Plato's account of Socrates' defense speech at his 399 BCE Athenian trial on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.
The Apology is Plato's dramatic reconstruction of the speech Socrates gave in his own defense before an Athenian jury of 500 citizens in 399 BCE. He faces two sets of accusers: the old, informal slander that he is a corrupting "investigator of things in the sky" who makes the weaker argument the stronger, and the formal indictment brought by Meletus, backed by Anytus and Lycon, charging him with not believing in the city's gods and corrupting the young. Socrates answers both, tracing the old slander to his habit of cross-examining anyone reputed wise, a practice he began after the Delphic oracle declared him the wisest of men and he set out to test that claim on politicians, poets, and craftsmen, concluding that his only advantage over them was knowing that he did not know.
He then cross-examines Meletus directly, trapping him in a contradiction (that Socrates teaches new gods while believing in no gods at all) and argues that his true offense in the jury's eyes is not any specific charge but the resentment his questioning provokes. He refuses to beg for acquittal with weeping children as other defendants did, insisting a juror's job is to judge law, not dispense pity, and states flatly that he will keep philosophizing even if the price is repeated death, since disobeying the god who stationed him at this post would be the real wrongdoing. The jury convicts him by a narrow margin.
In the penalty phase Socrates refuses to propose exile or silence, proposes free meals in the Prytaneum as his true desert, then a token fine of one mina, raised to thirty minas on the guarantee of Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus. Sentenced to death, he closes with two speeches: a warning to those who convicted him that harsher judges will replace him, and a hopeful meditation to those who acquitted him on what death might be, either dreamless nonexistence or a migration to Hades to converse with the great dead. The work matters as the founding text of the examined life and of the philosopher's willingness to die rather than abandon inquiry, and it names, among those present, Plato himself as Adeimantus's brother.
“None of you should expect anything else from me; it would hardly suit a man my age to come before you crafting speeches like a schoolboy.”
— Apology · read this chapter →
“it's likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he doesn't, whereas I, since I don't in fact know, don't think that I do either.”
— Apology · read this chapter →
“I respect and love you, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I have breath and the strength for it, I will not stop philosophizing”
— Apology · read this chapter →
“the unexamined life isn't worth living for a human being”
— Apology · read this chapter →
“nothing bad can happen to a good man, whether alive or dead, and the gods do not neglect his fortunes”
— Apology · read this chapter →
It is Plato's account of Socrates' speech defending himself at his 399 BCE trial in Athens on charges of impiety and corrupting the young. Socrates argues both charges stem from resentment at his habit of exposing false wisdom in others, and he is convicted and sentenced to death by a jury vote.
Formally he was charged by Meletus, backed by Anytus and Lycon, with not believing in the city's gods and corrupting the youth. Socrates argues the real cause was older, deeper resentment built up over years from cross-examining politicians, poets, and craftsmen who claimed wisdom they didn't have.
Socrates says this while explaining why he cannot accept an offer to live quietly in exchange for his life: for him, spending every day "discussing virtue... examining myself and others" is the greatest good a human being can pursue, so a life without that inquiry has no value to him.
Yes. He tells the jury directly, "I do believe, men of Athens, as none of my accusers does," and traces his entire mission of questioning people to the Delphic oracle's declaration that no one was wiser than he was.
The jury convicts him by a narrow margin and, after he proposes a token fine rather than exile or silence, sentences him to death. He closes by warning his accusers that harsher critics will follow him and by telling those who acquitted him that death may be a good, either dreamless rest or a chance to converse with the great dead in Hades.
Yes, briefly. Socrates lists him among those present in court as the brother of Adeimantus, and later names him, along with Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, as one of the men who urged him to propose a heavier fine of thirty minas and stood as guarantors for it.
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