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thinking myself , in fact , too honest to follow these pursuits and be safe ; I did not go where I could be of no use either to you or to myself , but went to each man individually , to confer on him the greatest : of all benefits ; attempting to persuade evkrj one of you to think of none of his own concerns till he had looked to making himself as good and as wise as possible ; nor of the city's concerns till he had looked to making the city
so ; and to pursue all other things in a similar spirit . What , then , ought to be done to me for such conduct ? Some good , O Athenians , if I am really to be treated according to my deserts ; and a good of such a kind as beseems me . What , then , beseems a man in poor circumstances , your benefactor , and requiring leisure to prosecute his exhortations ? There is nothing , O Athenians , which would be so suitable for such a
man to receive , as a maintenance at the public expense . * It would befit him much better than any of you who may have carried away the prize of horse or chariot-racing at the Olympic contests . For , such a man makes you only seem happy , but I make you be so : and he does not require a maintenance , but I do . If , therefore , I must estimate myself justly according to my deserts , I rate myself at a maintenance in the Prytaneum .
Perhaps I seem to you , in saying this , as in what I said about supplication and entreaty , to be influenced by pride . The fact , however , is not so : but rather , as I am now about to tell you . I know that I do not intentionally injure any one ; but I am not able to convince you of it ; for we have conversed together but a short time : if , indeed , it were the law with you , as in other countries , not to terminate capital trials in one day , but continue them through several , you could then have been convinced ;
but now , it is not easy , in u short time , to conquer strong prejudices . I , then , being convinced that I wrong no one , cannot consent to wrong " myself , by affirming that I am worthy of any evil , and proposing that any evil should be inflicted upon me as a penalty . From what fear should I do so ? From thtf ^ pfr lest I should suffe r what Melitus proposes ? when I affirm that r ^ now not whether it be an evil or a
good ? Shall I , then , choose something which I well know to be an evil , and propose that as the penalty ? Imprisonment , for example ? And why should I seek to live in a prison , at the mercy of every successive police officer ? t Atmine ? and imprisonment until I pay it ? That would be the same thing ; for I have no means of paying it . Shall I propose banishment ? for perhaps , you might sentence rne to that . But I must be very fond of life , O Athenians , if I am so bad a calculator as not to compute that if you , who are my countrymen , have not been , able to bear my ways and my sayings , but have found them burthen some and invidious , and now seek to get rid of them , it is not likely that other people will bear them easily . Far from it , O Athenians . It would be an unworthy life for me , exiled at my age , to live in perpetual wanderings and banishments from one city to another , For , I well know , that whithersoever I go , the young men will listen to my discourses as they do here . to be in
• * Ev Tsr ^ vTctviloo atn 7 < rfra , r . boarded the Prytaneum ( a publicjbuilding in the . Acropolis . ) This privilege was occasionally conferred upon public benefactors ; and among others , upon ouch citizens as , by gaining the Olympic prises , were conceived to have conferred honour upon their country . f oi 'iviixcc , the officers in charge of gaols , and prisoners ; annually chosen by lot from among the people . They correspond to the triumviri rerum capita / ium of the Romans ,
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Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Apology of Socrates . 175
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/31/
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