Socrates In The Agora

Series: Excavations of the Athenian Agora Picture Book, 17

As far as we know Socrates himself wrote nothing, yet not only were his life and words given dramatic attention in his own time in the Clouds of Aristophanes, but they have also become the subject of many others’ writing in the centuries since his death. Fourth-century B.C. writers who had first-hand knowledge of him composed either dialogues in which he was the dominant figure (Plato and Aeschines) or memories of his teaching and activities (Xenophon). Later authors down even to the present day have written numerous biographies based on these early sources and considering this most protean of philosophers from every possible point of view except perhaps the topographical one which is attempted here. Instead of putting Socrates in the context of 5th-century B.C. philosophy, politics, ethics or rhetoric, we shall look to find him in the material world and physical surroundings of his favorite stamping-grounds, the Athenian Agora.