Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterward, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men.
Socrates was thus kept in prison during thirty days, till the return of the vessel. He spent the interval in philosophical conversations with his friends. Crito, one of these, arranged a scheme for his escape by bribing the gaoler; but Socrates, as might be expected from the tone of his defence, resolutely refused to save his life by a breach of the law.
When Crito urges his beloved master to escape from the death that had been unjustly decreed for him, Socrates replies in a noble personification of the Laws, as rebuking him for the thought of such an attempt to evade them; and he must be dim-sighted, indeed, who does not see in the forms of the State Laws, the shadows of the Eternal Laws, august and awful, whose constraint was round about his will.
Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in so acting, for they think that they will be gainers by the delay; but I am right in not following their example, for I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should only be ridiculous in my own eyes for sparing and saving a life which is already forfeit.
The ambassadors sent to Hannibal were Heraclitus, surnamed Scotinus, Crito of Beraea, and Sositheus of Magnesia; these successfully took and brought back their commissions, but the summer had passed before the king could take any step or make any attempt. Such an influence had the capture of one vessel, together with the ambassadors, in deferring a war which threatened the Romans.
Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. 155. "It shall be done," said Crito; "but consider whether you have any thing else to say." To this question he gave no reply; but, shortly after, he gave a convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed; and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.
But Plato here, O Athenians! and Crito Critobulus, and Apollodorus bid me amerce myself in thirty minae, and they offer to be sureties. I amerce myself, then, to you in that sum; and they will be sufficient sureties for the money.
But what is this evil? Whither does it tend, and on what part of him that disobeys will it fall? Cri. Clearly on his body, for this it ruins. Socr. You say well. The case is the same, too, Crito, with all other things, not to go through them all.
Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant; and the servant went in, and remained for some time, and then returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said, "You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed."
The Euthyphro opens with an allusion by Socrates to his approaching trial, and in the Apology we have a Platonic version of Socrates' speech in his own defence; in Crito we have the story of his noble self-abnegation and civic obedience after his condemnation; in Phaedo we have his last conversation with his friends on the subject of Immortality, and the story of his death.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking