Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, born around 470 BC in the deme of Alopece. He was the son of the stonemason Sophroniscus and the midwife Phaenarete. He wrote nothing himself, so he is known through the accounts of his students Plato and Xenophon and through Aristophanes' comedies.

He is famous for the Socratic method of question and answer and for the claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. He served as a hoplite soldier at