History Creator / Socrates

* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Socrates' death was partially a result of this, according to some writers. The whole charge of Socrates corrupting the young laid by Athenians makes sense when you factor some of his students. Socrates' students included Alcibiades, Critias, and Xenophon. Of the lot, Xenophon became a mercenary who sold his sword to Persia and Sparta and fought against Athens, albeit since he did pick one side and never turned he at least proved the most honorable of the lot. Alcibiades was a shifty side-switching backstabber who kept going from Athens to Sparta and back again. Critias was the worst, a key leader of the Thirty Tyrants, the oligarchical puppet government installed by Sparta, who on coming to power led a brutal purge against the city's inhabitants, killing more than a thousand (a huge number in an ancient city with a small population). Socrates opposed these actions of his students, and some of his other students were decent, but two years after the end of the Thirty Tyrants, it's not hard to imagine grudges put against the teacher by citizens who might have been related or known someone related to the victims of the tyrants.

* WordOfSaintPaul: Plato is the intercessory agent here.

He disapproved of writing, and so is known chiefly through the writings of his student Creator/{{Plato}}. (Another of his students, Creator/{{Xenophon}}, also wrote about him, but his works are less known.) Socrates taught and inspired many prominent young Athenians, from the aforementioned Plato to Alcibiades. (Plato even devoted a good chunk of his ''Literature/{{Symposium}}'' to defending against the common charge that Socrates had an affair with Alcibiades).

* The web series ''WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory'' pits Socrates, along with Creator/FriedrichNietzsche and Creator/{{Voltaire}}, against the Eastern philosophers [[Literature/TheArtOfWar Sun Tzu]], [[Creator/{{Laozi}} Lao Tzu]] and Creator/{{Confucius}}.

* GeniusBruiser: Although not as much as his student Creator/{{Plato}} (who was a [[BloodSport pankration]] champion), Socrates did serve with distinction in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, which took no small amount of physical strength. According to some accounts, Socrates [[WorkingClassHero earned his living as a stonecutter]], preferring not to receive money for teaching. No doubt this also required considerable physical strength.

* He shows up in person in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' and is mostly treated as an extremely annoying Athenian intellectual who keeps asking and putting the protagonist through all manner of moral and philosophical conundrums, theoretically or in reality, such as attempting to save an actual political prisoner about to be executed. Strangely, though the game takes place smackdab in the middle of the Peloponnesian, he is not a soldier.

* BarefootLoon: How he's portrayed in ''Theatre/TheClouds''.
** The real Socrates was also somewhat like this, since in spite of (or maybe because of) his wisdom, he often demonstrated extremely eccentric behavior. His penchant for going barefoot was one of his quirks.

* Played with in one episode of G.I. Joe which had a minor character named Socrates Aertes, only he was a shipping tycoon.

Socrates, commonly considered the father of philosophy (though not the first one by any stretch), was an Athenian philosopher who lived from 469-399 BCE, when he was executed in the wake of UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar (of which, interestingly, he was a veteran, having served with distinction at Delium in an earlier phase of the war). The earlier philosophers are, in fact, known as the "pre-Socratic philosophers".

* BarefootSage: One of his best-known characteristics. He's probably the UrExample of the trope.

%%* DiesWideOpen

%%* FaceDeathWithDignity

The story goes that the Oracle at Delphi described Socrates as the wisest man in Greece, and Socrates, a simple bricklayer, set out to disprove this claim by seeking out all the most knowledgeable men in Greece and demonstrating that they knew more than he did. It always backfired, because Socrates, possessing basic reasoning skills, could always see and point out the massive holes in everyone's claims. For example, he tried to get [[CharacterTitle Euthyphro]], an esteemed religious expert, to put forth a workable definition of "piety". None of Euthyphro's attempts held up under scrutiny, and eventually he gave up and went away. In the end, Socrates agreed with the Oracle, even if reluctantly, saying that if he really ''did'' know more than all other men, it was only because he was aware of how much he did ''not'' know.

* WordOfDante: Plato is the intercessory agent here.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: His specialty, although it has been argued that Socrates' questions sometimes pierce [[TheWarOnStraw straw armour.]]
* BadassBeard
* BaldOfAwesome
* BarefootSage[=/=]DoesNotLikeShoes: One of his best-known characteristics. He's probably the UrExample of both tropes.
** BarefootLoon: How he's portrayed in ''Theatre/TheClouds''.

* ConstantlyCurious
* CoolOldGuy
* TheCynic[=/=]DeadpanSnarker: ''So'' much. He was even an immediate influence to the original [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism#Influences Greek Cynics]].
* DiesWideOpen
* DoomedMoralVictor
* DyingMomentOfAwesome[=/=]ObiWanMoment: His trial and execution.

* FaceDeathWithDignity

* GeniusBruiser: Although not as much as his student Creator/{{Plato}} (who was a [[BloodSport pankration]] champion), Socrates did serve with distinction in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, which took no small amount of physical strength.
** According to some accounts, Socrates [[WorkingClassHero earned his living as a stonecutter]], preferring not to receive money for teaching. No doubt this also required considerable physical strength.

* ThePhilosopher[=/=]ContemplateOurNavels: Obviously, but he's not the [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness sesquipedalian]], "bookish" philosopher.

* The protagonist of 'VisualNovel/SocratesJonesProPhilosopher'' is named after him. [[{{Irony}} Ironically]], Jones knows nothing about philosophy despite coming from a family of philosophy buffs; the story is an EdutainmentGame that allows him to explore the subject.

* Socrates gets a mention in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Literature/SkinGame''; according to Hades Socrates is spending his afterlife answering other people's questions.

* {{Irony}}: Socrates may have invented this, he is certainly the earliest attested practicioner.

* InsufferableGenius: He was one of the greatest minds of his generation, if not ''the'' greatest, and he knew it. He also had no problem making sure everyone else knew it, too, and was not above a bit of UnsportsmanlikeGloating when he won a debate.

* He's mentioned on Gene Ray's notorious Website/TimeCube site.

** According to some accounts, Socrates [[WorkingClassHero earned his living as a stonecutter]], prefering not to receive money for teaching. No doubt this also required considerable physical strength.

* IDrankWhat: Implied in the film ''Film/RealGenius'' - which is the TropeNamer here - and in other comedies that Socrates accidentally drank the hemlock. But this is averted in RealLife: Socrates knew ''exactly'' what he was doing.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: He reportedly found Creator/{{Aristophanes}}' caricature of him in ''The Clouds'' amusing.

* BarefootLoon: How he's portrayed in ''Theatre/TheClouds''.

* Socrates gets a mention in Literature/TheDresdenFiles novel ''Skin Game''; according to Hades Socrates is spending his afterlife answering other people's questions.