Apology | Page 3

print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon

University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher

APOLOGY
by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

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.); 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 may, perhaps, be adduced as
a further evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts. 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 most public scene of
his life, and in the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and yet
his mastery over mankind is greatest, and his habitual irony acquires a
new meaning and a sort of tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts
of his life are summed up, and the features of his character are brought
out as if by accident in the course of the defence. The conversational

manner, the seeming want of arrangement, the ironical simplicity, are
found to result in a perfect work of art, which is the portrait of Socrates.
Yet some of the topics may have been actually used by Socrates; and
the recollection of his very words may have rung in the ears of his
disciple. The Apology of Plato may be compared generally with those
speeches of Thucydides in which he has embodied his conception of
the lofty character and policy of the great Pericles, and which at the
same time furnish a commentary on the situation of affairs from the
point of view of the historian. So in the Apology there is an ideal rather
than a literal truth; much is said which was not said, and is only Plato's
view of the situation. Plato was not, like Xenophon, a chronicler of
facts; he does not appear in any of his writings to have aimed at literal
accuracy. He is not therefore to be supplemented from the Memorabilia
and Symposium of Xenophon, who belongs to an entirely different
class of writers. The Apology of Plato is not the report of