How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I
cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I
was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly
uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them,
there was one which quite amazed me;—I mean when they said that you
should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived
by the force of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain
to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be
anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most
shameless—unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of
truth; for is such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent.
But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they
have scarcely spoken the truth at all; but from me you shall hear
the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their manner in a
set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No, by heaven!
but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the
moment; for I am confident in the justice of my cause (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 favour:—If I defend myself in my
accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have
been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of the
money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be
surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more
than seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in
a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the language of the place;
and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were really a
stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue,
and after the fashion of his country:—Am I making an unfair request
of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but
think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the
speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.
And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first
accusers, and then I will go on to the later ones. For of old I
have had many accusers, who have accused me falsely to you during
many years; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his
associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more
dangerous are the others, who began when you were children, and
took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one
Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and
searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the
better cause. The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom
I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do
not believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many, and
their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were made by
them in the days when you were more impressible than you are now—in
childhood, or it may have been in youth—and the cause when heard
went by default, for there was none to answer. And hardest of all,
I do not know and cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in
the chance case of a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have
persuaded you—some of them having first convinced themselves—all
this class of men are most difficult to deal with; for I cannot
have them up here, and cross-examine them, and therefore I must
simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and argue when there
is no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I
was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds; one recent, the
other ancient: and I hope that you will see the propriety of my
answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long
before the others, and much oftener.
Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour to clear away
in a short time, a slander which has lasted a long time. May I
succeed, if to succeed be for my good and yours, or likely to avail
me in my cause! The task is not an easy one; I quite understand the
nature of it. And so leaving the event with God, in obedience to
the law I will now make my defence.
I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation
which has given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has
encouraged Meletus to proof this charge against me. Well, what do
the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up
their words in an affidavit: ‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a
curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in
heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he
teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’ Such is the nature of
the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen in the
comedy of Aristophanes (Aristoph., Clouds.), who has introduced a
man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in
air, and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I
do not pretend to know either much or little—not that I mean to
speak disparagingly of any one who is a student of natural
philosophy. I should be very sorry if Meletus could bring so grave
a charge against me. But the simple truth is, O Athenians, that I
have nothing to do with physical speculations. Very many of those
here present are witnesses to the truth of this, and to them I
appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your neighbours
whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in
many upon such matters… You hear their answer. And from what they
say of this part of the charge you will be able to judge of the
truth of the rest.
As little foundation is there for the report that I am a
teacher, and take money; this accusation has no more truth in it
than the other. Although, if a man were really able to instruct
mankind, to receive money for giving instruction would, in my
opinion, be an honour to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and
Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the
cities, and are able to persuade the young men to leave their own
citizens by whom they might be taught for nothing, and come to them
whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to
pay them. There is at this time a Parian philosopher residing in
Athens, of whom I have heard; and I came to hear of him in this
way:—I came across a man who has spent a world of money on the
Sophists, Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had
sons, I asked him: ‘Callias,’ I said, ‘if your two sons were foals
or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding some one to put
over them; we should hire a trainer of horses, or a farmer
probably, who would improve and perfect them in their own proper
virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings, whom are you
thinking of placing over them? Is there any one who understands
human and political virtue? You must have thought about the matter,
for you have sons; is there any one?’ ‘There is,’ he said. ‘Who is
he?’ said I; ‘and of what country? and what does he charge?’
‘Evenus the Parian,’ he replied; ‘he is the man, and his charge is
five minae.’ Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has
this wisdom, and teaches at such a moderate charge. Had I the same,
I should have been very proud and conceited; but the truth is that
I have no knowledge of the kind.
I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, ‘Yes,
Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are
brought against you; there must have been something strange which
you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you
would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us,
then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge
hastily of you.’ Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will
endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and
have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of
you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the
entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a
certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of
wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for
to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the
persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom which I may
fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says
that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And
here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if
I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will
speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of
credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you
about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must
have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a
friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people,
and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very
impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked
the oracle to tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not
to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was
wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there
was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who
is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying.
