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Alcidamas of Elaea in Plato's Phaedrus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Slobodan Dušanić
Affiliation:
University of Belgrade

Extract

In Bk. 3 of the Institutio oratoria, Quintilian gives a list of the Greek artium scriptores of the classical epoch (1.8ff.). It contains a controversial entry: ‘…et, quem Palameden Plato appellat, Alcidamas Elaites’ (1.10). The historicity of the rhetorician and sophist from Elaea named Alcidamas, Gorgias' pupil, is of course beyond doubt; scholars disagree only as to the ‘quem Palameden Plato appellat’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1992

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References

1 Elaites A, Eleites B.

2 See on him Alcidamante: Orazioni e frammenti. Testo, introduzione, traduzione e note a cura di Avezzù, G. (Rome, 1982)Google Scholar, with an exhaustive bibliography (pp. xxxiii–xli). From the most recent scholarship note Eucken, Ch., Isokrates. Seine Positionen in der Auseinandersetzung mit den zeitgenössischen Philosophen (Berlin–New York, 1983), pp. 121–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Demetriades', N. D. edition of Alcidamas' ‘On those who compose written speeches, or on Sophists’ (Athens, 1987; non vidi).Google Scholar

3 T 15 (pp. 4 and 70) Avezzù (supra, n. 2). Cf. Förster, R., Rh. Mus. 30 (1875), 322f.Google Scholar; Adamietz, J., M. F. Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Liber III, mit einem Kommentar (Munich, 1966), 71Google Scholar (‘261a’ is a misprint for 261d), and the apparatus (ad loc.) and indices in the main editions of Quintilian (L. Radermacher, Teubner, 19071; H. E. Batler, LCL 19201; R. Faranda, Torino, 1968; M. Winterbottom, OCT 19701; J. Cousin, Budé 19761).

4 The translation by Hackforth, R. (Plato's Phaedrus [Cambridge, 1952])Google Scholar, which is quoted also infra, for 261b–c, 274c–d and 275a–d.

5 So far as we can see, nobody has thought of the Philosopher's oral joke or a verse by Plato Comicus. Those possibilities are to be ruled out, for several reasons. Note that Inst. or. (Bk. 3 as well as the other books) frequently cites the corpus Platonicum as ‘Plato’ tout court.

6 Significantly, the next paragraph of Inst. or. (3.1.11, on Antiphon, Polycrates, and ‘Theodorus Byzantius, ex iis et ipse quos Plato appellat logodaedalos’), which continues the topic of 1.10 (cf. Förster [n. 3]), refers to the Phaedrus (266e) too. I do not share the conviction of modern philologists that the plural form logodaedalos used there reveals ‘dass Quintilian von Cic. orat. 39 abhängt’ (Adamietz [n. 3]).

7 Apol. 41b; Resp. 7.522d; Leg. 3.677d; Ep. 2.311b.

8 The solution proposed by G. L. Spalding and some others, including Avezzù (n. 2), p. 70 (with refs.). Förster (n. 3), 333 justly remarked that the words ‘quem Palameden Plato appellat’ should not be taken ‘für ein späteres Einschiebsel’ as they correspond too well with the occurrences of Palamedes' symbol in both the Phaedrus and Alcidamas' production. Besides, that athetesis would spoil the rhythm of Quintilian's phrase.

9 Though Alcidamas may have been referred to, explicitly or implicitly, in certain non-extant Platonic apocryphs in various connections. Cf. Müller, C. W., Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica. Philologische Beiträge zur nachplatonischen Sokratik (Munich, 1975), pp. 148 n. 5, 185 n. 2, on the καιρ⋯ς theme.Google Scholar

10 At least three of them are cast in the mythological form too: 261c (Nestor = Gorgias; Odysseus = Thrasymachus/Theodorus), 269a (Adrastus-Pericles; infra, text and n. 57). Thamus (274dff.), though bearing the true name of the historical potentate (infra, n. 72) and the title of an (ancient) Egyptian king, is nevertheless a god at the same time. Cf. also below, n. 58, I and Symp. 215bff.

11 Fr. B 22.15 Radermacher = 1 Avezzù. Characteristically, even some of those students of the fourth-century theories of rhetoric who omit to cite, or discard, the testimony of Inst. or. 3.1.10 on Phaedr. 261d are of an opinion that the Phaedrus must contain allusions to Alcidamas (e.g. Steidle, W., Hermes 80 [1952], 285–96Google Scholar; Eucken [n. 2], pp. 130–2).

