greek · wisdom

Apology — Socrates's Defense

c. 399 BCE (events); c. 390s BCE (composition) · Classical Greece (early 4th century BCE) · Athens, Greece

The Trial Begins

1How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell;

2but I know that they almost made me forget who I was — so persuasively did they speak;

3and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth.

4But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me;

5I mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence.

6Some one may wonder why I go about in private, giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others,

7but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state.

8I will tell you the reason of this. You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me,

9and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment.

10This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child;

11it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do.

The Oracle at Delphi

12I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply,

13"Why is this, Socrates, and what is the origin of these accusations of you?"

14I will endeavour to explain to you the origin of this name of "wise."

15You must have known Chaerephon; he was a friend of mine.

16Well, Chaerephon went to Delphi and asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was,

17and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.

18When I heard the answer, I said to myself,

19"What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle?

20For I know that I have no wisdom, small or great."

21I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself,

22then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand.

23I should say to him: "You said that I was the wisest of men, but here is a man who is wiser than I am."

Testing the Oracle

24Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom,

25and observed him — his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination —

26and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise,

27although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself;

28and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise;

29and the consequence was that he hated me.

30So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away:

31Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good,

32I am better off than he is—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows;

33I neither know nor think that I know.

34In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.

The Unexamined Life

35Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue,

36and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you?

37Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this.

38For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command,

39and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious;

40and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue,

41and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others,

42is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living—

43you are still less likely to believe me.

The Sentence of Death

44Well, Athenians, I am now taking my leave of you.

45I have not thought it becoming of me to descend to those piteous entreaties by which many appeal to your compassion.

46Not from any want of arguments, but from a want of impudence;

47I am not able to appeal to your compassion, and I might have been able to convince you that all my acts have been for the good of the state.

48The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live.

49Which is better, God only knows.

Final Address to the Jury

50Death is one of two things.

51Either it is an annihilation, and the dead have no consciousness of anything;

52or, as we are told, it is really a change—a migration of the soul from this world to another.

53Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams,

54death will be an unspeakable gain.

55But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say,

56all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?

57If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world,

58and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there,

59that pilgrimage will be worth making.

60Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth—

61that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

62The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—

63I to die, and you to live.

64Which is better, God only knows.

notes

The Apology (Apologia Sokratous — "Socrates's Defense") is Plato's account of the speech Socrates delivered at his trial in 399 BCE, when he was accused by Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon of "corrupting the youth" and of "impiety" (failing to acknowledge the gods of the state and introducing new divinities). It is not an apology in the modern sense — Socrates neither repents nor asks for mercy — but a public defense (from the Greek apologia). The title conceals the drama: this is the last speech of the man widely regarded as the founder of Western philosophy, delivered in the last months of his life, and preserved by his student Plato. Socrates was convicted by a narrow margin and, after refusing to propose an alternative penalty appropriate to the charge, sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. The central passages are among the most quoted in the history of philosophy: "the unexamined life is not worth living"; "no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death"; "I know that I know nothing" (paraphrased from Socrates's discussion of the Delphic oracle). Together with Plato's Crito and Phaedo — which record the aftermath of the trial and Socrates's death in prison — the Apology forms the founding document of the Western philosophical tradition of dying well. Translation: Benjamin Jowett, "The Dialogues of Plato," Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871. Public domain.

VirtuePhilosophyEthics

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