the pretenders to wisdom.

The first indication of the unpopularity which he had incurred is the
attack made upon him by Aristophanes in the 'Clouds' in the year 423
B.C. That attack, however, seems to have evaporated with the laugh,
and for many years Socrates continued his teaching without molestation.
It was not till B.C. 399 that the indictment was preferred against him
which cost him his life. 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. Socrates made no preparations for his
defence, and seems, indeed, not to have desired an acquittal. But
although he addressed the dicasts in a bold uncompromising tone, he was
condemned only by a small majority of five or six in a court composed
of between five and six hundred dicasts. After the verdict was
pronounced, he was entitled, according to the practice of the Athenian
courts, to make some counter-proposition in place of the penalty of
death, which the accusers had demanded, and if he had done so with any
show of submission it is probable that the sentence would have been
mitigated. But his tone after the verdict was higher than before.
Instead of a fine, he asserted that he ought to be maintained in the
Prytaneum at the public expense, as a public benefactor. This seems to
have enraged the dicasts and he was condemned to death.

It happened that the vessel which proceeded to Delos on the annual
deputation to the festival had sailed the day before his condemnation;
and during its absence it was unlawful to put any one to death.
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. His last discourse, on the day of his death, turned on the
immortality of the soul. With a firm and cheerful countenance he drank
the cup of hemlock amidst his sorrowing and weeping friends. His last
words were addressed to Crito:--"Crito, we owe a cock to AEsculapius;
discharge the debt, and by