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Reply to the other charge against Socrates. He did not corrupt the youth, for his whole teaching dissuaded them from vice, and encouraged them to temperance and virtue of every kind, sect. 1–8. He exhorted them to obey the laws, 9–11. If Critias and Alcibiades, who listened to his discourses, became corrupt, the fault was not his, 11–28; he endeavoured to reclaim them, till they deserted him; and others, who resigned themselves wholly to his instructions, became virtuous and honourable men, 28–48. Other frivolous assertions refuted, 49–60. His benevolence, disinterestedness, and general merits, 61–64.

1. It also seems wonderful to me, that any should have been persuaded that Socrates corrupted the youth; Socrates, who, in addition to what has been said of him, was not only the most rigid of all men in the government of his passions and appetites, but also most able to withstand cold, heat, and every kind of labour; and, besides, so inured to frugality, that, though he possessed very little, he very easily made it a sufficiency. 2. How, then, being of such a character himself, could he have rendered others impious, or lawless, or luxurious, or incontinent, or too effeminate to endure labour? On the contrary, he restrained many of them from such vices, leading them to love virtue, and giving them hopes, that if they would take care of themselves, they would become honourable and worthy characters. 3. Not indeed that he ever professed to be an instructor in that way, but, by showing that he was himself such a character, he made those in his society hope that, by imitating him, they would become such as he was.

4. Of the body he was not neglectful, nor did he commend those who were. He did not approve that a person should eat to excess, and then use immoderate exercise, but recommended that he should work off, by a proper degree of exercise, as much as the appetite received with pleasure; for such a habit, he said, was peculiarly conducive to health, and did not prevent attention to the mind. 5. He was not, however, fine or ostentatious in his clothes or sandals, or in any of his habits of life; yet he did not make those about him lovers of money, for he checked them in this as well as other passions, and asked no remuneration from those who desired his company. 6. He thought that those who refrained from this (demanding a fee) consulted their liberty, and called those who took money for their discourses their own enslavers, since they must of necessity hold discussions with those from whom they received pay. 7. He expressed wonder, too, that any one who professed to teach virtue, should demand money, and not think that he gained the greatest profit in securing a good friend, but fear that he whom he had made an honourable and worthy character would not retain the greatest gratitude towards his greatest benefactor. 8. Socrates, indeed, never expressed so much to any one; yet he believed that those of his associates who imbibed what he approved, would be always good friends both to himself and to others. How then could a man of such a character corrupt the young, unless, indeed, the study of virtue be corruption?

9. “But assuredly,” said the accuser, “he caused those who conversed with him to despise the established laws, by saying how foolish it was to elect the magistrates of a state by beans, when nobody would be willing to take a pilot elected by beans, or an architect, or a flute-player, or a person in any other profession, which, if erroneously exercised, would cause far less harm than errors in the administration of a state;” and declared that “such remarks excited the young to contemn the established form of government, and disposed them to acts of violence.” 10. But I think that young men who exercise their understanding, and expect to become capable of teaching their fellow-citizens what is for their interest, grow by no means addicted to violence, knowing that on violence attend enmity and danger, but that, by persuasion, the same results are attained without peril, and with goodwill; for those who are compelled by us, hate us as if despoiled of something, while those who are persuaded by us, love us as if they had received a favour. It is not the part, therefore, of those who cultivate the intellect to use violence; for to adopt such a course belongs to those who possess brute force without intellect. 11. Besides, he who would venture to use force, had need of no small number of allies, but he who can succeed with persuasion, has need of none, for, though left alone, he would think himself still able to persuade; and it by no means belongs to such men to shed blood, for who would wish to put another man to death rather than to have him as a living subject persuaded to obey?

12. “But,” said the accuser, “Critias and Alcibiades, after having been associates of Socrates, inflicted a great number of evils on the state; for Critias was the most avaricious and violent of all that composed the oligarchy, and Alcibiades was the most intemperate, insolent, and turbulent of all those in the democracy.” 13. For whatever evil they did the state, I shall make no apology; but as to their intimacy with Socrates, I will state how it took place. 14. These two men were by nature the most ambitious of all the Athenians, and wished that everything should be done by their means, and that they themselves should become the most celebrated of all men. But they knew that Socrates lived with the utmost contentment on very small means, that he was most abstinent from every kind of pleasure, and that he swayed those with whom he conversed just as he pleased by his arguments; 15. and, seeing such to be the case, and being such characters as they have just been stated to be, whether will any one say that they sought his society from a desire to lead such a life as Socrates led, and to practise such temperance as he practised, or from an expectation that, if they associated with him, they would become eminently able to speak and act? 16. I myself, indeed, am of opinion, that if a god had given them their choice, whether they would live their whole lives as they saw Socrates living, or die, they would have chosen rather to die; and they showed this disposition by what they did; for as soon as they considered themselves superior to their associates, they at once started away from Socrates, and engaged in political life, to qualify themselves for which they had sought the society of Socrates.

