judge from anything I ever heard fall from his lips myself or have
learnt about him from others. But the animus of Critias was clear. At
the time when the Thirty were putting citizens, highly respectable
citizens, to death wholesale, and when they were egging on one man
after another to the commission of crime, Socrates let fall an
observation: "It would be sufficiently extraordinary if the keeper of
a herd of cattle[20] who was continually thinning and impoverishing
his cattle did not admit himself to be a sorry sort of herdsman, but
that a ruler of the state who was continually thinning and
impoverishing the citizens should neither be ashamed nor admit himself
to be a sorry sort of ruler was more extraordinary still." The remark
being reported to the government, Socrates was summoned by Critias and
Charicles, who proceeded to point out the law and forbade him to
converse with the young. "Was it open to him," Socrates inquired of
the speaker, "in case he failed to understand their commands in any
point, to ask for an explanation?"

[17] Lit. "Nomothetes." See "Hell." II. iii. 2; Dem. 706. For
Charicles see Lys. "c. Eratosth." S. 56; Aristot. "Pol." v. 6. 6.

[18] See Diog. Laert. II. v. ("Socr.")

[19] i.e. {to ton etto logon kreitto poiein}, "of making the worse
appear the better cause." Cf. Arist. "Clouds."

[20] See Dio Chrys. "Or." 43.

"Certainly," the two assented.

Then Socrates: I am prepared to obey the laws, but to avoid