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his sentence, was attributable chiefly to the tone and manner 

 of Socrates himself. Instead of flattering the Judges or im- 

 ploring their favour, he addressed them with the boldness and 

 dignity of manly innocence. As Cicero says [De Orat. i, 54,] 

 "Socrates ita in judicio capitis pro se ipse dixit, ut non 

 supplex aut reus, sed magister aut dominus videretur esse 

 judicum." Nay, he scarcely wished for a sentence of acquittal. 

 The divine sign had interposed to prohibit him from preparing 

 an elaborate defence. Already advanced in years he did not 

 desire that life should be further prolonged to the feebleness 

 and infirmities of decrcpid old age. His condemnation might 

 be a disgrace to his judges, but none to him, and would 

 procure for him afterwards increased sympathy and a more 

 willing acknowledgment of his merits. After his noble Apo- 

 logy, which no one can now wish to have been diflFerent from 

 what it was, the Athenian Dicasts, who had never been so 

 addressed before, could not forgive the sting of " affront to 

 the court." Yet even then he was condemned by a bare 

 majority out of the five hundred and sixty-four judges. Still 

 less did he consult the dictates of a timid prudence when 

 called upon (according to the usual forms of procedure) to 

 propose the sentence to be passed upon him, which was the 

 subject of a separate vote. He declared that what he deserved 

 was to be maintained at the public expence in the Prytaneium 

 (the highest honorary distinction ever conferred). He pro- 

 ceeded, however, to comply with the legal form by proposing 

 a nominal fine. This Mr. Grote thinks could be felt by the 

 Dicasts as nothing less than an insult to the authority of the 

 court, which had just pronounced him guilty. The conse- 

 quence was that he was sentenced to death by a much larger 

 majority than that by which he had been condemned, so that 

 actually seventy-seven of those who had voted for his acquittal 

 must afterwards have voted for his execution. Though every- 

 thing that Mr. Grote says greatly exalts Socrates in the mind 

 of the candid reader, vet he endeavours to extenuate the con- 



