¹ This can hardly be the only reason; Plato elsewhere personifies without such a motive, and in Crito it has often been felt that the personification lends appropriate solemnity to the claim advanced in the argument. Nevertheless it does contribute to the concept of citizenship as a personal tie.

² cf. Barker, A., Phronesis 22 (1977), 13–28 especially p. 27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ For the criticism of the argument as failing because one act of law-breaking alone will not have detrimental effect, see Woozley, A. D., in Socrates, ed. G. Vlastos (Macmillan, 1972), pp. 299–318Google Scholar. Barker, , art. cit. 25–6, argues that to harm something is to impair its this being defined in terms of its function cf. Rep. 353 b ff. Hence one act of disobedience, even without further consequences, prevents the laws from fulfilling their function in so far as it in itself constitutes a breach in their performance, and accordingly is harm done to them. This view, I think, does not sufficiently distinguish capacity from performance: harm will be done to the laws as regulators of society ‘if Socrates' escape would impair their capacity to do this’ p. 26; but then ‘the laws will have been prevented from fulfilling their function as regulators of social behaviour’ p. 26. However, the concept of harm as impaired capacity becomes insignificant unless it implies that capacity for further action is impaired.Google Scholar

⁴ e.g. Xenophon, Mem. 4.4.15:Google Scholar

⁵ [Andocides] 4.19. ‘I believe obedience to government and laws to be security for everyone; whoever sets this at naught destroys the state's greatest protection’

⁶ In this account I have dealt briefly with some very complex issues and concentrated only on the one point of actual but limited harm neglected in other versions. Plato's view of the state in the Crito seems to be an extension of the well-known application to political change of the Hesiodic dictum ‘many a little makes a mickle’ (Erga 361). Plato warns of the cumulative effect of minor educational changes Rep 424 b – d, cf. Laws 797 a – c; Demosthenes, 19.228, says that a gradual stream of failures to put public interest before private rises to become harm to the state; Aristotle, Pol. 1307^b30 – 9, compares minor breaches of a constitution to a little expense often repeated which destroys wealth:’ You do not notice the expense because it does not occur in bulk … The whole is not little, although it is composed of littles’ (a paraphrase of Sir Ernest Barker's translation.) Similarly the state here might be conceived as a whole composed of many, but not too many, littles.Google Scholar

⁷ The problematic failure to reaffirm the initial contention that one should not do wrong even in retaliation is noted by Gomme, A., Greece & Rome 5 (1958), 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The rebuttal of this objection is seen as the key to Socrates' attitude by Segl, R., Gymnasium 28 (1971), 437–41: Socrates accepts injustice in order to maintain the authority of the laws (not apparently, because he is obliged to).Google Scholar

⁸ The subordination of filial and contractual obligation to the fundamental obligation not to harm the state is developed by Woozley, op. cit.

⁹ If the citizen's relationship to the state is an instance of a person-to-person relationship then retaliation is excluded because of the fundamental principle that one must never do harm. If however it is analogous to certain person-to-person relationships which exhibit a structural imbalance with respect to rights then retaliation is excluded because of a similar imbalance. Plato seems to incorporate both views.

¹⁰ This argument is generally believed to derive the obligation to obey from a debt of gratitude, and indeed at Laws 717 b-d Plato insists that children owe parents and includes submission to their anger as part of the repayment. Yet at 690 a (cf. 917 a), one of the ‘titles to rule’ is the title of parents to control children, based on the superiority of the elder, and nowhere in the Laws is the citizen's obligation to obey law reduced to a debt of gratitude. There is a tendency among commentators to play down the master-slave analogy in this passage: e.g. Vlastos, G., Yale Review 63 (1974) 517–34 on p. 520 translates (50 e), as ‘servant’ and omits the analogy in his discussion.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. the elaboration of Socratic heroism in the Crito by Greenberg, N. A., HSCPh. 70 (1965), 45–82. Greenberg argues brilliantly for the special binding force on Socrates of the commitment involved in his trial and the way he chose to conduct it. But surely Greenberg underestimates the force of the political argument in suggesting that it is shallow to explain Socrates' motives for choosing death by reference to his obedience to the laws. It is meant to be taken seriously and the influence of Socrates' commitment to heroic values is reflected in the confusion of levels of obligation on which the compact is operative.Google Scholar

