much or little.
However, tell us, Melitus, how you say I corrupt the youth? Is it not
evidently, according to the indictment which you have preferred, by
teaching them not to believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but
in other strange deities? Do you not say that, by teaching these things,
I corrupt the youth?

_Mel._ Certainly I do say so.

_Socr._ By those very gods, therefore, Melitus, of whom the discussion
now is, speak still more clearly both to me and to these men. For I can
not understand whether you say that I teach them to believe that there
are certain gods (and in that case I do believe that there are gods, and
am not altogether an atheist, nor in this respect to blame), not,
however, those which the city believes in, but others; and this it is
that you accuse me of, that I introduce others. Or do you say outright
that I do not myself believe that there are gods, and that I teach
others the same?

_Mel._ I say this: that you do not believe in any gods at all.

_Socr._ O wonderful Melitus, how come you to say this? Do I not, then,
like the rest of mankind, believe that the sun and moon are gods?

_Mel._ No, by Jupiter, O judges! for he says that the sun is a stone,
and the moon an earth.

_Socr._ You fancy that you are accusing Anaxagoras, my dear Melitus, and
thus you put a slight on these men, and suppose them to be so illiterate
as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomene are full of
such assertions. And the young, moreover, learn these things from me,
which they might purchase for a drachma, at most, in the orchestra, and
so ridicule Socrates, if he pretended they were his own, especially
since they are so absurd? I ask then, by Jupiter, do I appear to you to
believe that there is no god?

_Mel._ No, by Jupiter, none whatever.

_Socr._ You say what is incredible, Melitus, and that, as appears to me,
even to yourself. For this man, O Athenians! appears to me to be very
insolent and intemperate and to have preferred this indictment through
downright insolence, intemperance, and wantonness. For he seems, as it
were, to have composed an enigma for the purpose of making an
experiment. Whether will Socrates the wise know that I am jesting, and
contradict myself, or shall I deceive him and all who hear me? For, in
my opinion, he clearly contradicts himself in the indictment, as if he
should say, Socrates is guilty of wrong in not believing that there are
gods, and in believing tha