Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/506

184 HISTORY OF GREECE. might be satisfied to accept, in preference to the heavier sentence invoked by his antagonist. Now JVIeletus, in his indictment and speech against Sokrates, had called for the infliction of capital punishment. It was for Sokrates to make his own counter-proposition, and the very small majority, by which the verdict had been pronounced, afforded sufficient proof that .he dikasts were no way inclined to sanction the extreme penalty against him. They doubtless anticipated, according to the uniform practice before the Athenian courts of justice, that he would suggest some lesser penalty ; fine, impris- onment, exile, disfranchisement, etc. And had he done this purely and simply, there can be little doubt that the proposition would have passed. But the language of Sokrates, after the verdict, was in a strain yet higher than before it ; and his resolution to adhere to his own point of view, disdaining the smallest abatement or concession, only the more emphatically pronounced. " What counter proposition shall I make to you (he said) as a substitute for the penalty of Meletus ? Shall I name to you the treatment which I think I deserve at your hands ? In that case, my prop- osition would be that I should be rewarded with a subsistence at the public expense in the prytaneum ; for that is what I really deserve as a public benefactor ; one who has neglected all thought of his own affairs, and embraced voluntary poverty, in order to devote himself to your best interests, and to admonish you indi- vidually on the serious necessity of mental and moral improve- ment. Assuredly, I cannot admit that I have deserved from you any evil whatever ; nor would it be reasonable in me to propose exile or imprisonment, which I know to be certain and consider- able evils, in place of death, which may perhaps be not an evil, but a good. I might, indeed, propose to you a pecuniary fine ; for the payment of that would be no evil. But I am poor, and lave no money : all that I could muster might perhaps amount 'o a mina : and I therefore propose to you a fine of one mina, as punishment on myself. Plato, and my other friends near me, desire me to increase this sum to thirty minae, and they engage to pay it for rne. A fine of thirty mina?, therefore, is the counter penalty which I submit for your judgment." J 1 Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 26, 27, 23. pp. 37. 38. I give, as well as I can, th kubstantive propositions, apart from the emphatic language of the original