of Grecian civilization.  But he died thirty years after Pericles; so that what is most interesting in his great career took place during and after the Peloponnesian war,—­an age still interesting, but not so brilliant as the one which immediately preceded it.  It was the age of the Sophists,—­those popular but superficial teachers who claimed to be the most advanced of their generation; men who were doubtless accomplished, but were cynical, sceptical, and utilitarian, placing a high estimate on popular favor and an outside life, but very little on pure subjective truth or the wants of the soul.  They were paid teachers, and sought pupils from the sons of the rich,—­the more eminent of them being Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus; men who travelled from city to city, exciting great admiration for their rhetorical skill, and really improving the public speaking of popular orators.  They also taught science to a limited extent, and it was through them that Athenian youth mainly acquired what little knowledge they had of arithmetic and geometry.  In loftiness of character they were not equal to those Ionian philosophers, who, prior to Socrates, in the fifth century B.C., speculated on the great problems of the material universe,—­the origin of the world, the nature of matter, and the source of power,—­and who, if they did not make discoveries, yet evinced great intellectual force.

It was in this sceptical and irreligious age, when all classes were devoted to pleasure and money-making, but when there was great cultivation, especially in arts, that Socrates arose, whose “appearance,” says Grote, “was a moral phenomenon.”

He was the son of a poor sculptor, and his mother was a midwife.  His family was unimportant, although it belonged to an ancient Attic gens.  Socrates was rescued from his father’s workshop by a wealthy citizen who perceived his genius, and who educated him at his own expense.  He was twenty when he conversed with Parmenides and Zeno; he was twenty-eight when Phidias adorned the Parthenon; he was forty when he fought at Potidaea and rescued Alcibiades.  At this period he was most distinguished for his physical strength and endurance,—­a brave and patriotic soldier, insensible to heat and cold, and, though temperate in his habits, capable of drinking more wine, without becoming intoxicated, than anybody in Athens.  His powerful physique and sensual nature inclined him to self-indulgence, but he early learned to restrain both appetites and passions.  His physiognomy was ugly and his person repulsive; he was awkward, obese, and ungainly; his nose was flat, his lips were thick, and his neck large; he rolled his eyes, went barefooted, and wore a dirty old cloak.  He spent his time chiefly in the market-place, talking with everybody, old or young, rich or poor,—­soldiers, politicians, artisans, or students; visiting even Aspasia, the cultivated, wealthy courtesan, with whom he formed a friendship; so that, although he was very poor,—­his whole property being only five minae (about fifty dollars) a year,—­it would seem he lived in “good society.”