The Apology is Plato’s account of Socrates defense speech at his trial in which he exposes the false accusations and justifies his words and actions as the divine mission he took upon visiting the Oracle at Delphi. The facts of his life are summed up and the features of his character are brought out in this literary masterpiece which is the portrait of Socrates.

This edition of The Apology is the translation into English from the original Greek by Professor Benjamin Jowett from the third edition of The Dialogues of Plato published in five volumes by Oxford University Press in 1892. Professor Jowett’s translation of Plato’s dialogues have been a reference in English literature for many generations and an artistic achievement in it’s own right, preserving in beautiful English prose the spirit and the direct, clear and elevated style of Plato’s writing.