The word apology here does not mean saying sorry. It comes from the Greek apologia, meaning a speech in defense. Plato's Apology, written some years after the trial, presents Socrates' defense in three parts: his main speech, his penalty proposal, and his final words to the jury. Plato was present at the trial, but his account is a literary work, not a transcript, and we cannot know how closely it matches what Socrates said.

The old accusers

Socrates begins by saying he has two sets of accusers. The new ones are Meletus and his colleagues. The older and more dangerous ones are the rumors that have circulated for years, including the comic picture of him in Aristophanes' Clouds. He denies studying the heavens or teaching for money, and he tells the story of the oracle to explain why he questions people: he is carrying out a mission from the god, testing whether anyone is wiser than he is.

Cross-examining Meletus

Socrates then questions Meletus directly, as Athenian procedure allowed. He traps him into claiming that Socrates is a complete atheist, then points out that this contradicts the written charge, which accuses him of introducing new divine beings. How can a man believe in divine things and not in gods? He also argues that no one corrupts others on purpose, since corrupted people harm those around them. The exchange is clever, but it may not have won friends; it showed the jury the very skill that made people resent him.

The gadfly

The heart of the speech is Socrates' account of his mission. He compares Athens to a large, noble horse that has grown sluggish, and himself to a gadfly, a stinging insect sent by the god to wake the city up by constant questioning. If they kill him, he warns, they will not easily find another, and they may sleep for the rest of their lives.

He also refuses in advance any deal that would require silence. Suppose, he says, they offered to acquit him on condition that he stop philosophizing. He would answer that he must obey the god rather than them, and would go on questioning as long as he had breath.

Two acts of conscience

To show that he had stood up to injustice under both democracy and oligarchy, Socrates describes two episodes.

• In 406 BCE, after the naval battle of Arginusae, the Assembly wanted to try a group of generals together for failing to rescue drowning sailors, in a single vote, which was against the law. Socrates, serving on the presiding committee that day, opposed the illegal proposal despite threats. The generals were condemned anyway.
• Under the Thirty, he was ordered with four others to arrest an innocent man, Leon of Salamis, so that he could be executed and his property seized. The others went. Socrates simply went home. He says he would likely have been killed if the Thirty had not fallen soon after.

These stories mattered. They answered the charge that he was a friend of the tyrants by showing that he had defied them.

Xenophon's version

Xenophon, who was not present, wrote a shorter account of the defense based on what a friend told him. His Socrates speaks proudly, even boastfully, and says that his divine sign did not warn him against the trial, which he took as a sign that death would be good for him. Xenophon suggests that Socrates, at seventy, preferred to die before old age brought blindness, deafness and failing wits. The two accounts agree on the main points: Socrates refused to flatter the jury and seemed unafraid of the verdict.

No tears

Socrates also refuses the usual appeal for pity. He will not bring his sons before the jury to weep, because it would disgrace himself and the city, and because jurors have sworn to judge by law, not by favor.

The examined life

In the penalty phase, after explaining why exile would be no solution, since he would keep questioning wherever he went, Socrates gives his most famous line: “the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.” In his closing words, he tells the jurors who voted for him that death is either a dreamless sleep or a journey to meet the great dead, and neither is to be feared. He ends: “Now it is time to go, I to die, and you to live; but which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one but the god.”

Worked example: was it a good defense?

Judge the speech as a defense lawyer would, then as a philosopher would.

As a lawyer. It was risky. Socrates lectured the jury, embarrassed the prosecutor, refused to beg, promised to keep doing exactly what he was accused of, and proposed to be honored rather than punished. Xenophon suggests he spoke boldly on purpose, believing that at seventy, death now was better than the miseries of old age.

As a philosopher. It was consistent. A man who taught that one must never act unjustly, and that the soul matters more than the body, could not abandon his mission to save his life without proving his own teaching false. His refusal to bargain made his death a statement.

The two judgments pull in opposite directions, which is part of why the trial still fascinates. Ask yourself what you would have said. The question tests how much your own convictions would cost you to keep.