Persons of the Dialogue

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias. The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes : in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.

The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the Hipparchus and Minos:

Question put by Menon—Is virtue teachable? Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of Menon

Menon.—Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable—or acquirable by exercise—or whether it comes by nature—or in what other manner it comes?—Sokr. I cannot answer your question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about it attributes or accessories? A man who does not know Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary.—Certainly not. But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?

The Philêbus, which we are now about to examine, is not merely a Dialogue of Search, but a Dialogue of Exposition, accompanied with more or less of search made subservient to the exposition. It represents Sokrates from the first as advancing an affirmative opinion—maintaining it against Philebus and Protarchus—and closing with a result assumed to be positively established.

Character, Personages, and Subject of the Philêbus

The question is, Wherein consists The Good—The Supreme Good—Summum Bonum. Three persons stand before us: the youthful Philebus: Protarchus, somewhat older, yet still a young man: and Sokrates. Philebus declares that The Good consists in pleasure or enjoyment ; and Protarchus his friend advocates the same thesis, though in a less peremptory manner. On the contrary, Sokrates begins by proclaiming that it consists in wisdom or intelligence. He presently however recedes from this doctrine, so far as to admit that wisdom, alone and per se, is not sufficient to constitute the Supreme Good; and that a certain combination of pleasure along with it is required. Though the compound total thus formed is superior both to wisdom and to pleasure taken separately, yet comparing the two elements of which it is compounded, wisdom (Sokrates contends) is the most important of the two, and pleasure the least important. Neither wisdom nor pleasure can pretend to claim the first prize; but wisdom is fully entitled to the second, as being far more cognate than pleasure is, with the nature of Good.

The main substance of this dialogue consists of a discussion, carried on by Sokrates with Nikias and Lachês, respecting Courage. Each of the two latter proposes an explanation of Courage: Sokratês criticises both of them, and reduces each to a confessed contradiction.

Lachês. Subject and persons of the dialogue—whether it is useful that two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms. Nikias and Lachês differ in opinion

The discussion is invited, or at least dramatically introduced, by two elderly men—Lysimachus, son of Aristeides the Just,—and Melêsias, son of Thucydides the rival of Perikles. Lysimachus and Melêsias, confessing with shame that they are inferior to their fathers, because their education has been neglected, wish to guard against the same misfortune in the case of their own sons: respecting the education of whom, they ask the advice of Nikias and Lachês. The question turns especially upon the propriety of causing their sons to receive lessons from a master of arms just then in vogue. Nikias and Lachês, both of them not merely distinguished citizens but also commanders of Athenian armies, are assumed to be well qualified to give advice. Accordingly they deliver their opinions: Nikias approving such lessons as beneficial, in exalting the courage of a young man, and rendering him effective on the field of battle: while Lachês takes an opposite view, disparages the masters of arms as being no soldiers, and adds that they are despised by the Lacedæmonians, to whose authority on military matters general deference was paid in Greece. Sokratês,—commended greatly by Nikias for his acuteness and sagacity, by Lachês for his courage in the battle of Delium,—is invited to take part in the consultation.

Change in the political condition of Greece during the life of Plato

The life of Plato extends from 427-347 B.C. He was born in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian war, and he died at the age of 80, about the time when Olynthus was taken by the Macedonian Philip. The last years of his life thus witnessed a melancholy breach in the integrity of the Hellenic world, and even exhibited data from which a far-sighted Hellenic politician might have anticipated something like the coming subjugation, realised afterwards by the victory of Philip at Chseroneia. But during the first half of Plato's life, no such anticipations seemed even within the limits of possibility. The forces of Hellas, though discordant among themselves, were superabundant as defensive efficacy, and were disposed rather to aggression against foreign enemies, especially against a country then little formidable as Macedonia. It was under this contemplation of Hellas self-acting and self-sufficing—an aggregate of cities, each a political unit, yet held together by strong ties of race, language, religion, and common feelings of various kinds—that the mind of Plato was both formed and matured.

In appreciating, as far as our scanty evidence allows, the circumstances which determined his intellectual and speculative character, I shall be compelled to touch briefly upon the various philosophical theories which were propounded anterior to Sokrates-as well as to repeat some matters already brought to view in the sixteenth, sixty-seventh, and sixty-eighth chapters of my History of Greece.

These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. Phædrus is the originator of both

I put together these two dialogues, as distinguished by a marked peculiarity. They are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. They have one great and interesting subject common to both: though in the Phædrus, this subject is blended with, and made contributory to, another. They agree also in the circumstance, that Phsædrus is, in both, the person who originates the conversation. But they differ materially in the manner of handling, in the comparisons and illustrations, and in the apparent purpose.

Eros as conceived by Plato. Different sentiment prevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times. Position of women in Greece

The subject common to both is, Love or Eros in its largest sense, and with its manifold varieties. Under the totally different vein of sentiment which prevails in modern times, and which recognises passionate love prevailing only between persons of different sex—it is difficult for us to enter into Plato's eloquent exposition of the feeling as he conceives it. In the Hellenic point of view, upon which Plato builds, the attachment of man to woman was regarded as a natural impulse, and as a domestic, social, sentiment; yet as belonging to a common-place rather than to an exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of enthusiasm which overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole man, and aims either at the joint performance of great exploits or the joint prosecution of intellectual improvement by continued colloquy.

The dialogue called Euthyphron, over and above its contribution to the ethical enquiries of Plato, has a certain bearing on the character and exculpation of Sokrates. It will therefore come conveniently in immediate sequel to the Apology and the Kriton.