17. Perhaps some one may observe on this point, that Socrates should not have taught his followers politics before he taught them self-control. To this remark I make no reply at present; but I see that all teachers make themselves examples to their pupils how far they practise what they teach, and stimulate them by precepts; 18. and I know that Socrates made himself an example to those who associated with him as a man of honourable and excellent character, and that he discoursed admirably concerning virtue and other things that concern mankind. I know, too, that those men exercised self-control as long as they conversed with Socrates, not from fear lest they should be fined or beaten by him, but from a persuasion at the time that it was best to observe such conduct.

19. Perhaps, however, many of those who profess to be philosophers may say that a man once just, can ever become unjust, or once modest, immodest; and that no one who has once learned any of those things which can be taught can ever become ignorant of it. But regarding such points I am not of that opinion; for I see that as those who do not exercise the body, cannot perform what is proper to the body, so those who do not exercise the mind, cannot perform what is proper to the mind; for they can neither do that which they ought to do, nor refrain from that from which they ought to refrain. 20. For which reason fathers keep their sons, though they be of a virtuous disposition, from the society of bad men, in the belief that association with the good is an exercise of virtue, but that association with the bad is the destruction of it. One of the poets also bears testimony to this truth, who says,

Ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾽ ἐσθλὰ διδάξεαι: ἢν δὲ κακοῖσι

Συμμίσγῃς, ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸν ἐόντα νόον.

From good men you will learn what is good; but if you associate

with the bad, you will lose the understanding which is in you.

And another, who observes,

Αὐτὰρ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς τό μέν κακὸς, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ ἐσθλός.

A good man is at one time good and at another bad.

21. I also concur with them; for I see that as people forget metrical compositions when they do not practise the repetition of them, so forgetfulness of precepts of instruction is produced in those who neglect them. But where a person forgets moral admonitions, he forgets also what the mind felt when it had a desire for self-government; and, when he forgets this, it is not at all wonderful that he forgets self-government also. 22. I see, too, that those who are given up to a fondness for drinking, and those who have fallen in love, are less able to attend to what they ought to do, and to refrain from what they ought not to do; for many, who can be frugal in their expenses before they fall in love, are, after falling in love, unable to continue so; and, when they have exhausted their resources, they no longer abstain from means of gain from which they previously shrunk as thinking them dishonourable. 23. How is it impossible, then, that he who has once had a control over himself, may afterwards cease to maintain it, and that he who was once able to observe justice, may subsequently become unable? To me everything honourable and good seems to be maintained by exercise, and self-control not the least; for sensual desires, generated in the same body with the soul, are constantly exciting it to abandon self-control, and to gratify themselves and the body as soon as possible.

24. Critias and Alcibiades, then, as long as they associated with Socrates, were able, with the assistance of his example, to maintain a mastery over their immoral inclinations; but, when they were separated from him, Critias, fleeing to Thessaly, formed connections there with men who practised dishonesty rather than justice; and Alcibiades also, being sought by many women, even of high rank, for his beauty, and being corrupted by many men, who were well able to seduce him by their flattery, on account of his influence in the city and among the allies, and being also honoured by the people, and easily obtaining the pre-eminence among them, became like the wrestlers in the gymnastic games, who, when they are fairly superior to others, neglect their exercise; so he grew neglectful of self-control. 25. When such was their fortune, and when they were proud of their birth, elated with their wealth, puffed up with their power, corrupted by many associates, demoralised by all these means, and long absent from Socrates, what wonder is it if they became headstrong? 26. And then, if they did anything wrong, does the accuser blame Socrates for it? and does Socrates seem to the accuser deserving of no praise, for having, when they were young, and when it is likely that they were most inconsiderate and intractable, rendered them discreet? 27. Yet other affairs are not judged of in such a way; for what flute-player, or what teacher of the harp, or what other instructor, if he produces competent pupils, and if they, attaching themselves to other masters, become less skilful, is blamed for their deterioration? Or what father, if his son, while he associated with one man, should be virtuous, but afterwards, on uniting himself to some other person, should become vicious, would blame the former of the two? would he not rather, the more corrupt his son became with the second, bestow the greater praise on the first? Not even parents themselves, when they have their sons in their society, are blamed if their sons do anything wrong, provided they themselves are correct in their conduct. 28. In the same manner it would be right to judge of Socrates; if he had done anything immoral, he would justly be thought to be a bad man; but if he constantly observed morality, how can he reasonably bear the blame of vice which was not in him?

29. Or even if he himself did nothing wrong, but commended others when he saw them doing wrong, he would justly be censured. When he perceived, however, that Critias was enamoured of Euthydemus, and was seeking to have the enjoyment of his society, like those who abuse the persons of others for licentious purposes, he dissuaded him from his intention, by saying that it was illiberal, and unbecoming a man of honour and proper feeling, to offer supplications to the object of his affections, with whom he wished to be held in high esteem, beseeching and entreating him, like a beggar, to grant a favour, especially when such favour was for no good end. 30. But as Critias paid no regard to such remonstrances, and was not diverted from his pursuit, it is said that Socrates, in the presence of many others as well as of Euthydemus, observed that “Critias seemed to him to have some feeling like that of a pig, as he wished to rub against Euthydemus as swine against stones.” 31. Critias, in consequence, conceived such a hatred to Socrates, that when he was one of the Thirty Tyrants, and was appointed a law-maker with Charicles, he remembered the circumstance to his disadvantage, and inserted in his laws that “none should teach the art of disputation,” intending an insult to Socrates, yet not knowing how to affect him in particular, but laying to his charge what was imputed to the philosophers by the multitude, and calumniating him to the people; at least such is my opinion; for I myself never heard this from Socrates, nor do I remember having known any one say that he heard it from him. 32. But Critias made it appear so; for when the Thirty had put to death many of the citizens, and those not of the inferior class, and had encouraged many to acts of injustice, Socrates happened to observe, that “it seemed surprising to him if a man, becoming herdsman of a herd of cattle, and rendering the cattle fewer and in worse condition, should not confess that he was a bad herdsman, and still more surprising if a man, becoming governor of a city, and rendering the people fewer and in worse condition, should not feel ashamed, and be conscious of being a bad governor of the city.” 33. This remark being repeated to the Thirty, Critias and Charicles summoned Socrates before them, showed him the law, and forbade him to hold discourse with the youth. Socrates inquired of them, if he might be permitted to ask a question as to any point in the prohibitions that might not be understood by him. They gave him permission. 34. “Then,” said he, “I am prepared to obey the laws; but that I may not unconsciously transgress through ignorance, I wish to ascertain exactly from you, ‘whether it is because you think that the art of reasoning is an auxiliary to what is rightly spoken, or to what is not rightly spoken, that you give command to abstain from it; for if it be an adjunct to what is rightly spoken, it is plain that we have to abstain from speaking rightly; but if to what is not rightly spoken, it is plain that we ought to endeavour to speak rightly.’ ” 35. Charicles, falling into a passion with him, said, “Since, Socrates, you are ignorant of this particular, we give you an order more easy to be understood, not to discourse at all with the young.” “That it may not be doubtful, then,” said Socrates, “whether I do anything contrary to what is enjoined, define for me till what age I must consider men to be young.” “As long,” replied Charicles, “as they are not allowed to fill the office of senator, as not being yet come to maturity of understanding; and do not discourse with such as are under thirty years of age.” 36. “And if I wish to buy anything,” said Socrates, “and a person under thirty years of age has it for sale, may I not ask him at what price he sells it?” “Yes, such questions as these,” replied Charicles, “but you are accustomed to ask most of your questions about things, when you know very well how they stand; such questions, therefore, do not ask.” “If then any young man,” said he, “should ask me such a question as ‘where does Charicles live?’ or ‘where is Critias?’ may I not answer him if I know?” “Yes, you may answer such questions,” said Charicles. 37. “But,” added Critias, “it will be necessary for you to abstain from speaking of those shoemakers, and carpenters, and smiths; indeed I think that they must now be worn out, from being so often in your mouth.” “I must therefore,” said Socrates, “abstain from the lessons I draw from these people, viz., lessons of justice, piety, and other such subjects.” “Yes, by Jupiter,” retorted Charicles, “and you must abstain from lessons taken from herdsmen; for, if you do not, take care lest you yourself make the cattle fewer.” 38. Hence it was evident that they were angry with Socrates on account of his remark about the cattle having been reported to them.

