Aeschines (c. 425 -- c. 350 BCE), son of Lysanias, of the deme Sphettus of Athens, was in his youth a follower of Socrates. (He is called Aeschines Socraticus -- "the Socratic Aeschines" -- by historians to distinguish him from the more historically influencial Athenian orator named Aeschines.) According to Plato, Aeschines of Sphettus was present at the trial and execution of Socrates. We know that after Socrates' death, Aeschines went on to write philosophical dialogues, just as Plato did, in which Socrates played the role of the main interlocutor. Though Aeschines' dialogues have survived only in the form of fragments and quotations by later writers, he was renowned in antiquity for his accurate portrayal of Socratic conversations. In this sense, he was probably superior to Xenophon and may have been closer to Plato in dramatic skill. (Many modern scholars believe that Xenophon's writings are inspired almost entirely by Plato's and/or by the influence of other Socratics such as Antisthenes and Hermogenes. On the other hand, there is no good reaon to think that Aeschines' writings were not based almost entirely on his own personal recollections of Socrates.) BCE is a TLA that may stand for: Before the Common Era, date notation equivalent to BC (e. ... In biology, a deme (rhymes with team) is another word for a local population of organisms of one species that actively interbreed with one another and share a distinct gene pool. ... Athens (Greek: Αθήνα Athína IPA ) is the capital of Greece and one of the most famous cities in the world. ... This article is about the ancient Greek philosopher, for all other uses see: Socrates (disambiguation) Socrates (June 4, ca. ... Aeschines (389 - 314 BC), Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators, was born at Athens. ... Plato Plato (Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn) (c. ... Xenophon (In Greek , c. ... Antisthenes (c. ... This entry is not about the Hellenistic Ionian architect Hermogenes of Priene Hermogenes of Tarsus, was a Greek rhetorician, surnamed the polisher. ...

We know that Aeschines wrote the following dialouges: Alcibiades, Aspasia, Axiochus (not to be confused with the dialogue of the same name erroneously included in the Platonic corpus), Callias, Miltiades, Rhinon, Telauges.

Of these, we have the most information about the Alcibiades, the Aspasia, and the Telauges.

The 2nd century CE sophist Publius Aelius Aristides quotes from the Alicibiades at length, preserving for us the largest surviving chunk of Aeschines' written work. Just before WWI, Arthur Hunt recovered from Oxyrhynchus a papyrus containing a long, fragmentary passage from this dialogue that had been lost since ancient times. In the dialogue, Socrates converses with a young, ambitious Alcibiades about Themistocles and argues that Alcibiades is unprepared for a career in politics since he has failed to "care for himself" in such a way as to avoid thinking that he knows more than what he actually knows on matters of the most importance. Socrates seems to argue for the view that success is directly proportional to knowledge (though knowledge may not be sufficient for complete success), as opposed to being dependent merely on fortune or divine dispensation, independent of knowledge. Socrates' arguments cause the usually cocky Alcibiades to weep in shame and despair -- a result also attested to by Plato in the Symposium. Socrates claims that it is only through loving Alcibiades that he can improve him (by cultivating in him a desire to pursue knowledge?), since Socrates has no knowledge of his own to teach. CE is an abbreviation which can have the following meanings: Capillary electrophoresis the CE mark is a stylized CE placed on products to signify conformance with European Union regulations. ... WWI may be an acronym for: World War I World Wrestling Industry This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Οξύρυγχος; sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian Per-Medjed; modern Arabic el-Bahnasa) is an archaeological site in Egypt, considered one of the most important ever discovered. ... Alcibiades Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides (also Alkibiades) (ancient Greek: Αλκιβιαδες Κλεινιου Σκαμβωνιδες)¹ (c. ... Themistocles (ca. ...

