despicable thing, for one who is a young man, to be knowing in a circumstance of such a magnitude. For he knows, as he says, how the youth are corrupted, and who they are that corrupt them. And he appears to be a certain wise man; and seeing my ignorance, and considering me as one who corrupts his equals in age, to have accused me to the city, as to a mother. In consequence of this, he only of the citizens seems to me to have begun rightly. For it is right to pay attention to youth, in the first place, that they may become the most excellent characters : just as it is reasonable that a good husbandman should first take care of the young plants, and after this of the others. Thus also Melitus perhaps will first cut us up who corrupt the blossoms of youth, as he says, and afterwards he will certainly pay attention to those of a more advanced age, and thus will be the cause of the most numerous and the greatest goods to the city. This is what may be expected to happen from one who makes such a beginning.
Euth. I should wish it were so, Socrates ; but I tremble, left the contrary should happen. For, in reality, he appears to me, by trying to injure you, to begin to hurt the city from the Vestal hearth [1] itself. But tell me by what part of your conduct it is that he says you corrupt the youth ?
Soc. The things of which he accuses me, O wonderful man, must be considered, when they are heard, as absurd. For he says that I am a maker of gods ; and, as if I introduced new and did not believe in the ancient gods, has brought this accusation against me.
Euth. I understand you, Socrates ; it is because you say that a demoniacal [2] power is every where present with you. This accusation, therefore, is brought against you as one that introduces novelties in divine affairs ; and as well knowing that the multitude are always disposed to receive such kind of calumnies. For indeed they ridicule me as one insane, when I say any thing in a public assembly concerning the gods, and predict to them future events ; though I do not predict to them any thing which is not true. At the same time, however, they envy all such as we are. But indeed it is
- ↑ The hearth, among the Greeks, contained the household gods, of whom Veda was the chief. Hence to begin from the Vestal hearth was a proverbial expression, when they spoke of beginning with what is most excellent and sacred.
- ↑ This perfectly accords with what we have cited from Xenophon, in the Introduction to the Apology of Socrates.
