Athenians, if you put me to death, you will not easily find another man to fill my place. God has sent me to attack the city, as if it were a great and noble horse, to use a quaint simile, which was rather sluggish for its size, and which needed to be roused by a gadfly: and I think that I am that gadfly that God has sent to the city to attack it; for I never cease from settling upon you as it were at every point, and rousing and exhorting, and reproaching each man of you all day long.[9] Socrates then referred to the custom in Athens that when a man was on trial for his life, his wife and children sometimes appeared in court in order to appeal to the pity of the judges and so obtain a favourable sentence, but he refused to do that, for knowing that the judges had taken an oath to administer justice justly, he believed that such an {372} act on his part would be an attempt to make them break their oaths. Were I to be successful and to prevail on you by my prayers to break your oaths, I should be clearly teaching you to believe that there are no gods; and I should be simply accusing myself by my defence of not believing in them. But, Athenians, that is very far from the truth. I do believe in the gods as no one of my accusers believes in them: and to you and to God I commit my cause to be decided as is best for you and for me. Socrates was found guilty by 281 votes to 220, and the penalty to be inflicted was death. He had the right under Athenian law to suggest an alternative penalty. What counter-penalty shall I propose to you Athenians? What I deserve, of course, must I not? What is a suitable reward to be given to a poor benefactor who requires leisure to exhort you? There is no reward, Athenians, so suitable for him as a public maintenance in the Prytaneum. It is a much more suitable reward for him than for any of you who has won a victory at the Olympic Games with his horse or his chariots. So if I am to propose the penalty which I really deserve, I propose this--a public maintenance in the Prytaneum.