The simple fact is that Socrates was a real human being, who lived, taught, and died in Athens. He notably played a role in the trial of generals who were thought to have failed in their duties at the battle of Arginoussai in 406 BC. Xenophon, a student of Socrates, writes of this in his Hellenika, which picks up where Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War leaves off. In this account, Socrates was the only one in the assembly who objected to taking a single vote for the collective guilt of the generals. Plato references this event in the Apology. However, there are also indications in Plato's Seventh Letter, that the Socrates he presented in the dialogues was not exactly the historical man, that there were slight changes made. Likewise, Xenophon presents Socrates differently from how Plato does. Their intention, as far as I can tell and scholarship indicates, was not so much to present a exact representation of their shared teacher, so much as to present philosophy in a certain way.
