Crito (Justice) By Plato Audiobook with text and illustrations, and dramatized 🎵 with sound effects and music, by Audiobooks Dimension.
Title : Crito (Κρίτων)
Author : Plato (Πλάτων)
Written : 399 BCE
Place of Origin : Ancient Greece
Original Media type : Papyrus
Original Language : Ancient Greek
Genre(s) : Ancient Greece, Dialogue, Philosophy
Translator : Benjamin Jowett (1817 - 1893)
Narrators : David Rintoul, and Full Cast
Musician : Nature's Eye
Editor : Audiobooks Dimension
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Dramatized 🎵
The invasion of the Asian strangers in Greece was not only repulsed, but the Persian king was also forced to enter into a shameful peace, mainly due to Athenian resilience and heroism. It is such times of impending danger that create heroes and awaken all geniuses: then, especially when a fearful struggle has brought victory, then the bosom of a high feeling beats, and masterpieces are created, which later, calmer, but also admiring the slack times, but no longer emulating them. Thus in Athens tragedy was created by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, comedy was created, developed and perfected by Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes, other beautiful works of art were created by other masters.
The creations of the imagination are followed by the developments of the intellect: Herodotus and Thucydides, Plato and Xenophon, Lysias and Isocrates created Attic prose, perhaps never equaled, and soon, outside of poetry, the only dominant language. Because of these and other circumstances, Athens was and remained the center of Greek civilization and Greek wisdom.
The thought of the Greeks had first been focused on nature, and their philosophy was purely physical. Later realizing that human reason is something different and higher than natural force, they had reflected on the moral law; which, captivated as they were, by their reflection on nature, they could not yet separate from this. But new thinkers emerged and developed moral doctrine in sharp contrast to the doctrine of nature, until the eternal striving of the human spirit, the pursuit of unity in knowledge and thought, found a mediation between both views, a bond between natural and moral theory: the compositions and decompositions of the understanding.
The man who, most of all, made contemporary and descendant realize that bond, which demanded that anyone who knew or did something could give full account of his knowledge or action; that intelligent thinker who formed so many others into thinkers—that man was Socrates.
Socrates was born in 469 BCE. Sophroniscus, his father, was a sculptor; Phaenarete, his mother, midwife. He spent his youth in the practice of his father's profession: five centuries later, veiled graces carved by him were seen in Athens.
Although he received no deliberate instruction in philosophy, yet such men as we mentioned at the outset of our essay had to exercise a powerful influence on a thinking mind, such as Socrates, who was the contemporary of most of them. Moreover, he took advantage of the rich opportunity that Athens offered for all kinds of development.
In his busy life he was an example of steadfast patriotism and a fearless upholder of truth and justice. As a citizen of his home town he attended three military campaigns. First at sea against Potidaea: on that occasion he saved Alcibiades with his shield, won the prize of bravery, but voluntarily gave it up to Alcibiades, who himself tells the story in Plato's Banquet. “But it was more worthwhile,” he continues, “to see Socrates when our army retreated from Delium (424 BCE, in Boeotia). By chance, I was there on horseback these days, and he was on foot in heavy armor. When the crowd had already dispersed, Socrates withdrew with the general Laches; I found them and recognizing them, I encouraged them both and promised not to leave them. There I saw Socrates better than at Potidaea; (for I was more at ease, as I was on horseback;) first of all, he far surpassed Laches in calm conduct; furthermore he walked there proudly, and looked around for friend and enemy; It was clear to everyone, even from afar, that whoever attacked this man would find a formidable defense. That is why he himself and the other person escaped safely.”
He fought equally honorably in the defeat of the Athenians at Amphipolis.
Except for a festival to the Isthmus and the mentioned wars, he did not leave Athens, to which he was particularly attached, especially because of the freedom of life that prevailed there, which had special value for him. Out of a desire for independent freedom, he chose to be poor and did not interfere with state administration: it was impossible for him to be pleased by the frivolous instability of the Athenian popular government. Therefore he never held any dignity, except that he once became a member of the council. By coincidence, it was then the turn of the phyle or department of Antiochis, to which Socrates belonged, to conduct affairs. The people had just decided to condemn eight commanders-in-chief at the same time, who, prevented by a storm, had not been able to pay their last respects to the bodies of those who died in the naval battle near the Argentine Islands, completely illegal, as everyone later realized. Then Socrates was the only one among the captains who opposed that abomination; and although the people were ready to accuse him themselves, and the people loudly demanded the death of the unfortunate ones, the steadfast man thought it better to brave the danger, faithful to law and justice, than to share in the injustice, for fear of prison or death. For the rest, this occasion showed his little suitability for dealing with public affairs; when he had to record the votes he was laughed at. This happened under democracy.
