Crito
Plato c. 390 BCE
In this short dialogue, Socrates and his friend Crito discuss whether he should escape prison before his execution. The debate takes a surprising turn when Socrates imagines the laws of Athens speaking to him.
23 pages 27 min reading time
- One of the earliest and most famous works in Western thought on why people should obey the law.
- Argues that doing wrong is never right, even to pay back someone who has wronged you first.
- Imagines living in a country and accepting its benefits as an unspoken agreement to follow its laws, an early form of the idea later called the "social contract."
- Became a starting point for later debates over civil disobedience (openly breaking a law you believe is unjust), and writers on that question still argue with it today.
Based on a real execution
Athens really did sentence Socrates to death, and the author, Plato, was one of his devoted students.
A ship delayed the death
Athens allowed no executions while a sacred ship was away at Delos, so Socrates waited weeks in prison.
A dream sets the date
Socrates tells Crito he dreamed of a woman in white who hinted he would die in three days.
Crito was a real friend
The real Crito was a wealthy man about Socrates' age, and in the dialogue he offers to pay for the escape.
Translated from Greek by Benjamin Jowett