if you happened to have one, so as to return what you suffered, neither to retort when found fault with, nor, when stricken, to strike again, nor many other things of the kind; but that with your country and the laws you may do so; so that if we attempt to destroy you, thinking it to be just, you also should endeavor, so far as you are able, in return, to destroy us, the laws, and your country; and in doing this will you say that you act justly—­you who, in reality, make virtue your chief object?  Or are you so wise as not to know that one’s country is more honorable, venerable, and sacred, and more highly prized both by gods, and men possessed of understanding, than mother and father, and all other progenitors; and that one ought to reverence, submit to, and appease one’s country, when angry, rather than one’s father; and either persuade it or do what it orders, and to suffer quietly if it bids one suffer, whether to be beaten, or put in bonds; or if it sends one out to battle there to be wounded or slain, this must be done; for justice so requires, and one must not give way, or retreat, or leave one’s post; but that both in war and in a court of justice, and everywhere one must do what one’s city and country enjoin, or persuade it in such manner as justice allows; but that to offer violence either to one’s mother or father is not holy, much less to one’s country?  What shall we say to these things, Crito?  That the laws speak the truth, or not?

Cri. It seems so to me.

13. Socr. “Consider, then, Socrates,” the laws perhaps might say, “whether we say truly that in what you are now attempting you are attempting to do what is not just toward us.  For we, having given you birth, nurtured, instructed you, and having imparted to you and all other citizens all the good in our power, still proclaim, by giving the power to every Athenian who pleases, when he has arrived at years of discretion, and become acquainted with the business of the state, and us, the laws, that any one who is not satisfied with us may take his property, and go wherever he pleases.  And if any one of you wishes to go to a colony, if he is not satisfied with us and the city, or to migrate and settle in another country, none of us, the laws, hinder or forbid him going whithersoever he pleases, taking with him all his property.  But whoever continues with us after he has seen the manner in which we administer justice, and in other respects govern the city, we now say that he has in fact entered into a compact with us to do what we order; and we affirm that he who does not obey is in three respects guilty of injustice—­because he does not obey us who gave him being, and because he does not obey us who nurtured him, and because, having made a compact that he would obey us, he neither does so, nor does he persuade us if we do any thing wrongly; though we propose for his consideration, and do not rigidly command him to do what we order, but leave him the choice of one of two things, either to persuade us, or to do what we require, and yet he does neither of these.”