he came in contact in the workshops, or in the gymnasium, in their homes, or in the marketplace. He sought to make them look straight clearly down into themselves, see what they thought they knew, and then rise to the height of their best aspirations, "knighted from kneeling."
Socrates had faith in the wisdom of the multitude, and while he exhorted men to worship the gods in the form ordained by the state, his spiritual teaching pointed one great First Cause in a way that drew attention from religious symbols to the soul of truth that they embodied. He was attacked, therefore, by politicians and by priests. Condemned as an innovator, by a majority of six votes, he justified himself instead of pleading against a heavy sentence. Sentenced then by a majority of eighty votes to death, he declared that he would rather die because he had defended himself honestly, than live because he had appealed to pity. For thirty days after his sentence, Socrates lived in prison conversing with his friends, because a law forbade executions during the time the annual voyage of the sacred ship, the Theoris, with offerings to the shrine at Delos. The dialogues this volume represent the reasonings of Socrates the last hours of his life, in the year 399 b.c., when his age was seventy.
Plato was born at Athens the year 430 b.c., and was, therefore, thirty-one years old at the