When he had to give way to the government of the few, the thirty tyrants summoned Socrates and four others and ordered them to fetch from there a certain Leon, a very rich man and Athenian citizen, who had emigrated to Salamis because of the tyrants. to put him to death at Athens; just as they ordered similar acts of violence to many others, in order to make many share in their guilt. Then Socrates proved again that he did not fear death in the least, but the commission of injustice above all. The reign of terror, however violent and bitter it may be, is not enough to tempt him to take a criminal step. The four went to Salamis and brought Leon; and Socrates went home. Presumably he too would have been murdered had the reign of terror not fallen quickly.
Thus Socrates' entire life was a proof of love for his country and for justice. The fact that he did nothing to gain influence on the government is due to his conviction that it was his calling to shape and educate the rising generation. “When,” said he, “do you believe that I take more part in the affairs of state, if I only take part in them, or if I take care to fit as many as possible to their treatment?”
It was probably only at the age of forty that Socrates had gained a clearer insight into his vocation: he gradually became more convinced of it, as he saw that his association made the young people essentially better. Without forcing himself on anyone, he allowed everyone, young or old, to share in his interactions.
Thus came into being what others called his school, namely the habit of many to communicate with him as much as possible and to hear him. His whole being also had to attract attention: his figure was far from beautiful; Alcibiades compares him with Silenus because of his turned-up nose, bulging eyes and large belly. His clothing was, like himself, poor and mean; add to this much that was unusual in his manners,—often he looked round, or suddenly stopped. But he did more than just attract attention: his interactions fascinated many, whom he was able to provide with advice and assistance in difficult circumstances. And above all, there was an irresistible power in what he said. His conversations were often about domestic and public life, during which he made everyone think, but above all he unrelentingly exposed in his nakedness every false delusion of wisdom, no matter who. What was mean and unclean, he followed up with biting, sometimes harsh mockery. His younger friends liked to imitate the light-hearted banter with which he gave himself the appearance of wanting to be better taught by him whom he thought he should shame. .
To the highest degree, he had the ability to adapt completely to the views and concepts of others, and, while concealing his own views, often with a single indication, to tell each person only what he could understand, and only as he could understand it.
Since he wrote nothing himself and always combined jest and seriousness in his speech, without expressing his opinion in full, it was almost inevitable that he would be judged crookedly and one-sidedly.
In addition, he shared the opinion of earlier thinkers, “that one supreme being controls all,” although he respected the popular gods in doctrine and life. But he had to combat many crude ideas about the nature of the deity: he could not prevent there being among his students who despised popular religion. Thus a suspicion very naturally arose against Socrates' respect for the gods.
In addition, he spoke in a somewhat mysterious way about a kind of divine inspiration that was not understood or misinterpreted. Much has been written about this well-known Genius of Socrates: we consider it, with Ritter, to be the result of a very irritable feeling in him, a kind of premonition, a superstition, which he had partly inherited from his people, partly from his own internal experience. had conceived. Socrates believed that the gods with their assistance came to the aid of the poor powers of the good; he paid careful attention to his sensations, many of which could only be explained to him by supernatural inspiration. To everyone, he thought, who really meant it, the gods gave such signs, although not to everyone in the same way. Certainly the reader, who is aware of his weakness, but also does not misunderstand his power for good "will the help of God,”—which Socrates will feel he will respect.
In this way we understand even better how the noble man could live so completely and undividedly for what he considered his vocation: to focus the minds of his contemporaries, especially the young, on the essential interests of man, by encouraging them to think. .
Socrates' contemporaries did not understand his daemonium.
