The Memorabilia was probably completed after 371 BC, as one passage (III.5) appears to assume the military situation after the Spartan defeat at the Battle of Leuctra in that year.
Xenophon devotes the rest of the Memorabilia to demonstrating how Socrates benefited his friends and a wide range of other Athenians.
Yet the Memorabilia also contains charming set-pieces (including Socrates' conversation with the glamorous courtesan (hetaera) Theodote in III.11, and his sharp exchanges with two of the Thirty Tyrants in I.2).
And Xenophon likely aimed to reach a wider range of readers, many of whom may have welcomed the more down-to-earth advice his Socrates gives.
Xenophon's account of how Heracles had to choose between Virtue and Vice, a story he attributes to Prodicus, became a popular motif in ancient Greek and Roman culture.