Phaedrus — Plato

p. 24which is my due. And what is that which I ought to pay or to receive? What shall be done to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life ; but has been earless of what the many care about — wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties.

Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to follow in this way and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where- I could do the greatest good privately to every one of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you, that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the State efore he looks to the interests of the State ; and that this should be the order which he 'observes in all his actions.

What shall be done to such a one ? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward ; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you?

There can be no more fitting reward than maintenence in the prytaneum,^ O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympiad in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough ; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality.

And if I am to estimate the penalty ^ justly, I say that maintenance in the prytaneum is the just return. Perhaps you may think that I am braving you in saying thought suitable, the accused party on his side named some lighter penalty upon himself ; and between these two the Dikasts were called on to make their option — no third proposition being admissible.

The prudence of an accused party always induced him to propose, even against himself, some measure of punishment which the Dikasts might be satisfied to accept, in preference to the heavier sentence invoked by his antagonist." — Grote^s History of Greece III., chap. Ixviii. *' Pryt'-a-ne'um : a public building in Greek cities.

At Athens entertainment was furnished in the Prytaneum at public cost to foreign ambassadors and to citizens whom the State wished to honor. ** A small plain in Elis (elFs) near the southwestern coast of Greece where, every four years, the chief national festival of the Greeks was celebrated in honor of Zeus.

An important part of the festival was the Olympian Games — contests in wrestling, boxing, leaping, spear and quoit-throwing, and races of various kinds. The winners were publicly honored in many ways and received undying fame.

p. 25this, as in what I said before about the tears and prayer. But that is not the case.

I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one, although I cannot convince you of that — for we have had a short conversation only ; but if there were a law at Athens, such as there is ^j. * "^ ^ in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in j r^x^y / one day, then I believe I should have convinced you ; but -/ . ^;^-} now the time is too short, I cannot in a moment refute great slanders ; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself.

I will not say of >j myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why -^ should I. Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes ? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would . certainly be an evil ? Shall I say imprisonment ?

And why \ should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year — of the eleven ?^ Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid ? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay.

And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely.

And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out ! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me ; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their desire : and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.

Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you ? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell ^ Police commissioners at Athens who had charge of the prisons and the punishment of criminals. Each tribe furnished one member by lot and the eleventh was a scribe.

p. 26you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not g believe that I am serious ; and if I say again that the. greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.

And , yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Moreover, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any punishment. Had I money I might have proposed to give you what I had, and have been none the worse. But you see that I have none, and can only ask you to proportion the fine to my means.

However, I think that I could afford a ipina, and therefore I propose^ that penalty : Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Well, then, say thirty minae, let that be the penalty ; for that they will be ample security to you.

Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man ; for they will call me wise even although I am not wise when they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far 1 from death.

I am speaking now only to those of you who - have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them : You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words — I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words— certainly not.

But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others and which, as I say, are unworthy of me.

But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger : nor do I now ^^ repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man