Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/106

96 sisting of the large number of 557 Athenian citizens. Melêtus appears to have stated the case for the prosecution, and it was left to Socrates to defend himself. In a trial of the kind, and before such a tribunal, the issue was sure to turn on the animus, favourable or otherwise, created by the speeches of the different parties on the minds of the jurymen. They were doubtless all practised in the discharge of their function, which in litigious Athens every one was constantly called on to fulfil. On such occasions they were accustomed to be conciliated by those who pleaded before them, and they would expect as a matter of course to be conciliated by Socrates. But Socrates condescended to nothing of the kind. His 'Apology' or 'Defence' has been reported both by Xenophon and Plato. The latter, as usual, puts into the mouth of his master a speech in more beautiful style and in sublimer strain than that which he really uttered. Xenophon merely gives rough heads of the topics which, he had heard, were used. But the general purport of both accounts is the same. Socrates, without addressing himself to the task of persuading his judges and saving his own life, spoke, as Mr Grote well says, "for posterity." Instead of submitting explanations of his own conduct, he treated it as something of which he could only speak with a just pride. He gave indeed a distinct denial to the charge that he had shown any want of orthodoxy toward the national religion, as he could call all to witness that he had always joined in the public sacrifices. But with regard to the second coun