What sort of intercourse Critias had with Socrates, and how they stood towards each other, has now been stated. 39. But I would say that no regular training is derived by any one from a teacher who does not please him; and Critias and Alcibiades did not associate with Socrates, while their association with him lasted, as being an instructor that pleased them, but they were, from the very first, eager to be at the head of the state, for, while they still attended Socrates, they sought to converse with none more than with those who were most engaged in affairs of government. 40. Alcibiades, it is said, before he was twenty years of age, held the following discourse with Pericles, who was his guardian, and chief ruler of the state, about laws. 41. “Tell me,” said he, “Pericles, can you teach me what a law is?” “Certainly,” replied Pericles. “Teach me then, in the name of the gods,” said Alcibiades, “for I, hearing some persons praised as being obedient to the laws, consider that no one can fairly obtain such praise who does not know what a law is.” 42. “You desire no very difficult matter, Alcibiades,” said Pericles, “when you wish to know what a law is; for all those regulations are laws, which the people, on meeting together and approving them, have enacted, directing what we should do and what we should not do.” “And whether do they direct that we should do good things, or that we should do bad things?” “Good, by Jupiter, my child,” said he, “but bad by no means.” 43. “And if it should not be the whole people, but a few, as where there is an oligarchy, that should meet together, and enact what we are to do, what are such enactments?” “Everything,” replied Pericles, “which the supreme power in the state, on determining what the people ought to do, has enacted, is called a law.” “And if a tyrant, holding rule over the state, prescribes to the citizens what they must do, is such prescription called a law?” “Whatever a tyrant in authority prescribes,” returned Pericles, “is also called a law.” 44. “What then, Pericles,” asked Alcibiades, “is force and lawlessness? Is it not when the stronger obliges the weaker, not by persuasion, but by compulsion, to do what he pleases?” “So it appears to me,” replied Pericles. “Whatever then a tyrant compels the people to do, by enacting it without gaining their consent, is that an act of lawlessness?” “Yes,” said Pericles, “it appears to me that it is, for I retract my admission that what a tyrant prescribes to the people without persuading them, is a law.” 45. “But what the few enact, not from gaining the consent of the many, but from having superior power, should we say that that is force, or that it is not?” “Everything,” said Pericles, “which one man obliges another to do without gaining his consent, whether he enact it in writing or not, seems to me to be force rather than law.” “Whatever, then, the whole people, when they are stronger than the wealthier class, enact without their consent, would be an act of force rather than a law?” 46. “Certainly, Alcibiades,” said Pericles; “and I, when I was of your age, was very acute at such disquisitions; for we used to meditate and argue about such subjects as you now appear to meditate.” “Would therefore,” said Alcibiades, “that I had conversed with you, Pericles, at the time when you were most acute in discussing such topics!” 47. When Alcibiades and Critias, therefore, began to think themselves superior to those who were then governing the state, they no longer attended Socrates (for he was not agreeable to them in other respects, and they were offended, if they went to him at all, at being reproved for any error that they had committed), but devoted themselves to political employments, with a view to which they had at first associated with Socrates. 48. But Crito was also an attendant on Socrates, as well as Chærephon, Chærecrates, Hermocrates, Simmias, Cebes, and Phædondes, who, with others that attended him, did not seek his society that they might be fitted for popular orators or forensic pleaders, but that, becoming honourable and good men, they might conduct themselves irreproachably towards their families, connections, dependants, and friends, as well as towards their country and their fellow-citizens; and no one of all these, whether in youth or at a more advanced age, either was guilty, or was accused, of any crime.

49. “But Socrates,” said the accuser, “taught children to show contempt for their parents, persuading his followers that he rendered them wiser than their fathers, and observing that a son was allowed by the law to confine his father on convicting him of being deranged, using that circumstance as an argument that it was lawful for the more ignorant to be confined by the wiser.” 50. But what Socrates said was, that he thought he who confined another for ignorance, might justly be himself confined by those who knew what he did not know; and, with a view to such cases, he used to consider in what respect ignorance differed from madness, and expressed his opinion that madmen might be confined with advantage to themselves and their friends, but that those who did not know what they ought to know, might reasonably learn from those who did know.

51. “But Socrates,” proceeded the accuser, “not only caused parents, but other relations, to be held in contempt by his followers, saying that relatives were of no profit to people who were sick, or to people going to law, but that physicians aided the one, and lawyers the other.” 52. The accuser asserted, too, that Socrates said concerning friends that “it was of no profit that they were well-disposed, unless they were able also to assist; and that he insisted that those only were deserving of honour who knew what was for the advantage of others and could make it intelligible to them; and that by thus persuading the young that he himself was the wisest of mankind, and most capable of making others wise, he so disposed his pupils towards him, that other people were of no account with them in comparison with himself.” 53. I am aware, indeed, that he did express himself concerning parents and other relatives, and concerning friends, in such a manner as this; and used to say, besides, that when the soul has departed, in which alone intelligence exists, men take away the body of their dearest friend, and put it out of sight as soon as possible. 54. He was accustomed to say, also, that every man, while he is alive, removes of himself from his own body, which he loves most of all things, and allows others to remove from it, everything that is useless and unprofitable; since men themselves take off portions of their nails, and hair, and callous parts, and resign themselves to surgeons to cut and burn them with labour and pain, and think it their duty even to pay them money for their operations; and the saliva from the mouth, he said, men spit away as far as possible, because, while it is in the mouth, it profits them nothing, but is far more likely to harm them. 55. But such observations Socrates uttered, not to teach any one of his followers to bury his father alive, or to cut himself to pieces, but, by showing that what is senseless is worthless, he exhorted each to study to become as intelligent and useful as possible, so that, whether he wished to be honoured by his father, by his brother, or by any one else, he might not be neglectful of himself through trusting to his relationship, but might endeavour to be serviceable to those by whom he desired to be respected.

56. The accuser also said that Socrates, selecting the worst passages of the most celebrated poets, and using them as arguments, taught those who kept him company to be unprincipled and tyrannical. The verse of Hesiod, for example,

Ἔργον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ ὄνειδος,

Work is no disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace,

they say that he used to explain as intimating that the poet bids us abstain from no kind of work, dishonest or dishonourable, but to do such work for the sake of profit. 57. But when Socrates maintained that to be busy was useful and beneficial for a man, and that to be unemployed was noxious and ill for him, that to work was a good, and to be idle an evil, he at the same time observed that those only who do something good really work, and are useful workmen, but those who gamble, or do anything bad and pernicious, he called idle; and in this view the sentiment of the poet will be unobjectionable,

Work is no disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace.

58. That passage of Homer, too, the accuser stated that he often used to quote, in which it is said that Ulysses,

Whatever king or eminent hero he found,

Stood beside him, and detained him with gentle words:

“Illustrious chief, it is not fit that you should shrink back as a coward;

Sit down yourself, and make the rest of the people sit down.”

But whatever man of the people he noticed, and found clamouring,

He struck him with his staff, and rebuked him with words:

“Worthless fellow, sit down in peace, and hear the exhortations of others.

Who are much better than you; for you are unwarlike and powerless,

Neither of account in the field nor in the council.”

59. And he said that he used to explain it as if the poet recommended that plebeians and poor people should be beaten. Socrates, however, said no such thing (for he would thus have given an opinion that he himself ought to be beaten), but what he did say was, that those who benefited others neither by word nor deed, and who were incapable of serving the army, or the state, or the common people, if necessity should arise, should, especially if, in addition to their incapacity, they were of an insolent spirit, be curbed in every way, even though they might be ever so rich. 60. But, contrary to the charge of the accuser, Socrates was evidently a friend to the common people, and of a liberal disposition; for though he received numbers of persons desirous to hear him discourse, as well citizens as foreigners, he never required payment for his communications from any one, but imparted to every one in abundance from his stores, of which some receiving fragments from him for nothing, sold them at a great price to others, and were not, like him, friends to the common people, for they declined to converse with such as had not money to give them. 61. But Socrates, in the eyes of other men, conferred glory on the city, far more than Lichas, who was celebrated in this respect, on that of the Lacedæmonians; for Lichas indeed entertained the strangers that visited Lacedæmon at the Gymnopædiæ, but Socrates, through the whole course of his life, freely imparted whatever he had to bestow, and thus benefited in the highest degree all who were willing to receive from him, making those who associated with him better before he let them go.

62. To me, therefore, Socrates, being a man of such a character, appeared to be worthy of honour rather than of death; and any one, considering his case according to the laws, would find such to be the fact; for, by the laws, death is the punishment for a man if he be found stealing, or stripping people of their clothes, or cutting purses, or housebreaking, or kidnapping, or committing sacrilege, of which crimes Socrates was the most innocent of all men. 63. Nor was he ever the cause of any war ending unfortunately for the state, or of any sedition or treachery; nor did he ever, in his private transactions, either deprive any man of what was for his good, or involve him in evil; nor did he ever lie under suspicion of any of the crimes which I have mentioned.

64. How then could he have been guilty of the charges brought against him? a man who, instead of not acknowledging the gods, as was stated in the indictment, evidently paid respect to the gods more than other men; and instead of corrupting the youth, as the accuser laid to his charge, plainly led such of his associates as had vicious inclinations, to cease from indulging them, and exhorted them to cherish a love of that most honourable and excellent virtue, by which men successfully govern states and families. How then, pursuing such a course of conduct, was he not deserving of great honour from the city?