Socrates

The goal Socrates enemies was to make him grovel and ask for mercy so that he would look like a fool to all of Athens, but instead Socrates did the opposite professing that he was in the right, and preaching ignorance to the hundreds of jury members, and when they asked him what his penalty should be he laughed in their faces and gave them an outrageous proposal. Instead the jury sentenced him to death. Afterward the citizens were so ashamed that they were about to put one of societies greatest thinkers to death, they were obliged to look the other way when Socrates jail guards were bribed to let him escape. Socrates refused to be let go, stating that he would not break this law, because if he broke this law then he would appear to an enemy of all laws, and he would rather die than to break the law. So against his friends and disciples pleas Socrates drank up his poisonous hemlock, and died.
             His friend Crito tried to change Socrates mind to escape by using a couple of arguments. His first argument was that if Crito was unable to save Socrates, then what would all of the people knowing Crito think of him, because he did not save his best friend. Crito explained that they would think poorly of him and consider him only to care about money and not about friendship. When Socrates tried to explain to Crito that he should not worry about the opinions of others, Crito pointed out that if Socrates had worried about the opinion of others then he would not be in this predicament. Socrates responded that even though the people might think a wise man is really foolish, that does not make the wise man foolish, because the wise man is still wise no matter what the masses say. Socrates also argues that he would not want to live his life knowing that he had committed a crime because it would decrease his quality of health. He stated that living life is only worth it if you"re living at a certain high health standard, and if you aren't at a high enough point then you might as well not live.