Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/232

204 was confirmed by the fact that some of the youths who frequented his society had turned out bad and mischievous citizens—such as Alcibiades the traitor, and Critias the most abhorred of the Thirty. After the restoration of B.C. 403 there was perhaps a more than usually strong feeling that such teaching had been bad for the youths, and might in part be accountable for the disasters of recent years. Yet Socrates had always been tolerated. When he refused to put the vote for the condemnation of the six generals after Arginusae, though howled at and threatened, he had departed unharmed. When during the tyranny of the Thirty he had refused to take part in one of their illegal arrests he had received no further harm than threatening words. His face and figure, his endless talk, his constant humiliation of wordy and pretentious people, had provoked nothing more alarming than a laugh or a petulant retort. But, suddenly in B.C. 399, three men were found—representing the classes which had felt most annoyance at his arguments and methods—Meletus, a poet, Lycon, an orator, and Anytus, a man of business, determined to prosecute. It was difficult to name the charge. It had to be classed under the general word —“he wrongs”—i.e., the people, by disbelieving the gods of the country and introducing new gods, and by corrupting the youths. Socrates was condemned by a small majority, and his prosecutors assessed the punishment at death. Socrates had the right to make a counter assessment, and would probably have been able to name a fine sufficiently large to be accepted. But he all along took the line that instead