Socrates has been sentenced to death [1] and awaits his fate. His death has been delayed by the holy season. Crito, his disciple, visits him in the meantime.
Crito seeks to persuade Socrates to escape from prison by bribing the guards. The subtle issue is one of self-interested reputation for Crito mixed with selfless altruism. Socrates starts with reputation, then right and wrong, then rules applied to the context. Wonderful arguments between master and disciple have been abridged. Such as it is with the entire “Abridgement Series,” the whetting abridged publications are made on the basis that some to many is better than nothing to no one. As always, this abridgement is an introduction and the source texts are superior in every way.
We note the central philosophies used to support future religious and political theory. This scene follows The Apology [GRZ60], which is the trial of Socrates. Reading The Apology is not required, but certainly recommended.
Source for the text is: Plato. The Collected Works of Plato (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics) . Halcyon Press Ltd. Kindle Edition. The text has been edited and abridged for this forum and for the modern ear. << Go to The Apology
CRITO: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful.
SOCRATES: Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I am to die?
CRITO: She will probably be here today; therefore tomorrow, Socrates, will be the last day of your life.
SOCRATES: If such is the will of God, I am willing. But my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
CRITO: Why do you think so?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival of the ship?
CRITO: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
SOCRATES: But I do not think that the ship will be here until tomorrow; this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
CRITO: And what was the nature of the vision?
SOCRATES: There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said: “Oh Socrates, ‘The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go.’” [2]
CRITO: Oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape. People who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you. For the many will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
SOCRATES: But why should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good—and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
Your zeal is invaluable, Crito, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger.
Therefore, Crito, we ought to consider whether I shall do as you say. For I must be guided by reason; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own words: the principles which I have hitherto honored and revered I still honor, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am certain not to agree with you. No, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors.
Now you, Crito, are not going to die tomorrow—at least, there is no human probability [3] of this, and therefore you are disinterested and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed. [4]
SOCRATES: Tell me then, Crito, whether I am right in saying that some opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be valued, and that other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are not to be valued.
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the unwise are evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Is the pupil who devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only—his physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
CRITO: Of one man only, being only his physician or trainer.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting, in the disobedient person?
CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil.
SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? Ought we not to fear and revere him more than all the rest of the world.
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable.— But it may be said by some, ‘Well, but the many can kill us.‘
CRITO: Yes, Socrates, some will say so.
SOCRATES: And it is true. But I should like to know if it is not life, but a good life, that is to be chiefly valued?
CRITO: Yes, that remains unshaken.
SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one—that holds also?
CRITO: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: From these premises I proceed to argue the question whether I ought to try and escape without the consent of the Athenians.
CRITO: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?
SOCRATES: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong? Is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away?
And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong? [2]
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all?
CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many—is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right.
And shall that be the premise of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
CRITO: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
SOCRATES: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in the form of a question:—Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right?
CRITO: He ought to do what he thinks right.
SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
SOCRATES Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals? What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words?
Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue that this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, ‘Yes; but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.’ Suppose I say that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then the laws will say: ‘Consider, Socrates, if we are speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him.
‘Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him.
‘Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were your especial favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and here in this city you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction.
‘Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not unwilling to die. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?’ How shall we answer, Crito? Must we not assent?
CRITO: We cannot help it, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then will they not say: ‘You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but after you have had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice.
‘And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.’
For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. They will say, ‘Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids.
‘Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.’
This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
CRITO: I have nothing to say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Leave me then, Crito, to fulfill the will of God, and to follow whither he leads. [5, 6, 7, 8]
[1] Sorry, Socrates. Or, The “Apology” of Socrates – Abridgment Series [GRZ60] [LinkedIn #GRZ_60]
[2] The ONE LinkedIn Reference Set Index [GRZ183] [LinkedIn #GRZ_183]
[3] On Wisdom and Luck; Or, Getting Lucky is not the Same as Being Wise [GRZ155] [LinkedIn #GRZ_155]
[4] Pro-Life or Pro-Choice? [To Be Or Not To Be] Chapter 1, Bias [GRZ91] [LinkedIn #GRZ_91]
[6] Proseuche Socrates-What A Man Gives [GRZ121] [LinkedIn #GRZ_121]
[7] The Proseuché (The Prayer of Socrates) Ch. X [Finale] [GRZ156] [LinkedIn #GRZ156]
[8] The Doctrine of the Infant Soldier; Or, The Duty of Everyone [GRZ251] [LinkedIn #GRZ_251]
Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men.
But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us.
In Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius tells the story of Aesop-reading Socrates [*23]:
Since he often spoke too vehemently in the course of his inquiries, men pummeled Socrates with their fists or tore his hair out, and for the most part he was laughed at and despised. And he bore all these things so patiently that once when he had been kicked, and someone expressed surprise that he stood for it.
Socrates replied, “If a donkey had kicked me, should I have taken it to court?”
© 2025 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
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See also:
- [251] The Doctrine of the Infant Soldier; Or, The Duty of Everyone [GRZ251] [LinkedIn #GRZ_251]
- [205] The Tarpeian Rock; Or, America’s Hard Decisions [GRZ205] [LinkedIn #GRZ_205]
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