Socrates

Abstract

The sophists had an unsettling influence, but this was only one factor in the decay of morals and decency which we observe at the end of the fifth century. Another factor was the long and disastrous war between Athens and Sparta, which lasted on and off from 431 to 404 B.C., and involved nearly the whole of the Greek world. The Golden Age of Pericles, in which Athenian culture reached its highest peak, was succeeded by war, plague, and disillusionment. Moral standards, both public and private, slipped, and men were uneasily aware that something had gone badly wrong. Sober citizens blamed the new intellectuals, including, in a blanket condemnation, physicists and physiologists, sophists, and a man of quite a different stamp, Socrates of Athens. Socrates did indeed resemble the sophists in his influence on the young and the power of his intellect, but he differed by his refusal to accept payment for his work and his pure moral fervour.