12 Fr. B 22.16 Radermacher = 2 Avezzù.

13 Cf. Meno 80c; Symp. 221c.

14 That point has been stressed as early as Förster (n. 8).

15 The Odysseus of Alcidamas attacks Palamedes whereas Gorgias, with his Apology of Palamedes, was on the opposite side. Those differences were immaterial in the case of sophists, willing to speak and/or write in utramque partem.

16 The list which follows offers some select (mostly recent) references, classified under four headings: (a) the commentators of Quintilian; (b) the commentators of the Phaedrus and the Platonic scholars; (c) the students of Alcidamas and rhetoric; and (d), the students and editors of the fragments of Zeno and Eleatic philosophy, (a) Adamietz (n. 3); Cousin (n. 3), 254. (b) De Vries, G. J., A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato (Amsterdam, 1969), pp. 204f.Google Scholar; Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy, iv (Cambridge, 1975), p. 407 with n. 2Google Scholar; C. J. Rowe; Plato: Phaedrus (Warminster, 1988 2), p. 196Google Scholar; Brisson, L., Platon, Phèdre (Paris, 1989), p. 222 n. 335Google Scholar. (c) Brzoska, J., RE i (1894), 1533Google Scholar s.v. Alkidamas; Auer, H., De Alcidamantis declamatione quae inscribitur Ὀδυσσεὺς κατ⋯ Παλαμ⋯δους προδοσἱας (Diss. Münster, 1913), p. 33 with n. 2Google Scholar; Eucken (n. 2), pp. 11 with n. 40, 61 with n. 56. Cf. Förster (n. 3), 331f; Avezzù (n. 2), p. 70. (d) D–K6 29 A 13; Untersteiner, M., Zenone. Testimonianze e frammenti (Florence, 1963), pp. 5660, no. 13Google Scholar; Guthrie, , op. cit. ii (Cambridge, 1965), p. 83Google Scholar; Vlastos, G., JHS 95 (1975), 150–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, J., The Presocratic Philosophers (London, 1982 2), pp. 236 and 618 n. 14Google Scholar; Kirk, G. S.Raven, J. E.Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983 2), p. 278 no. 329Google Scholar. Two scholars retained the identification of Plato's Palamedes with an Eleatic (Megarian) philosopher but proposed (without adequate reasons, see Untersteiner and Guthrie, locc. citt.; Cornford, F. M., Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London, 1935 1), p. 177 n. 1)Google Scholar candidates other than Zeno: Arnim, H. v., Platos Jugenddialoge und die Entstehungszeit des Phaidros (Leipzig–Berlin, 1914), pp. 193fGoogle Scholar. (Euclides or a pupil of Euclides) and Friedländer, P., Platon, iii 2 (Berlin, 1969), pp. 234fGoogle Scholar. (Parmenides). Still less convincingly, Joël, K., Geschichle der antiken Philosophic, i (Tübingen, 1921), p. 459 n. 1Google Scholar, thought of Gorgias. It should be noted that the majority of the scholars listed under (b) and (d) do not mention Quintilian's testimony, which tends to be forgotten by recent students of the Phaedrus.

17 Steph. Byz. s.v. Ὲλα⋯α· π⋯λις τ⋯ς Ἀσ⋯ας Αἰολικ⋯…ἒστι κα⋯ ⋯τ⋯ρα Ἰταλ⋯ας δι⋯ το⋯ ε ψιλο⋯ Ἐλ⋯α, ⋯ξ ἦς Ἐλε⋯τι. τ⋯ς δ⋯ προτ⋯ρας Ἐλαιῖται.

18 Parm. 127eff. (of Zeno himself); Soph. 242dff. Kirk–Raven–Schofleld (n. 16), pp. 263–79.

19 Herm. Alex. ad Phaedr. 261d (p. 225 Couvreur); schol. ad loc. (p. 85 Greene); Diog. Laert. 9.25 (with Diels' unavoidable emendation). Cf. Apul. Apol. 4.387.

20 F. Nietzsche proposed (in a letter of June, 1868) to emend the Ἐλεατικ⋯ν of Phaedr. 261d into an Ἐλαιτικ⋯ν (cf. Avezzù [n. 3], p. 70) and thus rehabilitate Inst. or. 3.1.10; a similar conjecture, producing an Ἐλαΐτην, has been mentioned and rejected by Thompson, W. H., The Phaedrus of Plato (London, 1868), p. 97.Google Scholar

21 Supra, n. 16. The editors of the Institutio oratoria whose apparatus (ad 3.1.10) cites Phaedr. 261d need not be supposed to believe that Quintilian is right there. Adamietz and Cousin are in fact explicit in denying that (n. 3).

