¹ Among those who agree that this is the dialogue's dramatic date are: Zeller, E., Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, phil.-hist. Kl. (1873), pp. 79 ff.Google Scholar; Taylor, A. E., Plato (London, 1936), p. 236Google Scholar; Morrison, J. S., CQ 35 (1941), 2 andCrossRefGoogle ScholarCQ n.s. 8 (1958), 203Google Scholar; Davison, J. A., CQ n.s. 3 (1953), 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar and TAPA 80 (1949), 73Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., TAPA 100 (1969), 133Google Scholar; Taylor, C. C. W., Plato: Protagoras Translated with Notes (Oxford, 1976), p. 64Google Scholar; and Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy 4 (Cambridge, 1975), p. 214Google Scholar. Prosopographical references are to Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families: 600–300 B.C. (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar where possible (hereafter, APF). Otherwise references are to Kirchner, J., Prosopographia Attica, i–ii (Berlin, 1901–1903)Google Scholar, hereafter PA. Other references to studies cited in this note are to the author and, where the same man has two, also by date.

² The fullest explanation of this anachronism is given by Zeller, p. 86.

³ In the Symposium, which was certainly intended to recount the details of a single meeting, Plato was concerned to be very specific about its dramatic date, namely the occasion of Agathon's first dramatic victory. On the other hand, the dramatic date of the Gorgias, like that of the Protagoras, is not made explicit and so it is thought to be flawed with anachronisms; cf. Zeller, p. 82. It may be that an analysis similar to the one used in this study could be applied to the Gorgias.

⁴ The primary reason for supposing that the dialogue's dramatic date should be set in the late 430s is the presence of Pericles' sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, who died c. 430/29, both victims of the plague. It has been emphasized by Davison (1953), p. 53, that there can be no doubt that Protagoras' account of Pericles' reaction to his sons' deaths is that of an eyewitness; cf. [Plut.] Mor. 118e. It is also pointed out that in the introduction of the dialogue Alcibiades is represented as being lately filled out with a beard. He was born c. 450 and can reasonably be expected to have begun growing it in the late 430s.

⁵ Protagoras is supposed to have been in Athens in the 440s to compose the constitution of Thurii. Our source, Heraclides Ponticus (ap. Diog. Laertius 9. 50), tells us only that he composed it and not that he composed it in Athens. West, M. L., JHS 100 (1980), 147Google Scholar, argues that the Prometheus trilogy may have been produced c. 440. As support he notes that some of the philosophical ideas in the trilogy may have their roots in Protagorean thought. He goes on to remark, ‘If we trust the indications in Plato's dialogue, Protagoras visited Athens for the first time in the 440s (or the late 450s) and for the second time c. 433.’ Protagorean thought may be detectable in the plays, but I do not think that its presence can be supported by the undocumented possibility that Protagoras was in Athens in the 440s.

⁶ Athenaeus also points out that Protagoras is not likely to have been in Athens before this since he is absent from the chorus of thinkers in Amipsias' Connus (423). In this light, it is likely that Protagoras arrived in Athens between the production of the Connus (423) and the Flatterers (421), by which time we know that he was in Athens. It may be that Protagoras took advantage of the armistice of 423 to travel to Athens. However this may be, it is significant that Athenaeus thought that the dialogue's dramatic date was in the 420s, and for him the anachronistic element was the presence of Pericles' sons.

⁷ cf. Davies, , APF, p. 263Google Scholar.

⁸ At 315d Plato tells us that Callias, as a result of the large number of visiting sophists, cleared out a room for use as a guest room which had previously been used as a storeroom. Commentators have understood Plato to mean only that Callias emptied a storeroom in order to billet the sophists. Yet one may wonder whether he made this remark only to emphasize Callias' graciousness as a host. Plato's word for storeroom (тαμιεῖον) also means something like ‘treasury', and it may be that he meant this observation be taken in two ways. It is well known that Callias lost most of the vast fortune which he inherited. At Apology 20 a Plato notes that Callias spent a great deal of money on sophists (Zeller, p. 85, calls it Sophistenwirtschaft). In a different yet very real sense, Callias can be said to have emptied the тαμιεῖον to accommodate the sophists. For a review of Callias’ expenditures, cf. Davies, , APF, p. 61Google Scholar.

