Socrates was a philosopher in classical Athens. He wrote nothing himself, and is known mainly through the accounts of others, above all his students Plato and Xenophon. His way of questioning, now called the Socratic method, works through short questions and answers that expose the contradictions in a person’s views.
In 399 BC he was accused of impiety and of corrupting the young, and, as Plato tells it, was put to death by poison.