Socrates

In the ancient world, no figure stands out for the courage of his convictions more than Socrates of Athens, who lived within the ancient Athenian democracy, 469-399 B.C.

Although robust from workouts at the gymnasium, he was stout and paunchy. He had a snub nose and bulging eyes, and was said by his best student, Plato, to be ugly outside even if beautiful within. An eccentric character who usually went about barefoot and could sometimes sink into possibly epileptic trances, he was of sufficient income that he could spend most of his time talking philosophy with men in the agora, the Greek open air marketplace where the shopping was done by the slaves who accompanied m en, not by their wives. In fact Socrates liked some distance from his reputedly shrewish wife, Xanthippe, who remained largely at home as then deemed appropriate for a Greek woman, once married. Other discourse of Socrates occurred with good friends at ev ening symposia, over their customarily half-watered glasses of wine.

By all accounts, Socrates in his talk offered little in the way of positive teaching, specializing rather in putting hard questions to others who claimed to know more than himself.

He especially challenged Sophists, the largely alien but pro-democracy teachers for pay who frequented what Pericles in the Funeral Oration called "the school of Hellas." The Sophists taught their students arts such as clever use of words without havin g any sure grasp of the right ends which could be pursued by such rhetorical means.

Using an ironic style, Socrates was described by Plato as like a gadfly or stingray, maneuvering in stealth around his prey before darting in with his sting. He loved to leave his victims impaled on the horns of a dilemma, or blushing for having been f orced to admit that they contradicted themselves in attempting to define such goods as friendship, wisdom, justice, piety or courage.

He made many friends, including some adults favorable to democracy such as...