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why
I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to
myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of
his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What
then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet
he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature.
After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the
question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than
myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I
should say to him, ‘Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you
said that I was the wisest.’ Accordingly I went to one who had the
reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention;
he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result
was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help
thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise
by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to
explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really
wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was
shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him,
saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose
that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am
better off than he is,— for he knows nothing, and thinks that he
knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter
particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.
Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom,
and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another
enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of
the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but
necessity was laid upon me,—the word of God, I thought, ought to be
considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear
to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to
you, Athenians, by the dog I swear! —for I must tell you the
truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men
most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less
esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of
my wanderings and of the ‘Herculean’ labours, as I may call them,
which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After
the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all
sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected;
now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are.
Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in
their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them—thinking
that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am
almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is
hardly a person present who would not have talked better about
their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by
wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and
inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say
many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. The
poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further
observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed
themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they
were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to
them for the same reason that I was superior to the
politicians.
At last I went to the artisans. I was conscious that I knew
nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many
fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for they did know many
things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were
wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell
into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen
they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and
this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I
asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as
I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like
them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I
was better off as I was.
This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of the worst
and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many
calumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that
I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the
truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer
he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or
nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name
by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest,
who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth
nothing. And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and
search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen
or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in
vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my
occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to
any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am
in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.
There is another thing:—young men of the richer classes, who
have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like
to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and
proceed to examine others; there are plenty of persons, as they
quickly discover, who think that they know something, but really
know little or nothing; and then those who are examined by them
instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me: This
confounded Socrates, they say; this villainous misleader of youth!—
and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or
teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they
may not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges
which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in
the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the
worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that
their pretence of knowledge has been detected— which is the truth;
and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are drawn
up in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled
your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies. And this is the
reason why my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have
set upon me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the
poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon,
on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said 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 enquiry.
I have said enough in my defence against the first class of my
accusers; I turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus,
that good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself.
Against these, too, I must try to make a defence:—Let their
affidavit be read: it contains something of this kind: It says that
Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does
not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities
of his own. Such is the charge; and now let us examine the
particular counts. He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt
the youth; but I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of
evil, in that he pretends to be in earnest when he is only in jest,
and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pretended zeal and
interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest
interest. And the truth of this I will endeavour to prove to
you.
Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You
think a great deal about the improvement of youth?
Yes, I do.
Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you must know,
as you have taken the pains to discover their corrupter, and are
citing and accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the
judges who their improver is.—Observe, Meletus, that you are
silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather
disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what I was saying,
that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up, friend, and tell
us who their improver is.
The laws.
But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the
person is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.
The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.
What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able to
instruct and improve youth?
Certainly they are.
What, all of them, or some only and not others?
All of them.
By the goddess Here, that is good news! There are plenty of
improvers, then. And what do you say of the 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 corrupter? Is that what
you affirm?
That is what I stoutly affirm.
I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose I ask you a
question: How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the
world good? Is not the exact opposite the truth? One man is able to
do them good, or at least not many;—the trainer of horses, that is
to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them rather
injure them? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or of any other
animals? Most assuredly it is; whether you and Anytus say yes or
no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one
corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers.
But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a
thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not
caring about the very things which you bring against me.
And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question—by Zeus I
will: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good
ones? Answer, friend, I say; the question is one which may be
easily answered. Do not the good do their neighbours good, and the
bad do them evil?
Certainly.
And is there anyone 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 neighbours
good, and the evil do them evil. Now, is that a truth which your
superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my
age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man
with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be
harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally, too—so you
say, although neither I nor any other human being is ever likely to
be convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt
them unintentionally; and on either view of the case you lie. If my
offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of
unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and
warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I
should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally—no doubt
I should; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to
teach me. And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place
not of instruction, but of punishment.
