ring many years;
and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are
dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are the others,
who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with
their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated
about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made
the worse appear the better cause. The disseminators of this tale are
the accusers whom I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy that such
enquirers do not believe in the existence of the gods. And they are
many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were
made by them in the days when you were more impressible than you are
now--in childhood, or it may have been in youth--and the cause when
heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And hardest of all,
I do not know and cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in the
chance case of a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have persuaded
you--some of them having first convinced themselves--all this class of
men are most difficult to deal with; for I cannot have them up here, and
cross-examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my
own defence, and argue when there is no one who answers. I will ask you
then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two
kinds; one recent, the other ancient: and I hope that you will see the
propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you
heard long before the others, and much oftener.

Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour to clear away in a
short time, a slander which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to
succeed be for my good and yours, or likely to avail me in my cause!
The task is not an easy one; I quite understand the nature of it. And so
leaving the event with God, in obedience to the law I will now make my
defence.

I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation which has
given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has encouraged Meletus to
proof this charge against me. Well, what do the slanderers say? They
shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit:
'Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into
things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the
better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.' Such is
the nature of the accusation: it is just wha