Abstract: The personified Laws in the Crito who make the case for Socrates' remaining in prison and accepting his execution rather than fleeing at the urging of his friend Crito, speak not, as is generally thought, for Socrates, but represent instead the city of Athens and its laws. The Laws are, indeed, in style and substance, Socrates' adversaries: whereas Socrates defends dialectically the claim of the individual to exercise and follow his own reason, the Laws defend rhetorically the absolute authority of law. Socrates has his own reasons for remaining in prison—escape would involve him and his friends in unsavory and unworthy activities and would violate Socrates' publicly announced agreement to “abide by” his penalty (Ap. 39b)—but Crito cannot accept reasons of this kind. Caring most about helping his friend and not allowing his friends' enemies to win, Crito flouts the law in his willingness to engage in bribery and stealth. Recognizing the utterly unphilosophical nature of his friend, Socrates works to repay Crito's friendship by bringing him up to the level of law-abidingness, hardly the highest level of morality but at least not the very lowest. The speech of the Laws that Socrates fashions to this end has the same effect on Socrates as Corybantic rites do on those exposed to them; it does not, however, provide a rationally convincing argument.

Keywords: Authority, Crito, History of philosophy, Justice, Law, Laws, Plato, Punishment, Socrates