Note 11 — Chapter X · KRITON.

This was among the charges urged against Sokrates by Anytus and the other accusers (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 9. ὑπερορᾷν ἐποίει τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων τοὺς συνόντας). It was also the judgment formed respecting Sokrates by the Roman censor, the elder Cato; a man very much like the Athenian Anytus, constitutional and patriotic as a citizen, devoted to the active duties of political life, but thoroughly averse to philosophy and speculative debate, as Anytus is depicted in the Menon of Plato. — Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a passage already cited in a note on the chapter next but one preceding.

The accusation of “putting himself above the laws,” appears in the same way in the Nubes of Aristophanes, 1035-1400, &c.:—

ὡς ἡδὺ καινοῖς πράγμασιν καὶ δεξιοῖς ὁμιλεῖν καὶ τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων ὑπερ φρονεῖν δύνασθαι.

Compare the rhetor Aristeides — Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, p. 133; vol. iii. p. 480, Dindorf.