"Plato - Crito" - читать интересную книгу автора (Plato)

interested person, not having the fear of death before his eyes,
shall answer this for him. Before he was condemned they
had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man
should either do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the
right. Are these principles to be altered because the circum-
stances of Socrates are altered? Crito admits that they remain
the same. Then is his escape consistent with the maintenance
of them? To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.

Socrates proceeds: Suppose the laws of Athens to come
and remonstrate with him: they will ask, "Why does he seek
to overturn them?" and if he replies, "They have injured him,"
will not the laws answer, "Yes, but was that the agreement?
Has he any objection to make to them which would justify him
in overturning them? Was he not brought into the world and
educated by their help, and are they not his parents? He might
have left Athens and gone where he pleased, but he has lived
there for seventy years more constantly than any other citizen."
Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged the agree-
ment which he cannot now break without dishonor to himself
and danger to his friends. Even in the course of the trial he
might have proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared
that he preferred death to exile. And whither will he direct
his footsteps? In any well-ordered State the laws will con-
sider him as an enemy. Possibly in a land of misrule like
Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the unseemly narra-
tive of his escape regarded by the inhabitants as an amusing
tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort
of lesson. Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That
would hardly be decent. And how will his children be the
gainers if he takes them into Thessaly, and deprives them of
Athenian citizenship? Or if he leaves them behind, does he
expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends be-
cause he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends care for them
equally whether he is alive or dead?

Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life
and children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and
innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks
agreements, and returns evil for evil, they will be angry with
him while he lives; and their brethren, the laws of the world
below, will receive him as an enemy. Such is the mystic voice
which is always murmuring in his ears.

That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made
against him during his lifetime, which has been often repeated
in later ages. The crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Char-
mides, who had been his pupils, were still recent in the memory
of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had been
neutral in the death struggle of Athens was not likely to con-