INTRODUCTION.
These dialogues contain a unique picture of Socrates in the closing scenes of his life, his trial, his imprisonment, and his death. And they contain a description also of that unflagging search after truth, that persistent and merciless examination and sifting of men who were wise only in their own conceit, to which his latter years were devoted. Within these limits he is the most familiar figure of ancient Greek history. No one else stands out before us with so individual and distinct a personality of his own. Of the rest of Socrates' life, however, we are almost completely ignorant. All that we know of it consists of a few scattered and isolated facts, most of which are referred to in these dialogues. A considerable number of stories are told about him by late Writers: but to scarcely any of them can credit be given. Plato and Xenophon are almost the only trustworthy authorities about him who remain; and they describe him almost altogether as an old man. The earlier part of his life is to us scarcely more than a blank.
Socrates was born very shortly before the