⁹ Andocides (4. 13) reports that Hipponicus died at the siege of Delion in 424. Davies, , APF, p. 262Google Scholar, doubts the correctness of this claim. He suggests that it ‘almost certainly embodies a confusion with the death of Hippocrates’. This has, of course, to be argued. However this may be, we know from Eupolis', Flatterers (Athenaeus5Google Scholar. 218d) that Callias' inheritance was, in 421, a recent event.

¹⁰ Morrison (1941), p. 3, builds his case upon the report in Plutarch, Per. 24, that the unnamed woman who was married to both Hipponicus and Pericles was married first to Hipponicus. Davies, , APF, p. 457Google Scholar, suggests that the woman was married first to Pericles, but I am not convinced that Plutarch's order of the marriages should be rejected. Morrison objects further that the references in the dialogue suggesting that Callias was the master of the house are no proof that he was. He does not seem to have taken Zeller's study into consideration. Zeller, p. 84, has shown that Callias' rearrangement of the storeroom (315d) and another reference (311a) to the house as his point to the conclusion that he was, at the time of the meeting, master of the house.

¹¹ For a collection and evaluation of the fragments from Aeschines, cf. Dittmar, H., Aischines von Sphettos (Berlin, 1912), pp. 86 and 284Google Scholar. The poor relationship between these two was the subject of frequent comment in antiquity; cf. Dittmar, p. 193.

¹² cf. n. 8 for the evidence on Callias' expenditures. Hipponicus was dead by the time Callias hosted the sophists, but there was one member of the household who was able to express displeasure at his new master's use of the house. The doorman, on hearing Socrates and Hippocrates conversing (315d), assumes that they are part of the host of visiting sophists. He answers the door and shuts it in their faces. The picture which Plato presents is one of a family retainer unused to and disturbed by the recent swell of visitors; cf. Zeller, p. 84. In this connection, it is worth noting that Callias' inheritance was so notorious that Eupolis chose Callias' house as the scene for his Flatterers of 421.

¹³ The year 447 is often given as the year Agathon was born; cf. Kirchner, PA, s.v. This conclusion is based on the note in Aelian, (VH 13. 4)Google Scholar that when Agathon was at the court of Archelaus in 407 he was 40 years of age. Aelian's comment, however, should not be pressed to mean that Agathon was exactly 40 in 407. Such a chronological indication means no more than that, in the year under consideration, a man was mature and at his acme. Aelian's account can best be reconciled with the evidence from the Symposium (175e), which shows Agathon to be a νέος in 416, by holding that in 407 he was closer to 35 than to 40.

¹⁴ Davies, , APF, p. 18Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Guthrie, p. 215.

¹⁶ Zeller, p. 85 and a similar comment on p. 98.

¹⁷ We know, for example that Alcibiades took part in the hostilities before Potidaea in 432; cf. Symposium 220d.

¹⁸ cf. Xen, . Hell. 2. 4. 19Google Scholar.

¹⁹ For Eryximachus, cf. Andoc. 35 and Davies, , APF, p. 462Google Scholar; for Phaedrus, , Davies, , APF, p. 201Google Scholar.

²⁰ cf. Xen, . Hell. 2. 1. 32Google Scholar.

²¹ cf. Aelian, , VH 13. 4Google Scholar.

²² There is too little evidence on the fates of the others to say anything with certainty, but one suspects that they did not end their lives any more gloriously than those for whom there is evidence.

²³ The reason for Alcibiades' failure to learn from Socrates has been discussed most recently by Gagarin, M., Phoenix 31 (1977), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ Gagarin, M., TAPA 100 (1969), 163Google Scholar, in a detailed study of the dialogue's dialectic, sees it concluding somewhat differently. He argues that Socrates and Protagoras arrive at ‘remarkably similar conclusions’. I find Socrates' summation of their positions (361 a) indicative of disagreement and aporetic conclusion. This, to my mind, is made specific at 361 c, where Socrates tells Protagoras that their positions are turned upside down or reversed (ἂνω κάтω тαραттόμενα) and that, before they continue to examine the question, they must backtrack and consider first the nature of arete. In other words, rather than having reached any agreement or even having made any progress, they have actually lost ground.