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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his life long,
'a king of men.' He would rather not appear insolent, if he could avoid it
(ouch os authadizomenos touto lego). Neither is he desirous of hastening
his own end, for life and death are simply indifferent to him. But such a
defence as would be acceptable to his judges and might procure an
acquittal, it is not in his nature to make. He will not say or do anything
that might pervert the course of justice; he cannot have his tongue bound
even 'in the throat of death.' With his accusers he will only fence and
play, as he had fenced with other 'improvers of youth,' answering the
Sophist according to his sophistry all his life long. He is serious when
he is speaking of his own mission, which seems to distinguish him from all
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