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Apology by Plato Translated by Benjamin Howett
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. |