22 Thus Guthrie, De Vries, Vlastos, Barnes et alii (n. 16).

23 Fr. 65 R.3 = Diog. Laert. 8.57 and 9.25 (R. D. Hick's translation, LCL); cf. Sext. Adv. math. 7.6.

24 Rhet. 1.1.11f. p. 1355 A (transl. J. H. Freese, LCL).

25 Epiphanius 3.11; Ps. Galen, Hist, philos. 3.

26 Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 5967.Google Scholar

27 Cf. 3.1.13 (fr. 139 R.3). Sehlmeyer, F., Beziehungen zwischen Quintilians ‘Institutions oratoriae’ und Ciceros rhetorischen Schriften (Diss. Münster, 1912), pp. 18fGoogle Scholar.; Adamietz (n. 3), pp. 9, 13, 71; Cousin (n. 3), pp. 116f.

28 Auer (n. 16), p. 33 with n. 2 (on Cic. Tusc. 1.116).

29 Avezzù (n. 3), p. 70. Cousin' index ([n. 3], t.VII p. 273) registers 8 quotations from the Phaedrus, 12 from the Gorgias.

30 Cf., e.g., on the Roman side, Cicero, Lucullus 129 (+118, on Xenophanes); Seneca, Ep. 88, 44. Quintilian cites, in addition to the Phaedrus, some further works (though not the relevant passages) which contain clear references to Zeno's basic ideas: see 3.8.9, for Isocrates' Helen, and 3.4.10, for Plato's Sophist.

31 Aliter, Avezzù (n. 3), p. 70.

32 For a different view, F. Nietzsche (n. 20). The fact that Plato uses the ctetic here instead of the ethnic (ancient authorities wishing to distinguish our Zeno from his homonyms call him of course ⋯ Ἐλε⋯της – for refs. see Vlastos [n. 16], 158 n. 107; it is an understandable imprecision that Hackforth translated 261d ‘Palamedes of Elea’) tends to be overlooked (for an exception, Avezzù [n. 3], p. 70). However, it makes the interpretation proposed infra (text and nn. 54–8) all the more natural.

33 See also below, n. 40.

34 Frr. 12–15 Avezzù.

35 Plato in the Parmenides and the best informed witnesses on Zeno in general speak of him as an author known for one treatise only, and its content was such that it could not have been equated with a rhetorical ‘Art’.

36 In the sequel, we shall write the term (and its translation) with an initial capital, whenever it is certain that it denotes the manual of rhetoric, not rhetoric itself or a ‘science’ in general.

37 De Vries (n. 16), p. 204 (ad loc.): Thrasymachus and Theodoras ‘are known as theoricians of rhetoric’; ‘properly speaking, Gorgias wrote no τ⋯χνη … yet, his masterpieces sometimes passed τ⋯χναι…’

38 Phaedr. 266c–e; 267a, c–d; 269d–e; 271a–c; 275c.

39 Thompson (n. 20), p. 96; Robin, L., Platon. Oeuvres complètes, t.IV 33: Phèdre (Paris, CUF, 1933 1), pp. 63f. n. 3.Google Scholar

40 For Plutarch, see the end of the present paper. It may be useful also to point out Παλαμ⋯δης Ἐλεατικ⋯ς, the somewhat shadowy author of three lexicographic works and a commentary of Pindar – none of them extant (Wendel, C., RE xviii [1942], 2512f.)Google Scholar. Though the historicity of his ‘ethnic’ is accepted by many modern scholars (in addition to Wendel's article see Radke, G., RE viii A [1958], 2402Google Scholar; Avezzù [n. 3], p. 70), Förster (n. 3), 339 must be right in assuming a pseudonym coined in reference to Phaedr. 261d. However, Förster is less convincing when he explains it as an allusion to the ‘Manier’ of Palamedes–Zeno ‘Worte, welche in Form oder Bedeutung nichts gemeinsames haben, als gleich erscheinen zu lassen’. Zeno may have been the lexicographer's exemplum in method, not in the topic itself, which was closer to the interest in language typical of Alcidamas and the sophists in general (cf. frr. 16ff. and pp. 92ff. Avezzù). The same holds true of that Palamedes' work on Pindar, which recalls Alcidamas' Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi (frr. 5–7 Avezzù). We should prefer the hypothesis that the inventor of the pseudonym really knew that Phaedr. 261d (+b) refers to Alcidamas in addition to Zeno.

41 By the mid-sixties of the fourth century (the probable date of the Phaedrus, cf. infra, n. 72), Gorgias, Theodorus and Thrasymachus must all have been dead. Alcidamas – the author of the Messeniacus – was still active in 366/5 (our n. 81).

42 The themes of ‘law courts’/‘law suits’ (261c, d) and ‘public harangues’ – both reminiscent of Palamedes ‘at Troy’ and fourth-century Athens alike – connect 261b–c with d–e. The Palamedes of 261d has his ‘audience’ (τοῖς ⋯κο⋯ουσι), which would not have been quite an appropriate expression for the readers of Zeno in the time of Socrates/Plato.

43 In his attempt to rehabilitate the whole of ‘the Eleatic Palamedes’, Vlastos (n. 16), 155 interprets Socrates' words at 261b as implying that ‘Palamedes’ was 'an orator of a different stripe from both Nestor–Gorgias and Odysseus–Thrasymachus’. But the names of Troy, Nestor–Gorgias, Odysseus–Thrasymachus/Theodorus, as cited in 261b–d, do not allow us to isolate Palamedes from his company. His being a victim of Odysseus does not affect that conclusion (cf. Plat. Ep. 2.311b).

44 Suda i.535 Adler = T 3 Avezzù (pp. 1 and 67).

45 Robin (n. 39) translates it ‘Art’ (with a capital letter); De Vries (n. 16) notes: ‘the word is entirely ambivalent’.

46 Thus Rowe (n. 16), p. 93.

47 ‘Avec un art’ Brisson (n. 16), p. 145. Hackforth's ‘art of speaking’ has the advantage of preserving both the meanings within the same expression.

48 On 261d6, οὖν, see De Vries (n. 16), p. 204; on d10, ἄρα, Vlastos (n. 16), 153 n. 68.

49 Esp. 126a–128e; to the essentially same effect (i.e. a considerate treatment of Zeno), Soph. 216a and Aristotle's fr. 65 R.3 (supra, text and n. 23).

50 Vlastos (n. 16), 131–61; cf. Barnes (n. 16), pp. 236, 294f.

51 Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 327a–e (ed. D. Mervyn Jones et N. G. Wilson, pp. 81f.), of Hippodamus the Milesian (Thurian). Here, the Samios means Pythagorean (cf. Stob. Flor. 4.1.93 Hense): Fabricius, E., RE viii (1913), 1734.Google Scholar

52 Aristoph. Nub. 830 with schol., in an allusion to Socrates' contacts with Diagoras ⋯ ῎Αθεος (T 6 A, B Winiarczyk).

53 Diog. Laert. 9.30, Simplic. Phys. 28.4 et alii, of Leucippus the Atomist. His real origo was probably Miletus; ‘Abdera’ and ‘Elea’ will have reflected his philosophical relations with Democritus and Zeno respectively, rather than his travels (Stenzel, J., RE xii [1925], 2266Google Scholar; Guthrie [n. 16], ii.384 with n. 1).

54 Guthrie, (n. 16), v (Cambridge, 1978), p. 137 with n. 2.Google Scholar

55 Cf. 152e, 160d, 180c–d. Guthrie, (n. 16), i (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 410, 450.Google Scholar

56 τοῖς περ⋯ τ⋯ν ῍Εϕεσον. Again, the name need not be taken – with e.g. Guthrie (n. 55), pp. 410f. n. 2 – in its strict geographical meaning; it is probable that the whole phrase includes Cratylus, an Athenian.

57 Dušanić, S., Aevum 66 (forthcoming).Google Scholar

58 The ‘Sicilian Muses’ probably means, besides Empedocles, Alcmaeon (cf. Isocr. 15.268. Patzer, A., WJA 10 [1984], 45Google Scholar, cited after Ann. Phil. 55.229 no. 3610), though a Crotoniate.

59 That Plato saw in such messages and/or methods the characteristic of Alcidamas' spiritual father(s) may be deduced from the cumulation of the three salient elements of p. 261: sophists (b–c), antilogic (c–e), the ‘like and unlike…one and many…at rest and in motion’ (d).

60 If it had been Plato's wish to trace the philosophical roots of a branch of rhetoric through an abstract analysis (that is, one less influenced by the politico-prosopographical factors of the mid-360s) of the history of ideas, he would have cited – several reasons favour that conjecture – Empedocles rather than Zeno.

61 The topicality of ‘the Palamedes’ was assumed, with good reason, by Von Arnim (n. 16), who, however, identified the hero with a Megarian.