Situation supposed in the dialogue—interlocutors

The indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates is assumed to have been formally entered in the office of the King Archon. bokrates has come to plead to it. In the portico before that office, he meets Euthyphron: a man of ultra-pious pretensions, possessing special religious knowledge (either from revelation directly to himself, or from having been initiated in the various mysteries consecrated throughout Greece), delivering authoritative opinions on doubtful theological points, and prophesying future events.

What brings you here, Sokrates (asks Euthyphron), away from your usual haunts? Is it possible that any one can have preferred an indictment against you?

Indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates—Antipathy of the Athenians towards those who spread heretical opinions

Yes (replies Sokrates), a young man named Melêtus. He takes commendable interest in the traininer of vouth, and lias indicted me as a corruptor of vouth. He says that I corrupt them by teaching belief in new gods, and unbelief in the true and ancient gods. Euthyph.—I understand: it is because you talk about the Daemon or Genius often communicating with you, that Melêtus calls you an innovator in religion. He knows that such calumnies find ready admission with most minds. So also, people laugh at me, when I talk about religion, and when I predict future events in the assembly. It must be from jealousy; because all that I have predicted has come true.

As we know little about Plato except from his works, the first question to be decided is, Which are his real works? Where are we to find a trustworthy Platonic Canon?

Platonic Canon—Ancient and modern discussions

Down to the close of the last century this question was not much raised or discussed. The catalogue recognised by the rhetor Thrasyllus (contemporary with the Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as including none but genuine works of Plato; and was followed as such by editors and critics, who were indeed not very numerous. But the discussions carried on during the present century have taken a different turn. While editors, critics, and translators have been greatly multiplied, some of the most distinguished among them, Schleiermacher at the head, have either professedly set aside, or in practice disregarded, the Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no authority and very faint presumption. They have reasoned upon each dialogue as if its title to be considered genuine were now to be proved for the first time; either by external testimony (mentioned in Aristotle or others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and thoughts: as if, in other words, the onus probandi lay upon any one who believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine—not upon an opponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more among them, and rejects it as spurious. Before I proceed to examine the conclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which these critics have proclaimed, I shall enquire how far the method which they have pursued is warrantable.

As in Lachês, we have pursued an enquiry into the nature of Courage—so in Charmidês, we find an examination of Temperance, Sobriety, Moderation. Both dialogues conclude without providing any tenable explanation. In both there is an abundant introduction—in Charmidês, there is even the bustle of a crowded palaestra, with much dramatic incident—preluding to the substantive discussion. I omit the notice of this dramatic incident, though it is highly interesting to read.

Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded paleestra. Emotions of Sokrates

The two persons with whom Sokrates here carries on the discussion, are Charmides and Kritias; both of whom, as historical persons, were active movers in the oligarchical government of the Thirty, with its numerous enormities. In this dialogue, (Charmides appears as a youth just rising into manhood, strikingly beautiful both in face and stature: Kritias his cousin is an accomplished literary man of mature age. The powerful emotion which Sokrates describes himself as experiencing, from the sight and close neighbourhood of the beautiful Charmides, is remarkable, as a manifestation of Hellenic sentiment. The same exaltation of the feelings and imagination, which is now produced only by beautiful women, was then excited chiefly by fine youths. Charmides is described by Kritias as exhibiting dispositions at once philosophical and poetical: illustrating the affinity of these two intellectual veins, as Plato conceived them. He is also described as eminently temperate and modest: from whence the questions of Sokrates take their departure.

Alkibiades I.—On the Nature of Man.

Situation supposed in the dialogue. Persons—Sokrates and Alkibiades

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Alkibiades. It introduces Alkibiades as about twenty years of age, having just passed through the period of youth, and about to enter on the privileges and duties of a citizen. The real dispositions and circumstances of the historical Alkibiades (magnificent personal beauty, stature, and strength, high family and connections,—great wealth already possessed, since his father had died when he was a child,—a full measure of education and accomplishments—together with exorbitant ambition and insolence, derived from such accumulated advantages) are brought to view in the opening address of Sokrates. Alkibiades, during the years of youth which he had just passed, had been surrounded by admirers who tried to render themselves acceptable to him, but whom he repelled with indifference, and even with scorn. Sokrates had been among them, constantly present and near to Alkibiades, but without ever addressing a word to him. The youthful beauty being now exchanged for manhood, all these admirers had retired, and Sokrates alone remains. His attachment is to Alkibiades himself:—to promise of mind rather than to attractions of person. Sokrates has been always hitherto restrained, by his divine sign or Dsemon, from speaking to Alkibiades. But this prohibition has now been removed; and he accosts him for the first time, in the full belief that he shall be able to give improving counsel, essential to the success of that political career upon which the youth is about to enter.

Jerome in his additions to the Eusebian chronicle has these words Titus Lucretius poeta nascitur qui postea amatorio poculo in furorem versus, cum aliquot libros per intervalla insaniae conscribsisset, quos postea Cicero emendavit, propria se manu interfecit anno aetatis XLIV. Donatus in his life of Virgil writes thus according to Reifferscheid Suetonii reliq. p. 55, initia aetatis Cremonae egit [Vergilius] usque ad virilem togam, quam xv anno natali suo accepit isdem illis consulibus iterum duobus quibus erat natus, evenitque ut eo ipso die Lucretius poeta decederet. If this be true, Lucretius died about the ides of October U. C. 699 in the second consulship of Pompey and Crassus. His birth then would fall to the year 655. But the passage of Jerome is assigned to ol. 171 2 by Scaliger and most of the older authorities as well as by Mommsen Abh. d. saechs. Ges. II p. 677 and Reifferscheid 1. 1. p. 38. Mai alone in his edition of the chronicle, script, vet. coll. VIII p. 365, gives it to the year 655: on what authority? mere conjecture, I fear, in order to adapt it to the account of Donatus, though in his preface he says that this part of the chronicle has been entirely changed by the help of many Vatican mss.