ABSTRACT
Socrates was born in Athens in 469 B.C.E. Although he wrote nothing of any significance and had no students in anything like the ordinary sense of that term, he became one of the most influential philosophers in western civilization. During his own lifetime, his philosophical activities, which were carried on in public settings and private homes, together with his idiosyncratic demeanor, gained him great notoriety and, indeed, must have made him one of Athens’ best known figures. To many, however, he must have been more than a mere curiosity, for in 399 B.C.E. Socrates was tried on a charge of impiety, convicted, and executed after a period of imprisonment.