Our major sources for the Aspasia are Athenaeus, Plutarch, and Cicero. In the dialogue, Socrates recommends that Callias (grandson of the more famous Callias who served in the the battle of Marathon) send his son Hipponicus to Aspasia to learn politics. In the dialogue, Socrates argues, among other things, that women are capable of the exact same military and political "virtues" as are men, which Socrates proves by referring Callias to the examples of Aspasia herself (who famously advised Pericles), Thargelia of Miletus (a courtesan who supposedly persuaded many Greeks to ally themselves with Xerxes who in turn gave Thargelia part of Thessaly to rule), and the warrior Rhodogune (who was daughter of the Persian king Artaxerxes II). (The doctrine is likewise found in Plato's Meno and Republic, and so is confirmed as genuinely Socratic.) A certain Xenophon is also mentioned in the dialogue -- Socrates says that Aspasia exhorted this Xenophon and his wife to cultivate knowledge of self as a means to virtue -- but the Xenophon in question is likely distinct from the Xenophon who is more familiar to us as another author of Socratic memoirs. Athenaeus (ca. ... Plutarch Mestrius Plutarchus (c. ... Marcus Tullius Cicero (standard English pronunciation ; Classical Latin pronunciation ) (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was an orator and statesman of Ancient Rome, and is generally considered the greatest Latin orator and prose stylist. ... Callias was the head of a wealthy Athenian family, and fought at the battle of Marathon (490) in priestly attire. ... Combatants Athens Persia Commanders Miltiades, Callimachus Darius I of Persia, Artaphernes Strength About 10,000 No more than 20,000 (26,000 according to Herodotus) Casualties 192 dead About 6,400 dead The Battle of Marathon (490 BC) was the culmination of King Darius I of Persias first major... Aspasia Aspasia (c. ... Artaxerxes II (c. ... Xenophon (In Greek , c. ...

In the Telauges, Socrates converses with the Pythagorean ascetic Telauges (a companion of Hermogenes who was Callias' half-brother and a follower of Socrates) and Crito's young son Critobolus. In the dialogue, Socrates criticizes Telauges for his extreme asceticism and Crito for his ostentatiousness, apparently in an attempt to argue for a moderate position. The Pythagoreans were an Hellenic organization of astronomers, musicians, mathematicians, and philosophers; who believed that all things are, essentially, numeric. ... The word ascetic derives from the ancient Greek term askesis (practice, training or exercise). ... The Crito is a well-known dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, between Socrates and his follower the rich Athenian Crito (or Criton), regarding the source and nature of political obligation. ...

Diogenes Laertius, in his brief Life of Aeschines, reports that Aeschines, having fallen into dire financial straits, went to the court of Dionysius the Younger in Syracuse and then returned to Athens after Dionysius was deposed by Dion. (If this is true, Aeschines must have lived at least until 356, which would mean that he probably died of old age in Athens, as he was likely not less than 18 at the time of Socrates' trial in 399.) He is also said to have practiced rhetoric, writing speeches for litigants. Diogenes Laërtius, the biographer of the Greek philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, and by others from the Roman family of the Laërtii. ... Dionysius the Younger or Dionysius II (c. ...

Athenaeus quotes a passage from a lost trial speech by Lysias Against Aeschines, in which Aeschines' adversary chastises him for incurring a debt while working as a perfume vendor and not paying it back, a turn of events that is surprising -- the speaker alleges -- given that Aeschines was a student of Socrates and that both of them spoke so much of virtue and justice. Among other charges, Aeschines is basically characterized as a sophist in the speech. (We gather that the litigation in question was one brought by Aeschines himself against his lender for reasons that are not made clear in Athenaeus' quotation.) Athenaeus (ca. ... Lysias (d. ... Sophism was originally a term for the techniques taught by a highly respected group of philosophy and rhetoric teachers in ancient Greece. ...

Diogenes Laertius claims that, contrary to Plato's Crito, it was Aeschines rather than Crito who urged Socrates after his trial to flee Athens rather than face his sentence; Diogenes says that Plato puts the arguments into Crito's mouth because Plato disliked Aeschines due to his association with Aristippus. But Diogenes' source for this is Idomeneus of Lampsacus, a notorious scandalmonger. Aristippus (c. ... Idomeneus (in Greek Iδoμενευς), of Lampsacus, was a friend and disciple of Epicurus, flourished about 310–270 BC. We have no particulars of his life, save that he married Batis, the sister of Sandes, who was also a native of Lampsacus, and a pupil of Epicurus. ...

From Hegesander of Delphi (2nd century CE) -- via Athenaeus -- we hear of the scandal that Plato stole away Aeschines' only student Xenocrates. But Hegesander is notoriously unreliable, and the story is entirely uncorroborated. Xenocrates of Chalcedon (396 - 314 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scholarch or rector of the Academy from 339 to 314 BC. Removing to Athens in early youth, he became the pupil of the Socratic Aeschines, but presently joined himself to Plato, whom he attended to Sicily in 361. ...

The extant fragments and quotations concerning Aeschines were collected by the German scholar Heinrich Dittmar in his Aischines von Sphettos of 1912. That collection has been superseded by the Italian scholar Gabriele Giannantoni's 1991 work on Socratic writings Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae. English translations are hard to find. G.C. Field published a translation of the fragments in his Plato and His Contemporaries (1930), but this is now out of print. More recently, David Johnson has published a translation of the extant passages from the Alcibiades in his Socrates and Alcibiades (2003).