An Athenian philosopher (c. 470–399 BCE), known through the writings of his students, especially Plato, who taught by questioning, held that "the unexamined life is not worth living", and accepted death rather than abandon his principles.
Socrates lived in Athens during its golden age and its decline, through the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. He served as a soldier, but spent most of his life in the marketplace (agora), engaging citizens in conversation about justice, courage, piety and the good life. He claimed to know nothing, and that his only wisdom lay in knowing the limits of his knowledge. The oracle at Delphi was said to have called him the wisest of men, which he interpreted as meaning that he alone recognised his ignorance.
His questioning often embarrassed powerful people by revealing that they could not define the values they claimed to uphold. In 399 BCE he was tried on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Plato's "Apology" presents his defence speech, in which he refused to give up philosophy. Condemned to death, he declined an opportunity to escape from prison, arguing in Plato's "Crito" that breaking the law would be unjust, and drank hemlock, as described in the "Phaedo".
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