Socrates, as introduced in the early print canon, first appears not as Plato’s mystical martyr, but as a model of practical wisdom in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus (Latin, c. 1470s).

This version focused on household management, civic virtue, and ethical discipline, and it predates the more famous Platonic Socrates, who enters via Ficino’s Latin version in 1484. Scholars typically interpret the name “Socrates” (from Greek sōzō, “to preserve,” and kratos, “power”) as ironic. Despite his name, he failed to save himself from execution or preserve Athens from moral collapse.

But this reading presupposes a Platonic-first chronology. If we instead follow the actual order of the printed canon, the name Socrates originally aligned literally with Xenophon’s portrayal: a preserver of power, a wise steward of ethical order. Only after the Platonic dialogues emerged in Latin (1484) does his character pivot into a martyr-philosopher whose death reconfigures the meaning of his name. In the Greco-Roman-Biblical expanded universe, Socrates’ evolution from household sage to tragic visionary marks a slow character elevation across formats and languages. His name, initially straightforward and transparent, adhering to the naming principles in the Cratylus dialogue, acquires layers of irony only as the canon deepens.