Memorabilia

Xenophon c. 370 BCE

These recollections defend Socrates through conversations about friendship, leadership, and how to live well. In one exchange, Socrates asks a painter how a picture can show someone's character.

198 pages 3h 50m reading time

One of the two main surviving portraits of Socrates by people who knew him, alongside the dialogues of Plato.
Argues that Socrates was a good citizen who honored the gods and made the young better, not the corrupter of youth he was put to death for being.
Argues that self-control is the foundation of a good life, because a person ruled by appetite cannot be free, useful to friends, or fit to lead others.
Its story of Heracles choosing between two women, Virtue and Vice, became a favorite lesson in Western art and teaching (often called "The Choice of Hercules").
It was widely read for centuries as a guide to Socratic thinking and practical virtue, and Benjamin Franklin wrote that it shaped his habit of arguing by asking questions.

Written in exile

Xenophon wrote it while banished from Athens, probably on a country estate near Olympia.
Away during the trial

Xenophon was soldiering in Persia when Socrates was tried and executed, so he relied partly on memory and reports.
Answering a hostile pamphlet

Its opening replies to "the accuser," probably a pamphlet attacking Socrates written years after his death.
A borrowed Heracles tale

Socrates tells the Heracles story as he remembers it from Prodicus, a well-known teacher of the day.