No other death in the ancient world was as well known as that of Socrates. By the early Roman imperial period, Socrates have become the pre-eminent martyr, the prototype of the philosopher unjustly accused, tried, and executed. His prominence is due, in part, to being the subject in some of the writings of his students, Plato and Xenophon, which became standards of the Greek educational curriculum. In the literature of the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods, Socrates' death became a widely imitated model of how to die nobly. Given the importance of Socrates as a cultural model at the time, it is unsurprising that the author of Acts effectively "Socratizes" the apostles.