O Athenians! if, when the
generals whom you chose to command me assigned me my post at Potidaea, at
Amphipolis, and at Delium, I then remained where they posted me, like
any other person, and encountered the danger of death; but when the
deity, as I thought and believed, assigned it as my duty to pass my life
in the study of philosophy, and examining myself and others, I should on
that occasion, through fear of death or any thing else whatsoever,
desert my post, strange indeed would it be; and then, in truth, any one
might justly bring me to trial, and accuse me of not believing in the
gods, from disobeying the oracle, fearing death, and thinking myself to
be wise when I am not. For to fear death, O Athenians! is nothing else
than to appear to be wise, without being so; for it is to appear to know
what one does not know. For no one knows but that death is the greatest
of all good to man; but men fear it, as if they well knew that it is the
greatest of evils. And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance,
to think that one knows what one does not know? But I, O Athenians! in
this, perhaps, differ from most men; and if I should say that I am in
any thing wiser than another, it would be in this, that not having a
competent knowledge of the things in Hades, I also think that I have not
such knowledge. But to act unjustly, and to disobey my superior,
whether God or man, I know is evil and base. I shall never, therefore,
fear or shun things which, for aught I know, maybe good, before evils
which I know to be evils. So that, even if you should now dismiss me,
not yielding to the instances of Anytus, who said that either I should
not[3] appear here at all, or that, if I did appear, it was impossible
not to put me to death, telling you that if I escaped, your sons,
studying what Socrates teaches, would all be utterly corrupted; if you
should address me thus, "Socrates, we shall not now yield to Anytus, but
dismiss you, on this condition, however, that you no longer persevere in
your researches nor study philosophy; and if hereafter you are detected
in so doing, you shall die"--if, as I said, you should dismiss, me on
these terms, I should say to you, "O Athenians! I honor and love you;
but I shall obey God rather than you; and so long as I breathe and am
able, I shall not cease studying philosophy, and exhorting you and
warning any one of you I may happen to meet, saying, as I have been
accustomed to do: 'O best of men! se