¹² None of the three possible cases of civil disobedience by Socrates in the Apology is certain: the Thirty may not be a lawful government (32 c–d); in the Arginousae trial Socrates stands for law, (32 b–c); and at 28 d - 29 d Socrates is concerned to show that he will not through fear of death abandon a post to which he has been appointed by his proper superiors whether men or gods; he is not grading his obligations. All the jury can do is condemn him or acquit him. In either case he will continue his service to the god at whatever price (30 b–c). Nevertheless, although acquittal on condition that Socrates give up philosophy may not count as a proper directive from a duly constituted authority, Plato's phrasing suggests that a conflict of obligations and an order of priority is recognized: (29 d).

¹³ Most fully worked out by Wade, F. C., Review of Metaphysics 25 (1971), 311–25Google Scholar; cf. Allen, R. E., Journal of Philosophy 69 (1972), 557–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Young, G., Phronesis 19 (1974), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Demosthenes, 44.7 The expression is used of the making of a valid adoption.Google Scholar

¹⁵ 4.10 ff.

¹⁶ Laws 920 d.

¹⁷ Passages are collected and discussed by Pringsheim, F., The Greek Law of Sale, (Weimar, 1950), pp. 35Google Scholar ff.; Maschke, R., Die Willenslehre im griechischen Recbt, (Berlin, 1926) pp. 159Google Scholar ff.; Gernet, L., Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1955), pp. 213 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Vlastos, , art. cit. 525–9, believes that the words ‘just agreements’ imply that the Athenian legal order is just, e.g. it produces benefits, distributes them impartially, and is not oppressive. An agreement to obey such a legal order generates moral obligations because the agreement is in accordance with justice, although some particular laws and legal decisions may be unjust and therefore on balance one ought not to obey them. Such an agreement would be binding whether or not Socrates had any alternative, hence no obligation should be derived from seeing Socrates' refusal to use his option of moving elsewhere as an expression of his preference for Athenian law to laws of other states, and this part of the argument should be cut out. Against this interpretation I would argue that, although the laws do talk of Socrates prefering them, this does not imply a preference and choice between legal systems, but a preference for one society among others, with attendant approval and acceptance of its laws, cf. 53 a 3–5, where approval of laws is taken as a corollary of approval of the Further, the option of moving elsewhere is crucial if the justice of the agreement is taken in the narrower sense in which I wish to take it, for, no matter how just is the association with which one makes an agreement, the agreement is not ‘fair’ if one does not wish to make it but has no alternative.Google Scholar

¹⁹ On the conflicting claim of city and friends see Connor, W. R., The New Politicians of Fifth Century Athens (Princeton, 1971), pp. 47–9Google Scholar, and for the legal and ethical background in general see de Romilly, J., La Loi dans la pensee grecque (Paris, 1971), pp. 115–-3.Google Scholar

²⁰ As Pearson, L., Popular Ethics in Ancient Greece (Stanford 1962), p. 202, says: ‘If Crito had argued with Socrates in the manner in which (in the Gorgias) Socrates argues with Polus, he might have forced him into all kinds of contradictions'. The largest single assumption made by Socrates is that Athens, along with Thebes, Megara, Sparta, and Crete, has good laws and is well governed, 52 e, 53 b–c. Thus criticism of the citizen's compact on the score that there are no conditions which the state has to meet in order to keep the compact in force, seems to me to be out of place. The state is in fact keeping what might, in more leisurely circumstances, be spelled out as its part of the bargain. Parts of the thorough discussion of G. Young, op. cit., perhaps because of its very thoroughness, seem to me to be vulnerable in this respect.Google Scholar

²¹ I am grateful for the criticism and comments of the referee consulted by the editors.