The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: backs on Socrates. They found his society unattractive, not to speak
of the annoyance of being cross-questioned on their own shortcomings.
Forthwith they devoted themselves to those affairs of state but for
which they would never have come near him at all.
No; if one would seek to see true companions of Socrates, one must
look to Crito,[24] and Chaerephon, and Chaerecrates, to Hermogenes, to
Simmias and Cebes, to Phaedondes and others, who clung to him not to
excel in the rhetoric of the Assembly or the law-courts, but with the
nobler ambition of attaining to such beauty and goodliness of soul as
would enable them to discharge the various duties of life to house and
family, to relatives and friends, to fellow-citizens, and to the state
 The Memorabilia |