had been like other men, I should not have
neglected all my own concerns or patiently seen the neglect of them
during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you
individually like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard
virtue; such conduct, I say, would be unlike human nature. If I had
gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have
been some sense in my doing so; but now, as you will perceive, not even
the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted
or sought pay of any one; of that they have no witness. And I have a
sufficient witness to the truth of what I say--my poverty.

Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying
myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward
in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me
speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign
which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the
indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come
to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to
do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a
politician. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens,
that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and
done no good either to you or to myself. And do not be offended at my
telling you the truth: for the truth is, that no man who goes to war
with you or any other multitude, honestly striving against the many
lawless and unrighteous deeds which are done in a state, will save his
life; he who will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief
space, must have a private station and not a public one.

I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but
what you value far more--actions. Let me relate to you a passage of my
own life which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to
injustice from any fear of death, and that 'as I should have refused to
yield' I must have died at once. I will tell you a tale of the courts,
not very interesting perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only office of
state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of senator: the tribe
Antiochis, which is my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the
generals who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle
of Arginusae; and you proposed to try them in a body, contrar