It has been thought desirable to offer here a version, slightly abridged, of Diogenes's chapter on Socrates. The original sources, in Plato's and Xenophon's extant works, will almost always explain, or correct, the statements of Diogenes. Such wild shots as the assertion that the plague repeatedly visited Athens, striking down _every inhabitant_ save the temperate Socrates, hardly need a serious rejoinder. Diogenes cannot even speak with approximate accuracy of Socrates's famous Dæmon or Inward Monitor. We know, on the best authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing, but only vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But to apply the tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criticizing Uncle Remus for his sins against English syntax. Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors. LIFE OF SOCRATES From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers' Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phænarete a midwife [as Plato also states in the 'Theaetetus'], and an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid Euripides in composing his dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks thus:-- "This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians': And Socrates has furnished him the sticks." And again:-- "Euripides, Socratically patched." Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:-- _A_--"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs? _B_--Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates." Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:-- "And this is he who for Euripides Composed the talkative wise tragedies." He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but also of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions.' After the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his; they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli' declares:-- "From them proceeded the stone-polisher, Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks, Who taught the art of subtle argument, The nose-in-air, mocker of orators, Half Attic, the adept in irony."