3362 AM · 399 BCE · world history
Socrates
Athens sentences to death the philosopher who taught people to ask questions.
Socrates wrote nothing. He walked the Athenian agora asking questions until people realised they could not define the words they used most confidently: justice, courage, the good. Charged with impiety and corrupting the young, he refused to flee and drank hemlock. His method of questioning became the starting point of Western philosophy.
Sources
Scholarship
- Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes — contemporaries of Socrates — the trial and death — Plato’s Apology and Phaedo, Xenophon’s Memorabilia; Socrates himself wrote nothing
- archaeology of the Aegean world — the excavations of the Athenian agora — the site of his conversations and his trial
Basis: documents and evidence.