Socrates is the main character in all of the dialogs included in this collection. He is, above all, a philosopher, and he seems to have no interest in any other pursuit. In several of the dialogs, he indicates that he has very few material possessions on account of his profession (he says this, for example, in "The Apology" and it is implied in "Phaedo"). His dedication to philosophy has also gotten him into a fair amount of trouble, as he indicates in "The Apology" that he would have been executed by a group of tyrants for not obeying their orders.