In addition, in his time a struggle had arisen between the old belief in the formidable power of the gods, which had previously held the people in check through fear, which, without being doubted, had ruled in the days of heroic power. ;—and between a new way of looking at things, born through philosophical research into nature and through the restless progress of the human spirit: the gods of the fathers tottered on their thrones; From now on, human virtue had to be derived from moral conviction, built on philosophical development of the mind: in this way sensible, moral strength would maintain the good. In addition to the relentless pace of time, the erosion of the national character and the moral ravages of a long civil war had fueled that struggle. There were many well-meaning advocates of the old, which, having expired, had lost its force: Socrates felt the undeniable need for compensation for that loss, and the impossibility of reviving the ideas of more childish, earlier days.
His conviction cost him his life.
This circumstance also contributed to this sad ending of the drama: two men who had brought the most misery to Athens, Critias and Alcibiades, had lived in acquaintance with Socrates. After the return of the previous order of things, the mind reflected on the past disasters: to prevent its return, one would have liked to recall the narrow view of the days of old.
In general, moreover, public opinion was very much in favor of the philosophers. In addition to other reasons, which may also have been in their persons, there will always remain among the many who live on the delusion of imaginary value and merit, a now more secret bitterness against the few who shake them out of the stupid.
Socrates woke his contemporaries: he must die.
Meletos, a young poet, accused Socrates (399 BCE) of having committed two crimes:
1. by not accepting the gods of the state and introducing new daemons;
2. By corrupting the young men.
Anytos, a popular man, and Lycon, an orator, supported the accusation as co-accusers, to which, according to prevailing custom, the punishment that the accuser felt he should demand for the crime was added: here death.
For the reasons given, the accusation did not seem without merit in the eyes of the people's judges.
That's where the accused appears.
Accused people in Athens used to incite pity by all means, even base and indelicate, of justice.
Completely different Socrates: proud is his language, deeply humiliating to prosecutors and judges; and yet he is found guilty only by a very small majority. He is then asked, partly according to Athenian custom, what punishment he thought he deserved.
His answer was as haughty as the feeling of innocence can ever inspire.
And eighty of those judges, who had just declared his innocence, joined the majority in anger! What a verdict!
“It is,”—with these words Socrates parted from his judges,—“the time has come for me to die, for you to live; God alone knows what is best.”
Socrates remained in prison for another thirty days. He spent most of this time in conversation with Crito and other of his friends. A month has passed, and Socrates still be waits chained in his cell in prison. For his trial took place just as the sacred ship, bearing the yearly thank offering of Athens to the ancient shrine of Apollo on the island of Delos, was being prepare for her sailing. The offering commemorates a famous event in the city's legendary history, its delivery by the hero Theseus with the god's aid from the savage tyranny of the king of Crete, who required an annual tribute of the best Athenian youth to satisfy his man-devouring Minotaur. The period from the time when the priest at Athens crowns the ship before its departure until it returns to harbor is a 'holy season', during which the city must not be polluted by the taking of human life. So Socrates, like any other convicted criminal, must wait to die until the vessel is back at anchor.
But now the weeks of respite are nearly over. The ship has been sighed off Sunium, the southernmost promontory of Attica, less than thirty-five miles by sea from the Peiraeus, the port of Athens. In another day it should arrive. Crito was the oldest and one of the richest friends of Socrates. Three days before the execution of the sentence, he had gone to the dungeon at dawn to persuade Socrates to save himself, offers to finance his escape. But Socrates, sitting in his prison cell, argues although the judgments of his fellow Athenian may be wrong, escape is not an appropriate action, even though it would save his life. And when the time came, he drank the poisoned cup with a fearless mind and died, calm, resigned, clear of mind; and was “healed and made whole in the highest sense of the word, healthy forever.”
Plato immortalized their conversation on that occasion. According to his imagination, Socrates is in a peaceful sleep when Crito enters. Crito has sat down beside him in silence, admiring the tranquility of his sleep. Socrates wakes up and asks his friend why he came so early. Crito tells him what fills him with admiration, and tells him that he brings him the sad tidings of the imminent return of the holy ship from Delos; and then he would have to die. And therefore he begs Socrates with the tenderest love and the warmest urging to take advantage of the opportunity to escape: he and his friends had prepared everything for this purpose.
But Socrates remains true to himself. All his life he has only asked about duty and justice—he does it now too. He listens calmly to the reasons given by Crito; he begins his answer by reminding his friend that what really matters in this case is whether his swiftness is in accordance with right and duty. Then follows an all-important explanation of the value of public opinion, of the only course of action, by keeping an eye on the good; and especially of the obedience that every citizen owes to the laws of the state. Crito himself must finally disapprove of what he first recommended.
