The Athenians, indeed, afterwards repented of what they had done, and condemned one of his accusers, Melitus, to death, and the others to banishment. ----- Footnote A: See note [A] at the end of the volume. Footnote 6: Plat. in Apolog. pro Socrate. Diog. Laert. in vit. Soc. ----- I must add, in justice to the laity, that the judges and accusers of Socrates were not priests. Melitus was a poet, Anytus an artificer, and Lycon an orator; so that the prosecution was truly laic, and the priests do not appear to have had any share in his accusation, condemnation, and death. Nor, indeed, was there any need of the assistance of priestcraft in this affair, the prosecution of this excellent man being perfectly agreeable to the constitution and maxims of the Athenian government; which had, to use the words of a late reverend author,[7] “incorporated or made religion a part of the laws of the civil community.” One of the Attic laws was to this effect: “Let it be a perpetual law, and binding at all times, to worship our national gods and heroes publicly, according to the laws of our ancestors.” So that no new gods, nor new doctrines about old gods, nor any new rites of worship, could be introduced by any person whatsoever, without incurring the penalty of this law, which was death. Thus Josephus tells us,[8] that it was prohibited by law to teach new gods, and that the punishment ordained against those who should introduce any such, was death. Agreeably to this, the orator Isocrates,[9] pleading in the grand council of Athens, puts them in mind of the custom and practice of their ancestors: “This was their principal care to abolish nothing they had received from their fathers in matters of religion, nor to make any addition to what they had established.” And therefore, in his advice to Nicocles, he exhorts him to be “of the same religion with his ancestors.” So that the civil establishment of religion in Athens was entirely exclusive, and no toleration whatsoever allowed to those who differed from it. On this account, the philosophers[10] in general were, by a public decree, banished from Athens, as teaching heterodox opinions, and “corrupting the youth” in matters of religion; and, by a law, very much resembling the famous modern Schism Bill, prohibited from being masters and teachers of schools, without leave of the senate and people, even under pain of death. This law, indeed, like the other, was but very short-lived, and Sophocles, the author of it, punished in a fine of five talents. Lysimachus[11] also banished them from his kingdom. It is evident from these things, that, according to the Athenian constitution, Socrates was legally condemned for not believing in the gods of his country, and presuming to have better notions of the Deity than his superiors. In like manner, a certain woman,[12] a priestess, was put to death, upon an accusation of her introducing new deities. ----- Footnote 7: