<P> Socrates' elenctic method was often imitated by the young men of Athens . </P> <P> Alcibiades, an Athenian general who had been the main proponent of the disastrous Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian Wars, where virtually the entire Athenian invading force of more than 50,000 soldiers and non-combatants (e.g., the rowers of the Triremes) was killed or captured and enslaved, was a student and close friend of Socrates, and his messmate during the siege of Potidaea (433--429 BC). Socrates remained Alcibiades' close friend, admirer, and mentor for about five or six years . While a masterful orator, Alcibiades has been described by at least two 20th century psychologists as exhibiting the classic features of psychopathy . During his career, Alcibiades famously defected to Sparta, Athens' enemy, after being summoned to trial, then to Persia after being caught in an affair with the wife of his benefactor (the King of Sparta), then back to Athens after successfully persuading the Athenians that Persia would come to their aid against Sparta (though Persia had no intention of doing so), finally driven out of Athens after the defeat of the Battle of Notium against Sparta, before being assassinated in Phrygia in 404 BC by his Spartan enemies . </P> <P> Another possible source of resentment were the political views that he and his associates were thought to have embraced . Critias, who appears in two of Plato's Socratic dialogues, was a leader of the Thirty Tyrants (the ruthless oligarchic regime that ruled Athens, as puppets of Sparta and backed by Spartan troops, for eight months in 404--403 BC until they were overthrown). Several of the Thirty had been students of Socrates, but there is also a record of their falling out . </P> <P> As with many of the issues surrounding Socrates' conviction, the nature of his affiliation with the Thirty Tyrants is far from straightforward . During the reign of the Thirty, many prominent Athenians who were opposed to the new government left Athens . Robin Waterfield asserts that "Socrates would have been welcome in oligarchic Thebes, where he had close associates among the Pythagoreans who flourished there, and which had already taken in other exiles ." Given the availability of a hospitable host outside of Athens, Socrates, at least in a limited way, chose to remain in Athens . Thus, Waterfield suggests, Socrates' contemporaries probably thought his remaining in Athens, even without participating in the Thirty's bloodthirsty schemes, demonstrated his sympathy for the Thirty's cause, not neutrality towards it . This is proved, Waterfield argues, by the fact that after the Thirty were no longer in power, anyone who had remained in Athens during their rule was encouraged to move to Eleusis, the new home of the expatriate Thirty . Socrates did oppose the will of the Thirty on a few specific occasions . Plato's Apology has the character of Socrates describe one such instance . He says that the Thirty ordered him, along with four other men, to fetch a man named Leon from Salamis so that the Thirty could execute him . Socrates simply did not answer this order, while the other four men did go to Salamis to get Leon . </P>

Who was sentenced to death for his teachings