This lecture is devoted to exploring the third of the four dialogues devoted to portraying the final days of Socrates: Plato’s Crito. The conversation recorded in the Crito takes place in the very early morning in Socrates’s jail cell between the prisoner and his old friend. We will consider first Crito’s arguments to Socrates to escape, then Socrates’s own arguments in response; and, third, the arguments of the laws of Athens—here given voice by Socrates—against escape. There are serious reasons to doubt whether Socrates’s arguments directed at his well- meaning but unphilosophic friend can be regarded as expressing his own views, or whether the arguments of the laws do so. Still, it is undeniable that Socrates abided by the conclusion of those arguments, namely to submit to his execution, and we will conclude with some tentative suggestions concerning his own reasons for doing so, chief among them his concern for his own reputation and, by extension, that of philosophy through the ag