If one looks at the organization and treatment of the dialogue, says a famous publisher, it appears to be an impeccable masterpiece. The scene is ideally suited to the cause; the action ends regularly; the unity is never disturbed, so that everyone finally sees that the writer's intention has been achieved:
1. the subordinate intention, to prove by Socrates' example that the good man is always just and obedient to the law; and
2. the main purpose, to defend Socrates against the accusation that he corrupted the youth.
And he has connected both so intimately that they cannot be separated from each other, and without the unity being damaged in the least. The characters are masterfully drawn: Crito's noble friendship moves the reader as much as the steadfast virtue of Socrates and his pious respect for the laws of the land. Both speak and act in such a way that both Socrates' refusal and Crito's desire seem equally noble to you. The style is neither turgid nor too mundane, and so clear that the dialogue is understandable to everyone, and therefore meets Plato's goal to be understood by the wider public, and thus to justify his unforgettable teacher.
The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one light only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting in the will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having been unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the laws of the state.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him during his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation, undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the proposal of escape is uncertain; Plato could easily have invented far more than that; and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether anyone who has been subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley is of opinion that Socrates ‘did well to die,’ but not for the ‘sophistical’ reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. ‘A rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.’ It may be observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not ‘the world,’ but the ‘one wise man,’ is still the paradox of Socrates in his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral evil; in his own words, ‘they cannot make a man wise or foolish.’
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the ‘common principle,’ there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which occur in Plato.
Film adaptation :
Socrates (1971)
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Persons of the dialogue :
- Crito (Κρίτων) : a rich Athenian who like Socrates was from deme of Alopece. Once Socrates was charged with corrupting the youth and impiety, Crito unsuccessfully vouched to pay his bail. To spare him the prison sentence after Socrates was sentenced to death, Crito was ready to pledge to the court that Socrates would not flee, a plea that was ultimately rejected. Through both the trial and the execution, Crito was present.
- Socrates (Σωκράτης) [c. 469 – 399 BCE] : a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre.
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Persons mentioned in Crito :
- Cebes (Κέβης) [c. 430 – 350 BCE] : an Ancient Greek philosopher from Thebes remembered as a disciple of Socrates.
- Simmias (Σιμμίας) [5th–4th century BCE] : an ancient Greek philosopher, disciple of Socrates, and a friend of Cebes.
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Places mentioned in Crito :
- Athens (Αθήνα) : one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, but modern scholars generally agree that goddess took her name after the city. Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece.
- Crete (Κρήτη) : the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Delos (Δήλος) : an island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Delos had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.
- Isthmus (ἰσθμός) [or Isthmuses, Isthmi] : a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated.
- Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων) [or Sparta] : a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece.
- Megara (Μέγαρα) : a historic town and a municipality in West Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens.
- Phthia (Φθίη) : a city or district in ancient Thessaly. It is frequently mentioned in Homer's Iliad as the home of the Myrmidons, the contingent led by Achilles in the Trojan War. It was founded by Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, and was the home of Achilles' father Peleus, mother Thetis (a sea nymph), and son Neoptolemus (who reigned as king after the Trojan War).
- Sunium (Σούνιον/Sounion) : the promontory at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, south of the town of Thoricus, and southeast of Athens in the Athens Riviera. Cape Sounion is noted for its Temple of Poseidon, one of the major monuments of the Golden Age of Athens.
- Thebes (Θήβα) : a city in Boeotia, Central Greece.
- Thessaly (Θεσσαλία) [or Thessalia] : one of the traditional regions of Ancient Greece. During the Mycenaean period, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, a name that continued to be used for one of the major tribes of Greece, the Aeolians, and their dialect of Greek, Aeolic.
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Terms mentioned in Crito :
- Athenians : pertaining to Athens (Αθήνα), one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC.
- Hellenic : of or pertaining to ancient Greece, ancient Greek people, culture and civilization.
- Theban : pertaining to Thebes (Θῆβαι) a city in Boeotia, Central Greece.
- Thessalian : pertaining to Thessaly/Thessalia (Θεσσαλία) one of the traditional regions of Ancient Greece.
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