The Socrates Letters are a collection of 35 short philosophical letters attributed to the famous Athenian philosopher Socrates. The historical Socrates lived from about 470 to 399 BCE and wrote nothing himself. According to modern scholars, this collection is a later literary creation, written by unknown authors sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE. The letters are therefore considered pseudepigraphical, meaning they were falsely ascribed to a famous figure, which was a common practice in the ancient world.

The letters are written in the common Greek of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. They present Socrates offering moral advice on topics like friendship, poverty, and proper conduct to various contemporaries. Their creation fits within a period of revived interest in classical Greek culture, where authors used the persona of Socrates to explore popular philosophical ideas.

While the letters contain no authentic teachings of the historical Socrates, they hold significance as an artifact of his enduring legacy. They illustrate how later generations reinvented Socrates as a symbolic moral sage. The collection is valuable for understanding the literary and philosophical culture of the Roman Imperial era and the practice of using fictional letters to disseminate wisdom.