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.

If Lucretius had come down to us with a text as uninjured as that of Virgil and a few other ancient writers, he could scarcely have been reckoned among the most difficult Latin poets. Certainly he would have been more easy to explain than Virgil for instance or Horace; for he tells what he has to tell simply and directly, and among his poetical merits is not included that of leaving his reader to guess which of many possible meanings was the one he intended to convey. Fortune however has not dealt so kindly with him. Not that the great mass of his poem is not in a sound and satisfactory state : in this respect he is better off than many others; but owing to the way in which it has been handed down, his text has suffered in some portions irreparable loss. It is now universally admitted that every existing copy of the poem has come from one original, which has itself long disappeared.

Of existing manuscripts a fuller account will presently be given: let it suffice for the moment to say that the two which Lachmann has mainly followed and which every future editor must follow, are now in the library of Ley den. One is a folio written in the ninth century, the other a quarto certainly not later than the tenth. Large fragments of one, if not of two others, of the same age as the quarto and very closely resembling it are also still preserved, partly in Copenhagen, partly in Vienna.