The
Memorabilia contains 39 chapters broken into four books; contains 7 chapters, contains 10 chapters, contains 14 chapters, and contains 8 chapters. The overall organization of the
Memorabilia is not always easy to make out: • Book I. After the direct defense of Socrates (I.1-I.2), the rest of consists of an account of Socrates' piety and self-control. • Books II and III are devoted largely to showing how Socrates benefited his family, friends, and various Athenians who came to him for advice. • Book IV turns to a more detailed account of how Socrates educated one particular student, Euthydemus. It includes an early example (possibly the earliest) of the Argument from Design (i.e. the
Teleological Argument) (IV.3, anticipated already in I.4). Chapter 4 gives a related account of
Natural Law. In the lengthy first two chapters of the work, Xenophon argues that Socrates was innocent of the formal charges against him: failure to recognize the gods of Athens, introduction of new gods, and corruption of the youth. In addition to arguing that Socrates was most pious, and, as the most self-controlled of men, the least likely to corrupt the youth, Xenophon deals with informal political accusations not directly addressed in the
Apology of Plato (or Xenophon's own
Apology). Xenophon defends Socrates against the charge that he led the youth of Athens to despise democracy as a regime, and defends Socrates' association with
Critias, the worst of the
Thirty Tyrants who briefly ruled Athens in 404–403, and
Alcibiades, the brilliant renegade democratic politician and general. It has often been argued that Xenophon is here responding not to charges in the air at time of the trial of Socrates in 399 BC, but to charges made some years later by the Athenian sophist
Polycrates in his
Accusation of Socrates. But Polycrates' work is lost, and our sources for reconstructing it are late and unreliable. The assumption that Xenophon was responding to Polycrates point by point may be driven as much by the traditionally low esteem for Xenophon's literary powers as to any historical influence from Polycrates. The role of Polycrates is one item in the debate over whether Xenophon's treatment of Socrates reflects the historical Socrates, or is a largely fictional contribution to the literary debate about Socrates. This debate is in turn an important element in our understanding the
trial of Socrates, and in particular to the debate over whether the religious terms of the official accusation against Socrates (impiety) were a cover for political animosity against him. Xenophon devotes the rest of the
Memorabilia to demonstrating how Socrates benefited his friends and a wide range of other Athenians. It thus consists of episodes, mainly rather short and none more than a few pages in length, in which Socrates engages with a variety of persons: named and unnamed companions, rival teachers, famous and less famous Athenians. A few of the interlocutors appear several times. Typically Xenophon introduces the reason why he is writing about a particular conversation, and he will also occasionally interject a remark into the narrative, or at its conclusion. ==Comparison to Plato's dialogues==