Crito's Plea

Crito: Too clear, it seems. But, my good Socrates, even now listen to me and save yourself. For if you die, it will be more than one misfortune for me. Apart from losing a friend such as I shall never find again, many people who do not know you and me well will think 44c that I could have saved you if I had been willing to spend money, but did not care to. And what reputation could be more shameful than to be thought to value money more than friends? For the many will never believe that it was you who refused to leave this place, though we were eager for it.

Socrates: But why, my dear Crito, should we care so much about the opinion of the many? The most reasonable people, whose opinion is more worth considering, will believe that things were done exactly as they were done.

Crito: 44d But you see, Socrates, that one must care about the opinion of the many too. The present situation itself makes it plain that the many can do not the least of evils but very nearly the greatest, once a man has been slandered among them.

Socrates: If only, Crito, the many could do the greatest evils, so that they could also do the greatest good; that would be a fine thing. But as it is, they can do neither. They cannot make a man wise or foolish; they do whatever chance brings.

Crito: 44e Well, let that be so. But tell me this, Socrates. You are not worried, are you, about me and your other friends — that if you escape from here, the informers¹ will make trouble for us for having stolen you away, and we shall be forced to lose all our property, or a great deal of money, or suffer something else besides? If 45a you are afraid of anything of the kind, put it out of your mind. It is right for us to run this risk to save you, and a greater one if need be. Come, listen to me, and do not refuse.

Socrates: I am concerned about that, Crito, and about much else.

Crito: Then do not be afraid of it. The sum that certain people are asking to save you and get you out of here is not large. And don't you see how cheap these informers are, and how little money would be needed for them? 45b My own means are at your disposal and, I think, sufficient. And if out of concern for me you think you should not spend my money, there are visitors here from abroad ready to spend theirs. One of them, Simmias of Thebes, has brought enough money for this very purpose; Cebes is ready too, and a great many others.² So, as I say, do not let these fears make you give up saving yourself; and do not let it trouble you, as you said in court, that if you went into exile you would not know what to do with yourself.³ There are many places 45c where people will welcome you, wherever you go. If you want to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will value you highly and keep you safe, so that no one in Thessaly will trouble you.

Besides, Socrates, I do not think that what you are undertaking is even just: to give yourself up when you could be saved. You are hurrying to bring upon yourself the very things your enemies would hurry to bring upon you — and did, in their wish to destroy you. And besides, you seem to me to be betraying your own sons. 45d You could bring them up and educate them, and instead you will go away and leave them; as far as you are concerned, they will fare as chance brings, and they will most likely meet the fate that usually befalls orphans. Either one should not have children at all, or one should share the toil of rearing and educating them. You seem to me to be choosing the easiest way. But one should choose what a good and brave man would choose — above all a man who claims to have cared for virtue all his life. For my part I am ashamed, 45e for you and for us your friends, that the whole affair will seem to have been carried through by some cowardice of ours: the bringing of the case into court, when it need not have been brought; the way the trial itself was conducted; and now this last act, the crowning absurdity of the business — that we will be thought to have let the chance slip through some badness and cowardice of ours, 46a because we did not save you, nor you yourself, though it was possible and could have been done if we had been of the slightest use.

See to it, then, Socrates, that all this is not shameful as well as evil, for you and for us. Come, make up your mind — or rather, it is no longer the time to be making it up, but to have made it up. There is only one plan: all this must be done in the coming night. If we wait any longer, it will be impossible; it can no longer be done. In every way, Socrates, listen to me, and do not refuse.

1. Men who made a living by bringing prosecutions, or by threatening to bring them, for gain. ↩
2. Two young Thebans, devoted followers of Socrates. They are the chief speakers in Plato's Phaedo, which describes Socrates' last day. ↩
3. In the Apology (37c–e) Socrates refused to propose exile as his penalty, saying that wherever he went the young would flock to hear him and he would be driven out again. ↩