Socrates pleaded his own cause before the council of the Areopagus.  He flatly denied unbelief in the gods of his fathers, but he defended his belief in his genius or in-dwelling voice, and said that in this he was only like those who drew auguries from the notes of birds, thunder, and the like; and as for his guidance of young men, he called on his accusers to show whether he had ever led any man from virtue to vice.  One of them answered that he knew those who obeyed and followed Socrates more than their own parents; to which he replied that such things sometimes happened in other matters—men consulted physicians about their health rather than their fathers, and obeyed their generals in war, not their fathers; and so in learning, they might follow him rather than their fathers.  “Because I am thought to have some power of teaching youth, O my judges!” he ended, “is that a reason why I should suffer death?  My accusers may procure that judgment, but hurt me they cannot.  To fear death is to seem wise without being so, for it is pretending to understand what we know not.  No man knows what death is, or whether it be not our greatest happiness; yet all fear and shun it.”