Socrates antagonises the court by proposing, rather than a penalty, a reward — perpetual maintenance at public expense. He notes that the vote of judgement against him was close. In that vein, Socrates then engages in dark humour, suggesting that Meletus narrowly escaped a great fine for not meeting the statutory requirement of receiving one-fifth of the votes of the assembled judges in favour of his accusations against Socrates. In that way, Socrates published the financial consequence for Meletus to consider as a plaintiff in a lawsuit — because the Athenian legal system discouraged frivolous lawsuits by imposing a financially onerous fine upon the plaintiff if the vote of the judges was less than one-fifth of the number of judges required by the type of lawsuit.