21. Do you think, then, that I should have survived so many years, if I had engaged in public affairs, and, acting as becomes a good man, had aided the cause of justice, and, as I ought, had deemed this of the highest importance? Far from it, O Athenians: nor would any other man have done so. But I, through the whole of my life, if I have done any thing in public, shall be found to be a man, and the very same in private, who has never made a concession to any one contrary to justice, neither to any other, nor to any one of these whom my calumniators say are my disciples. I however was never the preceptor of any one; but if any one desired to hear me speaking and to see me busied about my own mission, whether he were young or old, I never refused him. Nor do I discourse when I receive money, and not when I do not receive any, but I allow both rich and poor alike to question me, and, if any one wishes it, to answer me and hear what I have to say. And for these, whether any one proves to be a good man or not, I cannot justly be responsible, because I never either promised them any instruction or taught them at all. But if any one says that he has ever learnt or heard any thing from me in private, which all others have not, be well assured that he does not speak the truth. 22. But why do some delight to spend so long a time with me? Ye have heard, O Athenians. I have told you the whole truth, that they delight to hear those closely questioned who think that they are wise but are not: for this is by no means disagreeable. But this duty, as I say, has been enjoined me by the deity, by oracles, by dreams, and by every mode by which any other divine decree has ever enjoined any thing to man to do. These things, O Athenians, are both true, and easily confuted if not true. For if I am now corrupting some of the youths, and have already corrupted others, it were fitting, surely, that if any of them, having become advanced in life, had discovered that I gave them bad advice when they were young, they should now rise up against me, accuse me, and have me punished; or if they were themselves unwilling to do this, some of their kindred, their fathers, or brothers, or other relatives, if their kinsmen have ever sustained any damage from me, should now call it to mind. Many of them however are here present, whom I see: first, Crito, my contemporary and fellow-burgher, father of this Critobulus; then, Lysanias of Sphettus, father of this Æschines; again, Antiphon of Cephisus, father of Epigenes; there are those others too, whose brothers maintained the same intimacy with me, namely, Nicostratus, son of Theosdotidus, brother of Theodotus—Theodotus indeed is dead, so that he could not deprecate his brother’s proceedings, and Paralus here, son of Demodocus, whose brother was Theages; and Adimantus son of Ariston, whose brother is this Plato; and Æantodorus, whose brother is this Apollodorus. I could also mention many others to you, some one of whom