ABSTRACT
Socrates is explaining why he must decline the opportunity Crito has offered him to escape. His explanation is put into a discourse by the personified laws of Athens. In the Athenian constitution democracy reached its apogee in fifth-century Greece, while each of the constitutions stood as clearly for oligarchy—extreme in the case of the Spartan and Cretan constitutions, moderate in the case of the Theban and Megarian. Like an infatuated lover, Socrates can hardly bring himself to part a single day from his beloved Athens. Socrates advertises sentiments which in the mind of malicious hearers would more than suffice to convict him of oligarchic partisanship. If Socrates had advocated disfranchisement of the banausoi—which would have cut Athens' civic rolls by nearly half—he would have declared openly for oligarchy Given Xenophon's apologetic interests, his Socrates cannot be allowed to go so far.
