Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger
Apology
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Contents
INTRODUCTION
APOLOGY
INTRODUCTION.
In what relation the "Apology" of Plato stands to the real defence of
Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone and character with the description of Xenophon, who says in the
"Memorabilia" that Socrates might have been acquitted "if in any moderate degree he would have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;"
and who informs us in another passage, on the testimony of Hermogenes, the friend of Socrates, that he had no wish to live; and that the divine sign refused to allow him to prepare a defence, and also that
Socrates himself declared this to be unnecessary, on the ground that all his life long he had been preparing against that hour. For the speech breathes throughout a spirit of defiance, "_ut non supplex aut reus sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judicum_" (Cic. "de Orat."
i. 54); and the loose and desultory style is an imitation of the
"accustomed manner" in which Socrates spoke in "the _agora_ and among the tables of the money-changers." The allusion in the "Crito" (45 B)
may, perhaps, be adduced as a further evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts (37 C, D). But in the main it must be regarded as the ideal of Socrates, according to Plato's conception of him, appearing in the greatest and m…