Crito Summary & Analysis

It is 399 BC in Athens, and Socrates sits condemned in prison, awaiting his execution. No one knows exactly when it will come, as a religious festival is taking place on the nearby island of Delos, and Athens has sent a delegation; no executions may take place before it returns. In the meantime, Socrates sits, sleeps, and waits.

At early dawn, Socrates wakes up to find his friend and student, Crito, in his cell. Socrates is surprised that the guards let him in, but Crito explains that he bribed them. Socrates also wonders why Crito didn’t wake him when he entered. Crito explains that he let Socrates sleep as a kindness; if he himself were about to be executed, Crito says, he wouldn’t want to lie awake waiting for death a moment longer than he had to.

Crito sees, however, that Socrates appears completely untroubled by his impending death. He mentions this to Socrates, who merely counters that someone as old as he is shouldn’t “resent” death. Crito notes that most people his age “resent” it all the same. Socrates admits this, but changes the subject, asking Crito why he’s come so early.

Crito explains that he comes as the bearer of bad news: the ship that carried the Athenian delegation to Delos is expected to return today, allowing executions to resume the next day. If true, this means Socrates will die tomorrow.

Socrates is of a different opinion. He describes a dream he had the previous night in which he was visited by a beautiful woman in white who delivered a divinely inspired message: “Socrates, may you arrive at fertile Phthia on the third day.” Assuming that this dream implies that he will die in three days, he deduces that the ship won’t return for two.

Crito has no interest in talking about dreams. He believes that Socrates must escape from the prison immediately, and he has come to offer his help in doing so. He frames this escape as imperative not just for Socrates, but for Crito himself: he wishes neither to lose Socrates, nor for the people of Athens to believe he was unwilling to pay the money to save Socrates’ life.

Socrates criticizes Crito for being overly concerned with what other people think. The common people of Athens, he says, can believe what they will. Ultimately, their opinion has nothing to do with what’s right and wrong. Crito disagrees. Socrates’ own case, he says, proves that popular opinion can mean the difference between life and death. Socrates is unfazed. The people can put someone to death, but both “the greatest evils” and “the greatest good” lie beyond their reach.

Crito tries again. He wonders if Socrates is hesitant to escape because he’s worried that his friends would get in trouble with the authorities if they broke him out of prison. He attempts to reassure him, promising that Socrates’ life is worth the risk. But Socrates doesn’t engage with this line of argument at all, except to affirm that “I do have these things in mind, Crito, and also many others.”

Crito keeps at it, listing all the people and foreign governments that would be willing to help Socrates. This time, though, he expands his argument, adding that he considers it unjust for Socrates to die when given the opportunity to live, as he would be abandoning his sons and his loved ones. Crito begs Socrates once again to think of how his death would reflect on his friends who had the ability to save him, lest they be accused of “cowardice and unmanliness.”

Socrates insists that the matter must be decided through argument and reflection. He tells Crito to remember how he has always approached such questions in the past, and asks him whether the fact of his impending execution should be enough to undo all the beliefs and principles by which he lives.

From here, Socrates begins the dialogue in earnest. He asks Crito if one should only care for the opinions of the wise rather than the foolish. After Crito agrees, Socrates expands on this thought, comparing the opinions of fools about justice to the opinions of laymen about medicine. Taking advice on medicine from someone who isn’t a doctor could harm the body; likewise, taking advice on justice from someone who is not wise harms “that part of ourselves that is improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions.” At Socrates’ prompting, Crito affirms every step of this argument.

Socrates asks Crito whether the part of the self “destroyed by unjust actions” is more or less valuable than the health of the body. Crito replies that it is more valuable. Socrates replies that this shows that one should not care for the opinion of the majority, but for that of those who understand justice.

Carrying the argument forward, Socrates asks why it matters so much that the majority is able to put him to death. He and Crito agree that “the good life, the beautiful life, and the just life” are one and the same. Accordingly, the ability to live a good life becomes contingent on acting justly. If continuing to live would mean living unjustly, then, Socrates concludes, he must die.

