never went out of the city to any of the public spectacles, except once
to the Isthmian games, nor anywhere else, except on military service,
nor have you ever gone abroad as other men do, nor had you ever had any
desire to become acquainted with any other city or other laws, but we
and our city were sufficient for you; so strongly were you attached to
us, and so far did you consent to submit to our government, both in
other respects and in begetting children in this city, in consequence of
your being satisfied with it. Moreover, in your very trial, it was in
your power to have imposed on yourself a sentence of exile, if you
pleased, and might then have done, with the consent of the city, what
you now attempt against its consent. Then, indeed, you boasted yourself
as not being grieved if you must needs die; but you preferred, as you
said, death to exile. Now, however, you are neither ashamed of those
professions, nor do you revere us, the laws, since you endeavor to
destroy us, and you act as the vilest slave would act, by endeavoring to
make your escape contrary to the conventions and the compacts by which
you engaged to submit to our government. First, then, therefore, answer
us this, whether we speak the truth or not in affirming that you agreed
to be governed by us in deed, though not in word?" What shall we say to
this, Crito? Can we do otherwise than assent?

_Cri._ We must needs do so, Socrates.

_Socr._ "What else, then," they will say, "are you doing but violating
the conventions and compacts which you made with us, though you did not
enter into them from compulsion or through deception, or from being
compelled to determine in a short time but during the space of seventy
years, in which you might have departed if you had been dissatisfied
with us, and the compacts had not appeared to you to be just? You,
however, preferred neither Lacedæmon nor Crete, which you several times