Apology

​And if any of you disputes this and claims that he does care, I shall not let him go at once nor will I leave, but I shall question him, examine him, and refute him; and if he does not seem to me to possess virtue, but claims to do so, I shall reproach him for holding the things of greatest worth in least regard and things of less worth in greater regard. This I shall do for anyone I happen to meet, both younger and older, stranger and citizen, but more so for the citizens, inasmuch as you are closer to me by birth. For this is what the god commands, you may be sure, and I believe that no greater good has ever yet come to you in the city than my service to the god. For I go about doing nothing other than persuading both younger and older among you not to care for your bodies or your money first, nor so eagerly, as for your soul, how it may be as good as possible, saying: “Virtue does not come from wealth, but from virtue comes wealth and all other goods for men, both in private and in public.” If indeed by saying these things I corrupt the youth, these things would be harmful; but if anyone claims that I say other things than these, he says nothing. In response to this, I would say: “Gentlemen of Athens, either believe Anytus or do not, and either let me go or do not, on the understanding that I would not do otherwise, not even if I am to die many times over.” Do not make a disturbance, gentlemen of Athens, but stand by what I requested of you, not to make a disturbance at what I say but to listen; for indeed, as I believe, you will benefit by listening. For I am about to tell you some other things at which you will perhaps cry out; but do not do this by any means. For you may be sure that if you put me to death, being such a man as I say I am, you will not harm me more than you harm yourselves. For neither Meletus nor Anytus could harm me in any way—for indeed they could not—since I do not believe it is permitted for a better man to be harmed by a worse. He might indeed kill me, or banish me, or deprive me of civic rights; but while he and perhaps someone else may think these are great evils, I do not think so, but rather that doing what he is doing now, attempting to put a man to death unjustly, is a far greater evil. So now, gentlemen of Athens, I am far from making a defense on my own behalf, as one might think, but on your behalf, lest you should sin at all against the god’s gift to you by condemning me. For if you put me to death, you will not easily find another such person, literally—even if it sounds rather ridiculous to say—attached to the city by the god as if to a horse, large and well-bred, but sluggish because of its size and needing to be awakened by some gadfly, just as the god seems to have attached me to the city as such a one, who, awakening and persuading and reproaching each one of you, never cease settling upon you everywhere the whole day long.