ENG 2150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Hoplite
Document Summary
Socrates, the celebrated greek philosopher and moralist, was born at athens in the year 469 b. c. His father, sophroniskus, was a sculptor and he followed the same profession in the early part of his life. His family was respectable in descent, but humble in point of means. He had the usual education of the athenian citizen, which included not only a knowledge of the mother tongue, and readings in the greek poets, but also the elements of arithmetic, geometry and astronomy as then known. Excepting in connection with his philosophical career, few circumstances of his life are known. He served as a hoplite, or heavy-armed foot-soldier, at the siege of potidaea, at the battle of deliurn, and at amphipolis, and his bravery and endurance were greatly extolled by his friends. Somewhere about the middle period of his life, he relinquished his profession as statuary, and gave himself up to the career that made him famous.