Having reached agreement on this point, Socrates starts another discussion, adding that he considers it “important” to persuade Crito of the reasoning behind his choices. He recalls that they have always agreed that one must always attempt to avoid doing wrong, and asks if public opinion has suddenly acquired any relevance to that question. Crito admits that it hasn’t, affirming their shared conviction that one must never do wrong.

Socrates explores the implications of this belief, asking Crito whether it is acceptable to, for example, act wrongly as revenge for a wrong committed against oneself. Following from their previously stated convictions, Crito asserts that this would not be acceptable, and agrees with Socrates that a person must never act wrongly, regardless of the wrongs inflicted against them.

Socrates seizes on this moment, claiming that Crito does not really share this belief as he claims to. He promises to show him how. Socrates then provides an example, asking whether it is just to break an agreement one has reached with someone. When Crito agrees that this would be unjust, Socrates returns to the matter at hand, asking Crito if his escape would not be “harming people whom we should least do harm to.” Crito is baffled by the way the argument has progressed and feels unable to answer the question.

Socrates proceeds by speaking rhetorically as the “laws and the state,” or the nomoi, asking if it’s possible to ignore the verdicts of a court without implying that the courts have no validity. That would mean nothing less than attempting to destroy the city by undermining its laws.

Crito counters, at Socrates’ suggestion, by asserting that the law acted wrongly towards Socrates by condemning him; for that reason, one can disobey it. Still speaking as the laws, Socrates does not contradict that a wrong was committed, but argues that he is nevertheless bound to obey the state.

Before allowing Crito to break in, Socrates insists on explaining where this obligation comes from. He lists the goods he received from the state, arguing that there are so many of these goods that any citizen must accord the state a position of honor even greater than that of their parents. If it is impious to disrespect one’s mother or father, it is even worse to disrespect the state, even if it “leads you to war to be wounded or killed.” A just citizen can only obey the state or convince it to act differently. Crito agrees.

Though he has already elicited Crito’s agreement, Socrates keeps pushing. He observes that any Athenian of age has the right to leave the city and go somewhere else if he dislikes the law. Escaping prison would therefore be wrong for three reasons: first, it would be equivalent to disobeying his “parents”; second, because he had already been given the opportunity to convince the state to act differently in court, and therefore had already had a fair shot at disputing its intended course of action; and third, because he had spent his whole life in the city, and thereby consented to obey its laws.

Socrates now applies these arguments to his own case. He justifies this by repeating that he has stayed in the city his whole life and taken advantage of the goods it offered, and even had children there. This, he argues, means that he was “satisfied” with the law and the state of Athens. Furthermore, at his trial, he stated that he preferred death to exile. Contradicting that belief, together with his agreement to follow Athens’ laws, would make him like “the meanest type of slave.” He asks Crito if he agrees. He does.

Here, Socrates takes a moment to return to Crito’s earlier argument that dying would mean abandoning his friends and children. He points out that those same friends would stand in danger of retribution if he escaped successfully.

Addressing another one of Crito’s points, Socrates imagines what his life would be like in a new city. If he went to a well-governed city, he says, the people would look on him with justified suspicion as one who had already showed his contempt for the law. On the other hand, if he went to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, he would be forced to live a hard life amid political instability and chaos, making it difficult to give his children a good life. If he dies, however, he can count on his friends to take care of his family.

Socrates, still pretending to speak as the law of Athens, concludes his argument by considering his own fate after death. If Socrates dies willingly, the laws declare that he can count on the “rulers” of the underworld to defend him, since he has been wronged “not by us, the laws, but by men.” If he flees, on the other hand, he will live a wretched life among the living and can expect that things will be no less wretched after death.

Socrates turns to his old friend and addresses him directly. He tells Crito that he hears the words of the “laws” around him, like the music of the flutes of the Corybants, and the “echo of these words […] makes it impossible for [him] to hear anything else.” He invites Crito to continue to object if he thinks he can still make a case for his proposal; for his own part, however, he declares the argument closed.

Crito concedes, resigned and defeated: “I have nothing to say, Socrates.” Socrates accepts this concession, bidding Crito to make his peace with things: “let it be then, Crito, and let us act in this way, since this is the way the god is leading us.”