OMEONE will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living - that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Moreover, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any punishment. Had I money I might have proposed to give you what I had, and have been none the worse. But you see that I have none, and can only ask you to proportion the fine to my means. However, I think that I could afford a minae, and therefore I propose that penalty; Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Well then, say thirty minae, let that be the penalty; for that they will be ample security to you. (...)

Μελέτη Θανάτου

Ἴσως οὖν ἄν τις εἴποι· Σιγῶν δὲ καὶ ἡσυχίαν ἄγων͵ ὦ Σώκρατες͵ οὐχ οἷός τ΄ ἔσῃ ἡμῖν ἐξελθὼν ζῆν; τουτὶ δή ἐστι πάντων χαλεπώτατον πεῖσαί τινας ὑμῶν. ἐάντε γὰρ λέγω ὅτι τῷ θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ΄ ἐστὶν καὶ διὰ τοῦτ΄ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν͵ οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς εἰρωνευομένῳ· ἐάντ΄ αὖ λέγω ὅτι καὶ τυγχάνει μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν ὂν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦτο͵ ἑκάστης ἡμέρας περὶ ἀρετῆς τοὺς λόγους ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων περὶ ὧν ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ ἀκούετε διαλεγομένου καὶ ἐμαυτὸν καὶ ἄλλους ἐξετάζοντος͵ ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ͵ ταῦτα δ΄ ἔτι ἧττον πείσεσθέ μοι λέγοντι. τὰ δὲ ἔχει μὲν οὕτως͵ ὡς ἐγώ φημι͵ ὦ ἄνδρες͵ πείθειν δὲ οὐ ῥᾴδιον. καὶ ἐγὼ ἅμα οὐκ εἴθισμαι ἐμαυτὸν ἀξιοῦν κακοῦ οὐδενός. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἦν μοι χρήματα͵ ἐτιμησάμην ἂν χρημάτων ὅσα ἔμελλον ἐκτείσειν͵ οὐδὲν γὰρ ἂν ἐβλάβην· νῦν δὲ οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν͵ εἰ μὴ ἄρα ὅσον ἂν ἐγὼ δυναίμην ἐκτεῖσαι͵ τοσούτου βούλεσθέ μοι τιμῆσαι. ἴσως δ΄ ἂν δυναίμην ἐκτεῖσαι ὑμῖν που μνᾶν ἀργυρίου· τοσούτου οὖν τιμῶμαι. Πλάτων δὲ ὅδε͵ ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι͵ καὶ Κρίτων καὶ Κριτόβουλος καὶ Ἀπολλόδωρος κελεύουσί με τριάκοντα μνῶν τιμήσασθαι͵ αὐτοὶ δ΄ ἐγγυᾶσθαι· τιμῶμαι οὖν τοσούτου͵ ἐγγυηταὶ δὲ ὑμῖν ἔσονται τοῦ ἀργυρίου οὗτοι ἀξιόχρεῳ. (...)