moral systems could find no fault in him? most likely never"
(469-399 B.C.).

SOCRATES, APOLOGY OF, a work of Plato's, being a speech put into the
mouth of Socrates before the AREOPAGUS (q. v.) in his defence in
answer to the charge brought against him, and which Plato wrote after his
death.

SOCRATES, Church historian of the 4th century, born at Byzantium;
bred to the bar; his "Ecclesiastical History" embraces a period from 306
to 439, a work of no great merit.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH, two ancient cities which, for their wickedness
were, as the Bible relates, consumed with fire from heaven; they are
supposed to have stood near the S. border of the Dead Sea, though they
were not, as was at one time supposed, submerged in the waters of it.

SOFALA, a Portuguese maritime district of South-East Africa,
stretching from the Zambesi S. to Delagoa Bay, and forming the S. portion
of the colony of Mozambique. Sofala (1), chief port on a bay of the same
name, is a place of little importance.

SOFIA (50), capital since 1878 of Bulgaria; is a fortified town,
situated in the broad valley of the Isker, a tributary of the Danube, 75
m. NW. of Philippopolis; has recently largely undergone reconstruction,
and with hotels, banks, a government palace, &c., presents a fine modern
appearance; has a national university; is an important trade emporium,
and is on the Constantinople and Belgrade railway; manufactures cloth,
silks, leather, &c., and has long been famed for its hot mineral springs.

SOFRONIA, a Christian maiden of Jerusalem, who, to avert a general
massacre of the Christians by the Mohammedan king, accused herself of the
crime for which they were all to suffer, and whose story with the issue
is touchingly related in Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered."

SOISSONS (11), a fortified town of North France, dep. Aisne, on the
Aisne, 65 m. NE. of Paris; has a 12th-century cathedral and ruins of a
famous abbey; chief industries are brewing and the manufacture of various
textiles; was a place of much importance in early times, and figures in
the wars of Clovis and Pepin, frequently in the Hundred Years' War, and
in 1870 was captured by the Germans; is considered the key to Paris from
the Netherlands side.

SOKOTO (11,000), a native kingdom of West Central Africa, within
territories administered now by the British Government; lies between the
Soudan (N.) and the river Benue (S.), the main affluent of the Niger; the
dominant