Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/108

98 instructed, so far from corrupting them, he had invariably drawn them on to modesty, manliness, and virtue. "Ay," interrupted Melêtus, "but I have known some whom you persuaded to obey you rather than their parents." "Yes," said Socrates, "about matters of education, for they knew I had specially studied this subject. About health people obey the physician, and not their parents; and in state affairs or war, you choose those who are skilled to be your leaders. Why then, in the most important thing of all, education, should not I be allowed to be an authority, if I am really such? or why should my claiming this be made a ground for thinking me worthy of death?"

From these specimens of the defence of Socrates, any one can see in what a lofty spirit of conscious rectitude it was conceived. On such of the jury as had petty minds, perhaps already full of prejudice against the defendant, and looking at all events to see him humble himself before them, his independent words were sure to fall unfavourably; and yet there was sufficient generosity among the dicasts to make the majority against him a small one. As many as 276 of their number were for acquitting him, while 281 voted that he was guilty of the charges brought against him. Even at this point he might have been saved, for the sentence was not yet passed, and, according to Athenian custom, the condemned person had the privilege of proposing some punishment, in which he would acquiesce, milder than that proposed by the prosecutor. But, as we learn from Plato, Socrates would not even now show any submission to the majority who had condemned