62 Diog. Laert. 8.56 (= fr. 8 Avezzù), as contrasted by Ps. Plut. Strom. 5. Cf. Brzoska (n. 16), 1538; O'Brien, D., JHS 88 (1968), 94–6Google Scholar. On the contrary, Avezzù (n. 2), p. 70 denies the thesis that Alcidamas had ‘un qualche interesse specifico per la filosofia eleatica’.

63 Plat. Leg. 3.677d and Ep. 2.311b; schol. Plat. Phaedr. 261d (p. 85 Greene). Cf. Vlastos (n. 16), 154f; Guthrie, (n. 16), iv (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 76fGoogle Scholar; Avezzù (n. 2), p. 70.

64 Plat. Resp. 7.522d; Gorg. Palam. 30; Alcidamas, Odysseus 22 and 25 (fr. B 22.16 Radermacher = 2 Avezzù).

65 P.92d (transl. H. Tredennick); cf. Theaet. 162e. The evidence of fr. 9 Avezzù implies that Alcidamas' Physikos manipulated such proofs.

66 It is no simple coincidence that the Sophist and the Politicus, which pay such close attention to the method of diaeresis, have the visitor from Elea and the mathematicians (Theodoras and Theaetetus; Socrates the Younger was also a ‘geometer’) among their dramatis personae.

67 Cf. Guthrie (n. 64), p. 410 n. 1; Ferrari, G. R. F., Listening to the Cicadas. A Study of Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 280f. n. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 On the value of ‘god-sent madness’ in general, 243e–245c.

69 Pp. 252eff. (the Eros of wisdom), 277b–c (the method) and 279a–c (the psychology).

70 Lysias' Erotikos and Alcidamas' Encomium for Naïs the courtesan (T 1 Avezzù, cf. p. 67 and Eucken [n. 2], 121 n. 1) must have had much in common. Cf. Phaedr. 235e–236a (e7: ⋯γκωμι⋯ζειν); 240b3 (⋯τα⋯ραν), and Avezzù (n. 2), pp. 90f. (on T 4 and fr. 8: ‘Alcidamas the Cynic’).

71 The Phaedrus as a mirror of Athenian politics: Dušanić, S., RSA 10 (1981), 126Google Scholar, and Aevum 66 (forthcoming).

72 For that date, consonant with the stylometric evidence, see the articles referred to in the preceding note. At the moment of the final redaction of the Aevum article, I was still unaware of the support Alcidamas' Messeniacus – as interpreted here – may provide for dating the Phaedrus in the summer–autumn of 365. My crucial argument was that 274d cites Thamus in his capacity of an Egyptian king (cf. supra, n. 10); now, Thamus or (a better evidenced namevariant) Tachos acceded as the co–ruler of Nectanebos I only in 366/5.

73 Philochorus (FGrHist 328) fr. 223 Jac.

74 The compliments to Isocrates at 278eff. should not be taken as ironic, despite the contentions to the contrary by many modern students of the dialogue and of the relations between Isocrates and the Academy. For the sincerity and political inspiration of that chapter see RSA 10 (1981), 16ffGoogle Scholar. and Bearzot, C., Platone T e i ‘moderati’ ateniesi (Milan, 1981), pp. 8991Google Scholar (both studies contain a bibliography on the problem).

75 On Antisthenes' pamphlet Περ⋯ τ⋯ν δικογρ⋯ϕων· Δεσ⋯ας ἢ Ἰσογρ⋯ϕης see RSA 10 (1981), 1820.Google Scholar

76 For Isocrates, ‘philosophy’ means intellectual culture in general, leading to right political action, but in the Antidosis – and probably even earlier than that speech – he was ready to grant (Plato's) dialectic some value in the same field. Significantly, Isocr. 15.235 resembles the praise, in the Phaedrus (270a; cf. Alc. 1.118c), of Pericles' collaboration with Anaxagoras.

77 Note the symbolic choice of the Phaedrus' Lysias to stay at the house of Epicrates and Morychus (227b, with Hermias' commentary ad loc). Epicrates was obviously one of the two Athenians ‘who received Persian bribes from Timocrates (Hell. Oxy. 7.2 Bart.; Paus. 3.9.8)’ (Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.c. (Oxford, 1971), p. 181)Google Scholar. Timotheus and Isocrates opposed the current expansion of Persia: Demosth. 15.9 and Vit. X or. 837c. Sparta, Thamus-Tachos and the rebel satraps pursue the same policy: Isocr. 6.62f.; Xen. Ages. 2.27. Cf. also Isocrates' Ep. 9 (possibly apocryphal).

