XX. But the philosopher, after Lysias had prepared a defence for him, read it through, and said—“It is a very fine speech, Lysias, but is not suitable for me; for it was manifestly the speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher.” And when Lysias replied, “How is it possible, that if it is a good speech, it should not be suitable to you?” he said, “Just as fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me.” And when the trial was proceeding, Justus, of Tiberias, in his Garland, says that Plato ascended the tribune and said, “I, men of Athens, being the youngest of all those who have mounted the tribune …” and that he was interrupted by the judges, who cried out καταβάντων, that is to say, ‘Come down.’
XXI. So when he had been condemned by two hundred and eighty-one votes, being six more than were given in his favour, and when the judges were making an estimate of what punishment or fine should be inflicted on him, he said that he ought to be fined five and twenty drachmas; but Eubulides says that he admitted that he deserved a fine of one hundred. And when the judges raised an outcry at this proposition, he said, “My real opinion is, that as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of my life.” So they condemned him to death, by eighty votes more than they had originally found him guilty. And he was put into prison, and a few days afterwards he drank the hemlock, having held many admirable conversations in the meantime, which Plato has recorded in the Phædo.
XXII. He also, according to some accounts, composed a pæan which begins—
Hail Apollo, King of Delos,
Hail Diana, Leto’s child.
But Dionysidorus says that this pæan is not his. He also composed a fable, in the style of Æsop, not very artistically, and it begins—
Æsop one day did this sage counsel give
To the Corinthian magistrates: not to trust
The cause of virtue to the people’s judgement.
XXIII. So he died; but the Athenians immediately repented[22] of their action, so that they closed all the palæstræ and gymnasia; and they banished his accusers, and condemned Meletus to death; but they honoured Socrates with a brazen statue, which they erected in the place where the sacred vessels are kept; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had already left Athens; and the people of Heraclea banished him from that city the day of his arrival. But Socrates was not the only person who met with this treatment at the hands of the Athenians, but many other men received the same: for, as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a madman, and they said that Tyrtæus was out of his wits. But they honoured Astydamas, before Æschylus, with a brazen statue. And Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Palamedes, saying—