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[5]
But they were not a whit more willing to hear him, and therefore, drawing nearer, he said:
‘I admit my own guilt, and I assign death as the penalty1 for my political conduct; but these men with me, men of Athens, are not guilty at all, and why will ye put them to death?’
‘Because they are thy friends,’ answered many, whereat Phocion retired and held his peace. But Hagnonides read aloud an edict which he had prepared, in accordance with which the people were to vote by show of hands whether they thought the men to be guilty, and the men, if the show of hands was against them, were to be put to death.
1 In cases where the penalty was not fixed by law, the accuser proposed a penalty, and the accused had the right to propose a counter-penalty. The court then chose between the two penalties. Phocion waived all the advantage of this right, as Socrates, in a different way, had done.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919. 8.
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