He seemed afraid of an imminent choice between two options- incarceration or hiding who he was. This is an eerie comparison:
Socrates on Trial, Apology by Plato
[size=85] I am convinced that I never willingly wrong anyone, but I am not convincing you of this, for we have talked together but a short time. If it were the law with us, as it is elsewhere, that a trial for life should not last one but many days, you would be convinced, but now it is not easy to dispel great slanders in a short time. Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself, to say that I deserve some evil and and to make some such assessment against myself.[/size] [size=110]What should I fear?[/size][size=85] That I should suffer the penalty Meletus has assessed against me, [/size][size=110]of which I do not know whether it is good or bad?[/size] [size=85]Am I then to choose in preference to this something that I know very well to be an evil and assess the penalty at that? Imprisonment? Why should I live in prison, always subjected to the ruling magistrates, the Eleven?[/size]
[size=110] I should have to be inordinately fond of life[/size][size=85], men of Athens, to be so unreasonable as to suppose that other men will easily tolerate my company and conversation when you, my fellow citizens, have been unable to endure them, but have found them a burden and resented them so that you are now seeking to get rid of them. Far from it, gentlemen. It would be a fine life at my age to be driven out of one city after another, for I know very well that wherever I go the young men will listen to my talk as they do here. If I drive them away, they will themselves persuade their elders to drive me out; if I do not drive them away, their fathers and relations will drive me out on their behalf.
Perhaps some might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, [/size][size=110] for the unexamined life is not worth living for men[/size][size=85], you will believe me even less.
I was convicted because I lacked not words but boldness and shamelessness and the willingness to say to you what you would most gladly have heard from me, lamentations and tears and my saying and doing many things that I say are unworthy of me but that you are accustomed to hear from others. I did not think then that the danger I ran should make me do anything mean [[i]unworthy[/i]], nor do I now regret the nature of my defense. [/size][size=110]Neither I nor any man should, on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost.[/size]
[size=85] You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, that a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death […] What has happened to me now has not happened of itself, but it is clear to me that it was better for me to die now and to escape from trouble. So I am certainly not angry with those who convicted me, or with my accusers. This much I ask from them: when my sons grow up,avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue […] Reproach them as I reproach you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy when they are not worthy of anything.
Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god.[/size]
If Abstract were still here, the only thing I would suggest to him is this part: “that a trial for life should not last one but many days”