This is the principle which I assume as true, though I know that very few persons hold it, or ever will hold it. Most men say the contrary — that when other persons do wrong or harm to us, we may do wrong or harm to them in return. This is a cardinal point. Between those who affirm it, and those who deny it, there can be no common measure or reasoning. Reciprocal contempt is the sentiment with which, by necessity, each contemplates the other’s resolutions.[8]
[8] Plato, Krito. c. 10, p. 49 D. Οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι ὀλίγοις τισὶ ταῦτα καὶ δοκεῖ καὶ δόξει· Ὁῖς οὖν οὕτω δέδοκται καὶ οἷς μή, τούτοις οὐκ ἔστι κοινὴ βουλή, ἀλλ’ ἀνάγκη τούτους ἀλλήλων καταφρονεῖν, ὁρωντας τὰ ἀλλήλων βουλεύματα. Σκόπει δὴ οὖν καὶ σὺ εὖ μάλα, πότερον κοινωνεῖς καὶ ξυνδοκεῖ σοι· καὶ ἀρχώμεθα ἐντεῦθεν βουλευόμενοι, ὡς οὐδέποτε ὀρθῶς ἔχοντος οὔτε τοῦ ἀδικεῖν οὔτε τοῦ ἀνταδικεῖν, οὔτε κακῶς πάσχοντα ἀμύνεσθαι ἀντιδρῶντα κακῶς.
Compare the opposite impulse, to revenge yourself upon your country from which you believe yourself to have received wrong, set forth in the speech of Alkibiades at Sparta after he had been exiled by the Athenians. Thucyd. vi. 92. τό τε φιλόπολι οὐκ ἐν ᾧ ἀδικοῦμαι ἔχω, ἀλλ’ ἐν ᾧ ἀσφαλῶς ἐπολιτεύθην.
Pleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to Sokrates, demanding from him implicit obedience.
Sokrates then delivers a well-known and eloquent pleading, wherein he imagines the Laws of Athens to remonstrate with him on his purpose of secretly quitting the prison, in order to evade a sentence legally pronounced. By his birth, and long residence in Athens, he has entered into a covenant to obey exactly and faithfully what the laws prescribe. Though the laws should deal unjustly with him, he has no right of redress against them — neither by open disobedience, nor force, nor evasion. Their rights over him are even more uncontrolled and indefeasible than those of his father and mother. The laws allow to every citizen full liberty of trying to persuade the assembled public: but the citizen who fails in persuading, must obey the public when they enact a law adverse to his views. Sokrates having been distinguished beyond all others for the constancy of his residence at Athens, has thus shown that he was well satisfied with the city, and with those laws without which it could not exist as a city. If he now violates his covenants and his duty, by breaking prison like a runaway slave, he will forfeit all the reputation to which he has pretended during his long life, as a preacher of justice and virtue.[9]
[9] Plato, Krito. c. 11-17, pp. 50-54.
Purpose of Plato in this pleading — to present the dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which the Apology had presented — unqualified submission instead of defiance.
This striking discourse, the general drift of which I have briefly described, appears intended by Plato — as far as I can pretend to guess at his purpose — to set forth the personal character and dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which they present in the Apology. In defending himself before the Dikasts, Sokrates had exalted himself into a position which would undoubtedly be construed by his auditors as disobedience and defiance to the city and its institutions. He professed to be acting under a divine mission, which was of higher authority than the enactments of his countrymen: he warned them against condemning him, because his condemnation would be a mischief, not to him, but to them and because by doing so they would repudiate and maltreat the missionary sent to them by the Delphian God as a valuable present.[10] In the judgment of the Athenian Dikasts, Sokrates by using such language had put himself above the laws; thus confirming the charge which his accusers advanced, and which they justified by some of his public remarks. He had manifested by unmistakable language the same contempt for the Athenian constitution as that which had been displayed in act by Kritias and Alkibiades,[11] with whom his own name was associated as teacher and companion.[12] Xenophon in his Memorabilia recognises this impression as prevalent among his countrymen against Sokrates, and provides what he thinks a suitable answer to it. Plato also has his way of answering it; and such I imagine to be the dramatic purpose of the Kriton.
[10] Plato, Apol. c. 17-18, p. 29-30.
[11] This was among the charges urged against Sokrates by Anytus and the other accusers (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 9. ὑπερορᾷν ἐποίει τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων τοὺς συνόντας). It was also the judgment formed respecting Sokrates by the Roman censor, the elder Cato; a man very much like the Athenian Anytus, constitutional and patriotic as a citizen, devoted to the active duties of political life, but thoroughly averse to philosophy and speculative debate, as Anytus is depicted in the Menon of Plato. — Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a passage already cited in a [note] on the chapter next but one preceding.