hy should he propose any counter-penalty when he does not know
whether death, which Anytus proposes, is a good or an evil? And he is
certain that imprisonment is an evil, exile is an evil. Loss of money
might be an evil, but then he has none to give; perhaps he can make up
a mina. Let that be the penalty, or, if his friends wish, thirty minae;
for which they will be excellent securities.

(He is condemned to death.)

He is an old man already, and the Athenians will gain nothing but
disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life. Perhaps he could have
escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms and entreat for his
life. But he does not at all repent of the manner of his defence; he
would rather die in his own fashion than live in theirs. For the penalty
of unrighteousness is swifter than death; that penalty has already
overtaken his accusers as death will soon overtake him.

And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them. They have
put him to death in order to escape the necessity of giving an account
of their lives. But his death 'will be the seed' of many disciples who
will convince them of their evil ways, and will come forth to reprove
them in harsher terms, because they are younger and more inconsiderate.

He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those who
would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign
never interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which,
as he conjectures, is that the death to which he is going is a good and
not an evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or
a journey to another world in which the souls of the dead are gathered
together, and in which there may be a hope of seeing the heroes of
old--in which, too, there are just judges; and as all are immortal,
there can be no fear of any one suffering death for his opinions.

Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death, and his
own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for him
to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges because they have done
him no harm, although they never meant to do him any good.

He has a last request to make to them--that they will trouble his sons
as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or
to think themselves something when they are nothing.

*****

'Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended
himself otherwise,'--if, as