[Tichy]

You're right about the aim of the Socratic manner of questioning as education, but the distinction Plato drew is intended to show that Socrates couldn't be held responsible for the things that Alcibiades did, whereas he could if he was considered Alcibiades teacher. When the Athenians claimed that Socrates 'corrupted the youth', they had that one very particular youth in mind.

This is also why Plato later keeps returning to the question of whether or not virtue can be taught (e.g. in the Meno), asking implicitly how it was possible that the virtuous Socrates could have had such a strong effect on Alcibiades, and Al turn out so badly. Also check out the last speech of the Symposium, when Al crashes the party and goes on and on about how Soc drives him crazy. It's really entertaining.

But I'm not so sure Socrates was completely out of favor, and he definitely didn't present himself as an atheist. ("I am obeying the oracle at Delphi", "I am attached to this city by the god as a gadfly to a noble but lazy bull.")

He had his very strong supporters, and it's pretty clear the Athenians didn't really want to kill him. The vote to convict him was razor-thin, and, if the Crito is accurate, up to the very day of his execution the regime would have happily looked the other way and let him skip town so as not to have to play the game to its ugly conclusion and become the people who *Executed Socrates*. Also, if he skipped town he'd look guilty, whereas by staying and submitting to the sentence he looks like the principled citizen he claims to be, and the regime looks corrupt, killing an innocent man. Even his death is argumentatively and rhetorically masterful.