Memorabilia

Written after Socrates' execution in 399 BC, the Memorabilia ('Recollections of Socrates') is Xenophon's defense of his teacher against the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Where Plato gives us Socrates the dialectician, Xenophon gives us Socrates the practical man — advising friends on farming, generalship, household management, and the good life. This translation by H. G. Dakyns (1897) preserves the directness and warmth of Xenophon's portrait, making it an essential companion to Plato's more philosophical accounts.