  Socrates, too, it can be argued, was sensitive to this more cosmopolitan identification with human beings as such. At least as Plato characterizes him, Socrates avoids traditional political engagement as much as he can, in favor of an extraordinary career of examining himself and others, and he insists that these examinations are both genuinely political (Gorg 521d6–8) and extended to all, Athenians and foreigners alike (Apol 23b4–6, 30a3–7; cf. Eu. 3d5–9). Of course, Socrates chose not to travel widely, but this decision could well have been consistent with cosmopolitan ideals, for he may have thought that his best bet for serving human beings generally lay in staying at home, on account, ironically, of Athens’ superior freedom of speech (Gorg 461e1–3; cf. Apol 37c5–e2 and Meno 80b4–7). Whether Socrates was self-consciously cosmopolitan in this way or not, there is no doubt that his ideas accelerated the development of cosmopolitanism and that he was in later antiquity embraced as a citizen of the world.