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Updated: May 5, 2025
And I must remind the audience of my request that they would not make a disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner: Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human things, and not of human beings?...I wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always trying to get up an interruption.
I expected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say, I think, that I have escaped Meletus.
Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking, men of Athens, that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. Has he not compounded a riddle, thinking to try me?
But in those days philosophy was not generally known, and had but few exponents; it is not surprising that the scale turned in favour of Anytus and Meletus.
For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, of whom they are said to be the sons what human being will ever believe that there are no gods if they are the sons of gods? You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you to make trial of me.
We shall give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme if we stone a man without a hearing, profest lovers of justice as we are. We shall have to keep quiet about Anytus and Meletus, my accusers, and the jury on that occasion, if we can not spare an hour to hear this fellow before he suffers. Plato. Very true, Socrates. We will go and fetch Philosophy.
Why, indeed, except for the sake of truth and justice, and because they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is a liar. Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the defence which I have to offer. Yet a word more.
Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver is. The laws. But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.
Neither Meletus nor Anytus could harm him, though they might have him killed or banished, or disfranchised. This passage of the Apology, in a condensed form, is adopted by Epictetus as one of the watchwords of Stoicism. There is nothing more distinctive of Socrates than the doctrine that virtue is knowledge.
In that year, Meletus, a leather-seller, seconded by Anytus, a poet, and Lycon, a rhetor, accused him of impiety in not worshipping the gods of the city, and in introducing new deities, and also of being a corrupter of youth. With respect to the latter charge, his former intimacy with Alcibiades and Critias may have, weighed against him.
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