How do we know that Telauges' character did not make him a better man than Socrates? It is not enough that Socrates died a more glorious death, that he argued more skillfully with the sophists, that he showed greater endurance in spending a whole night out in the frost, that he was braver in his decision to refuse the order to arrest Leon of Salamis, that he 'swaggered in the streets' (though one could well question if this last is true). No what we need to investigate is the nature of Socrates' soul. We should ask whether he was able to be content with a life of justice shown to men and piety to the gods; neither condemning all vice wholesale nor yet toadying to anyone's ignorance; not regarding anything allotted to him by the Whole as misplaced in him or a crushing burden to endure; not lending his mind to share the poor passions of the flesh.
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