onal argument and the quest for general definitions, as evidenced in the writings of his younger contemporary and pupil, Plato, and of Plato's pupil, Aristotle.. Another thinker befriended and influenced by Socrates was Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy. Socrates was also the teacher of Aristippus, who founded the Cyrenaic philosophy of experience and pleasure, from which developed the more lofty philosophy of Epicures. To such Stoics as the Greek philosopher Epictetus, the Roman philosopher Seneca the Elder, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, Socrates appeared as the very embodiment and guide of the higher life. IV. The TrialAlthough a patriot and a man of deep religious conviction, Socrates was nonetheless regarded with suspicion by many of his contemporaries, who disliked his attitude toward the Athenian state and the established religion. He was charged in 399BC with neglecting the gods of the state and introducing new divinities, a reference to the daemonion, or mystical inner voice, to which Socrates often referred. He was also charged with corrupting the morals of the young,, leading them away from the principles of democracy; and he was wrongly identified with the Sophists,. This was possibly because he had been ridiculed by the comic poet Aristophanes in his play The Clouds as the master of a "thinking-shop" where young men were taught to make the worse reason appear the better reason. Plato's Apology gives the substance of the defense made by Socrates at his trial; it was a bold vindication of his whole life. He was condemned to die even though only a small majority carried the vote. When, according to Athenian legal practice, Socrates made an ironic counter-proposition to the court's death sentence, proposing only to pay a small fine because of his value to the state as a man with a philosophic mission, the jury was so angered by this offer that it voted by an increased majority for the death pena...
