Ancient Greece was blessed with many important personalities in practically all aspects of human activity. None excels Socrates in symbolic importance: a free individual of unusual intellect, in constant pursuit of the truth, and at the same time a citizen fighting voluntarily as a soldier for his city at the age of 45 and, years later, obeying with serene grace its unjust death verdict against him. He is the Athenian citizen par excellence.

Socrates was the son of an artisan, a sculptor, and a sage woman. He prakciced for a while his father's profession and, as he said himself, used his mother's skilful approach of bringing a baby in the world, to bring truth into light. He moves in the framework of his city and seeks to understand the truth. He discovers that the way to go about that is humility- he acknowledges to know only one thing: that he knows nothing. Center of his intellectual search is not the physical world around him but rather, in abeyance to the Delphic command "know thyself", the human nature itself. The search for understanding is practiced in the Agora, in gatherings of few friends, in banquets, where after a frugal meal and a sip of watered wine, Athenians philosophized. This is the universe and the priority of Socrates. He did not write any book. His thoughts were for immediate impact and consumption. They were meant to influence the life of his city there and then.

One of his contemporaries, Plato, was so impressed by his presence and teaching that he attributed most of his personal work to the dialogs he has had with Socrates. He was not the only one. Xenophon and others have written about Socrates and so it is through them that we know of his thoughts and his teachings (though he probably would not accept this term, which was then used to describe the professional activity of wise men teaching for money young affluent Athenians. Socrates never received money for his interaction with his fellow-citizens). The best description of the charisma of Socrates is probably given in the "Banquet" of Plato by Alcibiades. He is a person with ugly looks but with unparalleled power of convincing, of winning the audience. He could resist the power of beauty, the power of money, he could endure hunger, thirst, cold, wine. He is unpretentious, simple, wise.

Parallel to those admiring him, are those who scorn or despise him. Most harmless of them is, probably, Aristophanes, the comedy play-writer, who in his play "Clouds" ridicules Socrates and presents him as a sophist, a philosopher twisting the truth at his advantage. Most dangerous of them all are his three prosecutors: Melytos, Anytos, Lykon. They brought him to court with the charge that he is trying to introduce new deities in the city and that with his teachings he is bringing moral harm to the youth of Athens. The true reasons for this accusation were, probably, the fear that Socrates had friends in the oligarchic party and that beliefs were close to the Spartan model of governing the city.

No other trial, except the one of Jesus, says I.F. Stone, in his book "The Trial of Socrates", impressed more the western world. The accusations, if proven valid, had death as penalty. Socrates faced them with a total indifference for his life. As he explained, all he was doing was to profess what he considered right and just. "If I do not do that", he explained, "I fail my obligation vis-a-vis the city and that would be a sin. So, even if you acquit me on the understanding that I stop professing what I profess, I could not disregard my fundamental obligation to tell the truth, and I would continue doing the same. And under this perspective, Anytos may cause my death, but there is no way he can really harm me, i.e. force me to do something which I consider unworthy of me".

The court reached a very shameful decision: guilty. Socrates had two more chances of saving his life. The first was to plead for leniency. Instead he provoked his judges by suggesting that they feed him for life in the Prytaneion,the office where the prytaneis(presidents) who conducted the day-to-day business of the Athenian State sat and dined, as they used to do for athletes who distinguished themselves at the Olympic Games. The second was to accept his friend's, Kriton's, offer to escape from his prison. Instead he stays and continues to speak calmly with his friends till his last hour.