Kids these days, with their writing and their abjads and alphabets… rotting their brains LOL. And they think I am corrupting the youth!
I don’t think Socrates really existed btw. He was likely a rhetorical device of Plato and Aristophanes, similar to Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle. And both authors say the same of their main character:
“He was the wisest, and the best, man I have ever known!”
No, Socrates very likely existed. He was mentioned not just by Plato and Aristophanes, but also a number of other contemporaries: Ion of Chios, Eupolis, Ameipsias, and Xenophon.
We also have references to contemporary accounts by Antisthenes, Aischines of Sphettos, and Aristippos of Kyrene.
His trial was also mentioned by Aischines.
It's a popular theory on the web but it is a difficult one to justify when we have so much evidence to the contrary, and I'm aware of no serious historian who supports that view.
I think Conan Doyle came to dislike Sherlock in the end if I remember right. In fact it might even be a trend for detective writers to dislike their detectives as I seem to recall Agatha Christie disliked Poirot as well.
I don’t think Socrates really existed btw. He was likely a rhetorical device of Plato and Aristophanes, similar to Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle. And both authors say the same of their main character:
“He was the wisest, and the best, man I have ever known!”