ABSTRACT
The astonishing features of the Socratic tradition are the paucity of reports on the political activities of Socrates. There must have existed for some time a certain anti-Socratic sentiment in Athens, as evinced, for instance, by the Clouds of Aristophanes. The inability of the Socratic apologists to refute the political charges made by the democrats becomes especially noticeable with Xenophon whose method of dealing with the Polycratean 'accusations', in particular, often strikes the reader as being an admission of their foundation in fact in each case. By turning Socrates into an excellent man and idealistic philosopher, the Socratics made over the 'politician' Socrates, who might have been the historical Socrates, into a philosophical legend or, to be more precise, a literary legend. The traditional treatment of the Socratic problem, by following the example set by Aristotle, has always tried to emphasize in a most one-sided manner the alleged 'philosophy' of Socrates.
