Suppose, then, that you were to release me now and reject the advice of Anytus. He said that either I should never have been prosecuted or, once prosecuted, must be put to death, because if I escaped, your sons would all be utterly ruined by listening to me. Suppose you said, “Socrates, this time we will disregard Anytus and let you go, but on one condition: you must no longer inquire and speculate in this way. If you are caught doing so again, you will die.”
If you offered to release me on those terms, I would reply: “Men of Athens, I honor and love you, but I will obey God rather than you. As long as I have life and strength, I will never cease practicing and teaching philosophy. I will exhort anyone I meet and speak to him in my customary way: ‘My friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a great, mighty, and wise city. Are you not ashamed of devoting yourself to accumulating as much money, honor, and reputation as possible while caring so little about wisdom, truth, and the greatest improvement of your soul?’”
If the person says, “Yes, but I do care,” I do not leave him or let him go at once. I question, examine, and cross-examine him. If I think he possesses no virtue but merely says that he does, I reproach him for undervaluing what is greater and overvaluing what is less.
I will repeat the same words to everyone I meet, young and old, citizen and foreigner, but especially to citizens because they are my own people. Know that this is God’s command. I believe no greater good has ever come to the state than my service to God.
I do nothing but go about persuading all of you, young and old alike, not to care first for your bodies or possessions, but to care first and chiefly for the greatest possible improvement of your souls. I tell you that money does not produce virtue, but virtue produces money and every other good for humanity, both public and private.
This is my teaching. If it corrupts the young, then I am a harmful person. But if anyone says this is not my teaching, he speaks falsely. Therefore, men of Athens, whether you follow Anytus or not, whether you acquit me or not, understand that I will never change my ways, even if I must die many times.
Men of Athens, do not interrupt me. Hear me out, as we agreed. I have something more to say that may make you want to cry out, but I believe it will be good for you to hear me. Therefore, I ask you not to interrupt.
If you kill a man like me, you will harm yourselves more than you harm me. Neither Meletus nor Anytus can harm me, because a bad man is not permitted to harm a better man. I do not deny that Anytus may kill me, drive me into exile, or deprive me of civil rights. Anytus may imagine, as others may too, that he is inflicting a great injury on me, but I do not agree. The evil of doing what he is now doing, unjustly taking another person’s life, is far greater.
Athenians, I am not now arguing for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, so that by condemning me you may not sin against God and reject his gift to you. If you kill me, you will not easily find a successor.
If I may use a ridiculous image, I am a kind of gadfly given to the state by God. The state is a great and noble horse, sluggish because of its size and needing to be stirred into life. I am the gadfly God has attached to the state. All day long and everywhere, I fasten upon you, arousing, persuading, and reproaching each of you.
You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I advise you to spare me. Perhaps you are irritated, like someone suddenly awakened from sleep, and think you can simply strike me dead, as Anytus advises. Then you might sleep through the rest of your lives, unless God, in his care for you, sent another gadfly.
Here is proof that I have been given to you by God. If I had been like other men, I would not have neglected all my own concerns or patiently endured their neglect for so many years while attending to yours. I would not have approached you individually, like a father or elder brother, urging you to care about virtue. Such conduct would be contrary to ordinary human nature.
If I had gained anything from it, or if I had been paid for my exhortations, my conduct would make some sense. Yet, as you can see, not even my accusers in all their shamelessness dare to say that I have ever demanded or sought payment from anyone. They have no witness to that. I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say: my poverty.
Someone may wonder why I go about privately giving advice and attending to other people’s concerns but do not come forward publicly to advise the state. I will tell you why.
You have often heard me speak, in various times and places, about an oracle or sign that comes to me. This is the divinity Meletus ridicules in the indictment. The sign, which is a kind of voice, first came to me in childhood. It always forbids me from doing something I am about to do, but never commands me to do anything. This is what prevents me from entering politics, and I think it is right to prevent me.
I am certain, men of Athens, that if I had entered politics, I would have died long ago and done no good either to you or to myself. Do not be offended when I tell you the truth. No man who honestly opposes the many lawless and unrighteous acts committed in a state, whether by you or any other multitude, will preserve his life. Anyone who truly fights for justice and wishes to live even a short time must occupy a private station, not a public one.
I can give you convincing evidence for this, not merely words but actions, which you value far more. Let me tell you an incident from my life. It will show that I would never yield to injustice through fear of death, and that if I had refused to yield while continually holding public office, I would have died at once. The story concerns public proceedings. It may not be very interesting, but it is true.
The only public office I ever held, men of Athens, was as a senator. My tribe, Antiochis, held the presidency during the trial of the generals who had failed to recover the bodies of those killed after the battle of Arginusae. You proposed to try them collectively, contrary to law, as all of you later acknowledged. At the time, I alone among the presiding officials opposed this illegal action and voted against you.
When the orators threatened to impeach and arrest me, and you shouted and demanded action, I decided to run the risk with law and justice on my side rather than participate in your injustice because I feared imprisonment or death. This happened during the democracy.
Later, when the oligarchy of the Thirty held power, they summoned me and four others to the rotunda and ordered us to bring Leon of Salamis from Salamis so that they could put him to death. This was typical of the commands they continually issued in order to implicate as many people as possible in their crimes.
Then I showed, not only in words but in action, that, if I may put it this way, I did not care a straw for death. My great and only concern was to avoid doing anything unrighteous or unholy. The oppressive power of that government did not frighten me into wrongdoing. When we left the rotunda, the other four went to Salamis and brought Leon back, but I quietly went home. I might have lost my life for this if the power of the Thirty had not ended soon afterward. Many people can testify to what I say.
Do you truly imagine that I could have survived all these years if I had lived a public life, always defended justice as a good man should, and made it my highest concern? Certainly not, men of Athens. Neither I nor any other man could have done so.
I have always been the same in every action, public and private. I have never made any dishonorable concession to those who are falsely called my disciples or to anyone else. I do not have regular disciples. If anyone wishes to come and hear me while I pursue my mission, whether young or old, I exclude no one. I do not speak only with those who pay. Anyone, rich or poor, may question and answer me or listen to what I say.
Whether such a listener becomes a good man or a bad one, neither result can justly be attributed to me, because I have never taught or professed to teach him anything. If anyone says he has learned or heard something from me in private that everyone else has not heard, you may be sure he is lying.
But someone will ask, “Why do people enjoy continually talking with you?” Athenians, I have already told you the whole truth. They enjoy hearing pretenders to wisdom cross-examined, because it is amusing.
