pIn 399 B.C., Socrates was tried for religious and political crimes refusing to recognise the gods of Athens, introducing new deities, and corrupting the youth. The verdict was guilty as charged, the penalty - death by poisoning.p pDespite growing up in Greece's Golden Age of liberalism and democracy, Socrates was not a democrat. Influencing young men with his idea that people needed direction from wise men rather than self-government, was likely perceived as a threat to the cherished Athenian republic. Socrates likened himself to a gadfly stinging the lazy horse of Athens and did this with zeal, believing his God-assigned purpose was to expose false wisdom as ignorance. Awareness of one's ignorance was a key first step towards true wisdom or virtue, he declared, emphasising that although he, too, was ignorant, he knew it. Andem thatem, he argued, was the reason the oracle of Delphi proclaimed there was no man wiser than Socrates. Little wonder, then, that egos were pricked and enemies