Read Apology By Plato Online

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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 ju- 
dicum’, Cic. de Orat.); and the loose and desultory style is an imita- 
tion of the 'accustomed manner’ in which Socrates spoke in 'the 
agora and among the tables of the money-changers.'