It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was saying, that
Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the matter. But
still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to
corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your
indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the
state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual
agencies in their stead. These are the lessons by which I corrupt
the youth, as you say.
Yes, that I say emphatically.
Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and
the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean! for I do not
as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach other men to
acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and
am not an entire atheist—this you do not lay to my charge,—but only
you say that they are not the same gods which the city
recognizes—the charge is that they are different gods. Or, do you
mean that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?
I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.
What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so, Meletus?
Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or
moon, like other men?
I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that the sun
is stone, and the moon earth.
Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras: and
you have but a bad opinion of the judges, if you fancy them
illiterate to such a degree as not to know that these doctrines are
found in the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full of
them. And so, forsooth, the youth are said to be taught them by
Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at
the theatre (Probably in allusion to Aristophanes who caricatured,
and to Euripides who borrowed the notions of Anaxagoras, as well as
to other dramatic poets.) (price of admission one drachma at the
most); and they might pay their money, and laugh at Socrates if he
pretends to father these extraordinary views. And so, Meletus, you
really think that I do not believe in any god?
I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.
Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you
do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking, men of Athens,
that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has written this
indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. Has
he not compounded a riddle, thinking to try me? He said to
himself:—I shall see whether the wise Socrates will discover my
facetious contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him
and the rest of them. For he certainly does appear to me to
contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said that
Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of
believing in them—but this is not like a person who is in
earnest.
I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining what
I conceive to be his inconsistency; and do you, Meletus, answer.
And I must remind the audience of my request that they would not
make a disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner:
Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human things,
and not of human beings?… I wish, men of Athens, that he would
answer, and not be always trying to get up an interruption. Did
ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in
flute-playing, and not in flute-players? No, my friend; I will
answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for
yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer
the next question: Can a man believe in spiritual and divine
agencies, and not in spirits or demigods?
He cannot.
How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by the assistance
of the court! But then you swear in the indictment that I teach and
believe in divine or spiritual agencies (new or old, no matter for
that); at any rate, I believe in spiritual agencies,—so you say and
swear in the affidavit; and yet if I believe in divine beings, how
can I help believing in spirits or demigods;—must I not? To be sure
I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent.
Now what are spirits or demigods? Are they not either gods or the
sons of gods?
Certainly they are.
But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented by you:
the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I do not
believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is,
if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are the illegitimate
sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, of
whom they are said to be the sons—what human being will ever
believe that there are no gods if they are the sons of gods? You
might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of
horses and asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been
intended by you to make trial of me. You have put this into the
indictment because you had nothing real of which to accuse me. But
no one who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced
by you that the same men can believe in divine and superhuman
things, and yet not believe that there are gods and demigods and
heroes.
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any
elaborate defence is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many
are the enmities which I have incurred, and this is what will be my
destruction if I am destroyed;—not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the
envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many
good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no
danger of my being the last of them.
Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a
course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To
him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good
for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying;
he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing
right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad. Whereas,
upon your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much,
and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger in
comparison with disgrace; and when he was so eager to slay Hector,
his goddess mother said to him, that if he avenged his companion
Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die himself—‘Fate,’ she said,
in these or the like words, ‘waits for you next after Hector;’ he,
receiving this warning, utterly despised danger and death, and
instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and
not to avenge his friend. ‘Let me die forthwith,’ he replies, ‘and
be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked ships,
a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth.’ Had Achilles any
thought of death and danger? For wherever a man’s place is, whether
the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed
by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he
should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this,
O men of Athens, is a true saying.
Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who,
when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at
Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me,
like any other man, facing death—if now, when, as I conceive and
imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of
searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post
through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be
strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the
existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was
afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For
the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real
wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows
whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest
evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a
disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man
knows what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe
myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be
wiser than they are:—that whereas I know but little of the world
below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice
and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and
dishonourable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good
rather than a certain evil. And therefore if you let me go now, and
are not convinced by Anytus, who said that since I had been
prosecuted I must be put to death; (or if not that I ought never to
have been prosecuted at all); and that if I escape now, your sons
will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words—if you say to
me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and you shall be
let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to enquire and
speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing so
again you shall die;—if this was the condition on which you let me
go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I
shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength
I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy,
exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner:
You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of
Athens,—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of
money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom
and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never
regard or heed at all? And if the person with whom I am arguing,
says: Yes, but I do care; then I do not leave him or let him go at
once; but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine
him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him, but only says
that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and
overvaluing the less. And I shall repeat the same words to every
one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially
to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that
this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has
ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do
nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not
to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and
chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell
you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes
money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This
is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the
youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is
not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of
Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and
either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand that I
shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many
times.
Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an
understanding between us that you should hear me to the end: I have
something more to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but
I believe that to hear me will be good for you, and therefore I beg
that you will not cry out. I would have you know, that if you kill
such an one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will
injure me. Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they
cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than
himself. I do not deny that Anytus may, perhaps, kill him, or drive
him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may imagine,
and others may imagine, that he is inflicting a great injury upon
him: but there I do not agree. For the evil of doing as he is
doing—the evil of unjustly taking away the life of another—is
greater far.
And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as
you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God
by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you
will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a
ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state
by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in
his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into
life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all
day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing
and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find
another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me. I
dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person who is
suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that you might easily
strike me dead as Anytus advises, and then you would sleep on for
the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you sent you
another gadfly. When I say that I am given to you by God, the proof
of my mission is this:—if I had been like other men, I should not
have neglected all my own concerns or patiently seen the neglect of
them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to
you individually like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to
regard virtue; such conduct, I say, would be unlike human nature.
If I had gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid,
there would have been some sense in my doing so; but now, as you
will perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say
that I have ever exacted or sought pay of any one; of that they
have no witness. And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of
what I say—my poverty.
Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and
busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to
come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why.
You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an
oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus
ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice,
first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but
never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is
what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, as I think.
For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in
politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either
to you or to myself. And do not be offended at my telling you the
truth: for the truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or
any other multitude, honestly striving against the many lawless and
unrighteous deeds which are done in a state, will save his life; he
who will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief
space, must have a private station and not a public one.
I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words
only, but what you value far more—actions. Let me relate to you a
passage of my own life which will prove to you that I should never
have yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that ‘as I
should have refused to yield’ I must have died at once. I will tell
you a tale of the courts, not very interesting perhaps, but
nevertheless true. The only office of state which I ever held, O
men of Athens, was that of senator: the tribe Antiochis, which is
my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had
not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae;
and you proposed to try them in a body, contrary to law, as you all
thought afterwards; but at the time I was the only one of the
Prytanes who was opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote
against you; and when the orators threatened to impeach and arrest
me, and you called and shouted, I made up my mind that I would run
the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in
your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death. This
happened in the days of the democracy. But when the oligarchy of
the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the
rotunda, and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as
they wanted to put him to death. This was a specimen of the sort of
commands which they were always giving with the view of implicating
as many as possible in their crimes; and then I showed, not in word
only but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an
expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my great and
only care was lest I should do an unrighteous or unholy thing. For
the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into
doing wrong; and when we came out of the rotunda the other four
went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home. For
which I might have lost my life, had not the power of the Thirty
shortly afterwards come to an end. And many will witness to my
words.
Now do you really imagine that I could have survived all these
years, if I had led a public life, supposing that like a good man I
had always maintained the right and had made justice, as I ought,
the first thing? No indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other
man. But I have been always the same in all my actions, public as
well as private, and never have I yielded any base compliance to
those who are slanderously termed my disciples, or to any other.
Not that I have any regular disciples. But if any one likes to come
and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or
old, he is not excluded. Nor do I converse only with those who pay;
but any one, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and
listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a
good one, neither result can be justly imputed to me; for I never
taught or professed to teach him anything. And if any one says that
he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all
the world has not heard, let me tell you that he is lying.
