r that you should persuade any man who has the smallest degree of
sense that the same person can think that there are things relating to
demons and to gods, and yet that there are neither demons, nor gods,
not heroes, is utterly impossible.

16. That I am not guilty, then, O Athenians! according to the indictment
of Melitus, appears to me not to require a lengthened defense; but what
I have said is sufficient. And as to what I said at the beginning, that
there is a great enmity toward me among the multitude, be assured it is
true. And this it is which will condemn me, if I am condemned, not
Melitus, nor Anytus, but the calumny and envy of the multitude, which
have already condemned many others, and those good men, and will, I
think, condemn others also; for there is no danger that it will stop
with me.

Perhaps, however, some one may say, "Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to
have pursued a study from which you are now in danger of dying?" To such
a person I should answer with good reason, You do not say well, friend,
if you think that a man, who is even of the least value, ought to take
into the account the risk of life or death, and ought not to consider
that alone when be performs any action, whether he is acting justly or
unjustly, and the part of a good man or bad man. For, according to your
reasoning, all those demi-gods that died at Troy would be vile
characters, as well all the rest as the son of Thetis, who so far
despised danger in comparison of submitting to disgrace, that when his
mother, who was a goddess, spoke to him, in his impatience to kill
Hector, something to this effect, as I think,[2] "My son, if you revenge
the death of your friend Patroclus, and slay Hector, you will yourself
die, for," she said, "death awaits you immediately after Hector;" but
he, on hearing this, despised death and danger, and dreading much more
to live as a coward, and not avenge his friend, said, "May I die
immediately when I have inflicted punishment on the guilty, that I may
not stay here an object of ridicule, by the curved ships, a burden to
the ground?"--do you think that he cared for death and danger? For thus
it is, O Athenians! in truth: wherever any one has posted himself,
either thinking it to be better, or has been posted by his chief, there,
as it appears to me, he ought to remain and meet danger, taking no
account either of death or anything else in comparison with disgrace.

17. I then should be acting strangely,