I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
My life provides an illustration of a historical conundrum. If I ever wrote a single word, it has not survived. As such, the entirety of modern knowledge concerning myself must be drawn from a limited number of secondary sources, such as the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes and Xenophon. Aristophanes was known as a satirist, and so his accounts of my life may well be skewed, exaggerated, or totally falsified. Fragmentary evidence also exists from my contemporaries. Giannantoni, in his monumental work Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae collects every scrap of evidence pertaining to myself. It includes writers such as Aeschines Socraticus (not the orator), Antisthenes, and a number of others who knew me. Plato, following Greek tradition, appears to have attributed his own ideas, theories, and possibly personal traits, to his mentor, which was me. Due to the problems inherent in such sources, all information regarding my life should be taken as possibly, but not definitely, true.
My father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and my mother Phaenarete, a midwife. I was married to Xanthippe, who bore me three sons. By the cultural standards of the time, she was considered a shrew. I attested that I, having learned to live with Xanthippe, would be able to cope with any other human being, just as a horse trainer accustomed to wilder horses might be more competent than one accustomed to tamer horses. I also saw military action, fighting at the Battle of Potidaea, the Battle of Delium and the Battle of Amphipolis. It is believed, based on Plato's Symposium, that I was decorated for bravery. In one instance I stayed with my wounded friend Alcibiades, and probably saved his life. Despite the objections of Alcibiades, Socrates refused any sort of official recognition and instead encouraged the decoration of Alcibiades. During such campaigns, I also showed my extraordinary hardiness, walking without shoes and a coat in winter.
It is unclear what exactly I did for a living. I did not work; in Xenophon's Symposium I explicitly state that I devote myself only to discussing philosophy, and that I thinks this is the most important art or occupation. It is unlikely that I was able to live off of family inheritance, given my father's occupation as an artisan. In the accounts of Plato, I, Socrates, explicitly deny accepting money for teaching; however, Xenophon's Symposium clearly has me state that I am paid by my students, and Aristophanes depicts me as running a school of sophistry with my friend Chaerephon. It is also possible that I survived off the generosity of my wealthy and powerful friends, such as Alcibiades, but you shall never know.