78 His speeches Πρ⋯ς Τμι⋯θεον (373 B.c.) and Πρ⋯ς Ἀρμ⋯διον (371 B.c.) attest to his supporting the anti-Timotheus group of Callistratus and Iphicrates (Aevum 66, forthcoming). On Phaedr. 227b see the preceding note.

79 Callistratus' embassies to Arcadia and Messenia, probably in 366/5, are on record (Sealey, R., Historia 5 (1956). 197).Google Scholar

80 Arist. Rhet. 1.13 (1373b18) with schol. (p. 74 Rabe) = fr. 3 Avezzù (pp. 36f.).

81 Avezzù (n. 2), pp. 82f. The Archidamus was published in 366 or the very beginning of 365; the Messeniacus must have followed it immediately (still within 366–365 according to Avezzù).

82 That is, clearly, the message of Bk. 3 of the Laws (Dušanić, S., History and Politics in Plato's Laws (Belgrade, 1990), pp. 367–70)Google Scholar. Cf. Symp. 209d.

83 Leg. 3.698b; Ep. 8.354d. For Plato's solution of the problem of slavery and freedom in its psychological form and universal relevance see Phaedr. 256b.

84 Eubulus in the Sphingokarion (fr. 106, line 4 Kassel–Austin). Cf. Dušanić, S., Chiron 10 (1980), 140f.Google Scholar

85 275b–c. See my paper referred to infra, n. 90.

86 Compare 275b (οἱ ν⋯οι) and c(⋯ληθη; τ⋯ς ⋯γ⋯ων κα⋯ ποδαπ⋯ς) with 244a–b (δι⋯ μαν⋯ας; τ⋯ν Ἐλλ⋯δα; ἠργ⋯σαντο [the aorist!]).

87 Led by Timotheus (Talanta 12/13 [1980/1], 7–29), it had a bearing on the oracular policy too. The so-called Demotic Chronicle shows that Thamus–Tachos had a special interest in anti-Mede prophecies. The same may be said, on the basis of Athenian inscriptions, of Chabrias and Cratinus (Timotheus brother?).

88 The Thebes–Messenia–Artaxerxes axis: Xen. Hell. 7.1.27 and 33–8, et al. Delphi–Epaminondas–Messenia: Sordi, M., ‘Propaganda politica e senso religioso nell' azione di Epaminonda’, Contributi dell' Ist. per la storia antica, ii (Milan, 1974), pp. 50–3Google Scholar; Parke, H. W.Wormel, D. E., The Delphic Oracle, i (Oxford, 1956), pp. 248–53Google Scholar (esp. 250f., on Paus. 4.26.4). Alcidamas' compliments to Epaminondas and Pelopidas: ft. 11 (from the Physikos) Avezzù (pp. 54f. and 91).

89 244a–e, 248e, et passim.

90 Dušanić, S., ‘Plato and Plutarch's Fictional Techniques: the Death of the Great Pan’, RhM (forthcoming).Google Scholar

91 Separated by K. Ziegler from no. 69: Περ⋯ Σωκρ⋯τους δαιμον⋯ου πρ⋯ς Ἀλκιδ⋯μαντα(the reading of the Venetus).

92 Though the ‘Lamprias’ is not always reliable, the evidence examined in the paper cited below, n. 94, makes us accept the no. 69a.

93 Nos. 69–71 (in F. H. Sandbach's edition and translation, LCL): (69) ‘On the Sign of Socrates’; (69a) ‘Against Alcidamas’; (70) ‘In Defence of Plato's Theages’; and (71) ‘That the Academic Philosophy allows for the Reality of Prophecy’ (on the political aspects of the discussion of Socrates' prophetic power in no. 70 [which is lost for us, like the treatises of nos. 69a and 71] see my note from Teiresias, Suppl. 3 (1990), pp. 65–70). The essays whose titles are cited under nos. 63–8 also deal with the philosophy of Plato and the Academy but their topics are the doctrinal history of the School (nos. 63–4) and the ontological themes centred on the Timaeus (nos. 65–8) respectively.

94 Dušanić, S., ‘Plato's Phaedrus, Plutarch's Against Alcidamas, and the Athenian Oracular Policy of the 360s B.c.’ (forthcoming).Google Scholar

95 Cf. Phaedr. 242b–c. On Socrates' divine sign in the Academic tradition, Rist, J. M., Phoenix 17 (1963), 1324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar