803
46/66 there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more inconsiderate with you, and you will be more offended at them. If you think that by killing men you can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mis- taken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or hon- ourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling oth- ers, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me. Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about the thing which has come to pass, while the magis- trates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges— for you I may truly call judges— I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the divine faculty of which the internal or- acle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error in any mat- ter; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the or- acle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this si- lence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good. Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things— either