² Mention of ‘Socratic Dialogues’ here assumes the distinctions in structure and content between early and middle Platonic Dialogues drawn by, for example, Vlastos, G., Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 45–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, without at this stage making any of Vlastos's assumptions about the rnship between the historical Socrates and the Socrates of the early Dialogues.

³ Kahn, C. H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogues: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 2ff.Google Scholar

⁴ It is not made clear by Plato exactly when Socrates is presumed to have joined the group; for discussion of this issue, see Emlyn-Jones, C., Plato's Laches: Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Bristol, 1996)Google Scholar, notes on La. 178a2, 180cl and summary, pp. 63–4. In Laches, Socrates’ relationship to the ostensible subject of the Dialogue is only gradually allowed to emerge; contrast, for example, Euthyphro, where the sociocultural ‘problem’ is taken up by Socrates and shaped for his purposes right from the beginning of the Dialogue.

⁵ For Plato's view elsewhere of the shortcomings of the education of Lysimachus and Melesias, see Meno 94a–e.

⁶ Lysimachus self-consciously makes a formal ‘proem’ (179al) and fills the space by continually reiterating ideas connected with epimeleia and therapeia (‘care’ and ‘nurture’) of his sons, awkwardly presented in an exaggerated imitation of formal rhetoric (see esp. 180a1–5). For stylistic analysis of the speech, see Emlyn-Jones (n. 4), pp. 52–7.

⁷ For the dramatic date of Laches, see Hoerber, R. G., ‘Plato's Laches’, CPh 63 (1968), 95–105.Google Scholar The fact that it is the partially revised version of Clouds which we have (see Dover, K. J., Aristophanes, , The Clouds [Oxford, 1968], pp. xxx–xcviii)Google Scholar does not substantially affect the point made here (on which see further below, p. 134).

⁸ La. 1181c4, compare R. I.328d4–5, where Socrates is urged by Cephalus, with striking similarity of phrase (μὴ … ἂλλως ποίει, ảλλà… σúνισθι is a literal verbal reminiscence of Laches), to visit him and his sons more often.

⁹ Vicaire, P., Lysis, Lachéset : Introduction, Greek Text and Commentary (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar, note on 187c, considerably overinterprets the phrase in arguing that ‘Lysimaque va accepter et recommender… la méthode socratique’

¹⁰ For discussion of the significance of the unreflective use of value terms for the philosophical investigation of arete in Laches, see Stokes, M. C., Plato's Socratic Conversations (London, 1986), pp. 41ff.Google Scholar

¹¹ For verbose overemphasis, to the point of parody, of epimeleia, therapeia (and coguates), and sumboule (and cognates) in Lysimachus' first speech see Emlyn-Jones (n.4), notes on 179a5 and e5, and for the extension of the ‘co-operative’ idea to the whole Dialogue, see note on 178b5.

¹² For different views on whether or not Plato is to be understood as implying the ‘unity of virtue’ thesis by the end of the Laches, see Irwin, T., Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues (Oxford, 1977), pp. 54ff.Google Scholar and 89, n. 62; Kraut, R., Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1984), pp. 258–62.Google Scholar At 197e10–98a9 Plato appears to be choosing Socrates' language quite carefully to avoid the latter's explicit endorsement of andreia as a part of arete (see Emlyn-Jones [n.4], note on 198a4).

¹³ NB Laches' point-by point refutation of Nicias at 182d6ff.

¹⁴ 182c5 (προσθήσομεν ς’ αàτώ οà σμικρàν προσθήκην) sounds like a possible parody of Gorgias DK82B11 (5); note also the verbosity and stylized syntax of 182cl–7.

¹⁵ Mentioned specifically by Nicias at 182a2–4. Whatever the historical reality, Nicias wishes here to emphasize the social exclusiveness of hoplomachia in order to boost his recommendation. For hoplomachia as an area of sophistic instruction, see Plato, Euthd. 271d; Xen. Mem.III.1.6–7.

¹⁶ For Plato's double entendre on epidexis, see Emlyn-Jones (n.4), note on 183d2–3.

¹⁷ For verbal one-upmanship in Laches, see Emlyn-Jones (n.4). note on 197a6.

¹⁸ Lane, I., Laches, : Introduction and Translation in Saunders, T. (ed.), Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (Harmondsworth, 1987), pp. 69–115 at p. 77.Google Scholar See also O'brien, M. J., ‘The unity of the Laches’, YCS 18 (1963), 133–47.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Nicias has already shown himself keen that others should appreciate the status the Damon relationship might give him: see La. 180c8–d3.

²⁰ See R. IV.429aff. The suggestion that in Laches Plato introduces knowledge of value as something distinct from technical knowledge is argued by G., Vlastos in M., Burnyeat (ed.), Socratic Studies (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 115–17Google Scholar; for a view of andreia as essentially technical knowledge, see Irwin, T., Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues (Oxford, 1977), p. 47, n. 11 (295)Google Scholar, and also recently, Irwin, T., Plato's Ethics (Oxford, 1995), pp. 18ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ NB the recent radical suggestions of Kahn (n. 3) concerning the recordering of the chronology of the Socratic Dialogues (and new discussion of the ethical doctrines in Plato which might be termed ‘Socratic’). Kahn ([n. 3], pp. 42ff.) nevertheless sees Laches as the first of his ‘threshold Dialogues’, i.e. the initiation of a programme of philosophical investigation culminating in the Republic.

²² Eupolis, fr. 352E; Ameipsias, Connus, fr. 9E; cf. Aristophanes, Birds (414 B.C.), 1280, 1553.

²³ See, for example, Brickhouse, T. C. and Smith, N. D., Socrates on Trial (Oxford, 1989), pp.71ff.Google Scholar

²⁴ The remains of the Socratics are collected in Giannantoni, G., Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, 2nd edn (Naples, 1991).Google Scholar For Plato's position as a ‘Socratic’, see Clay, D., ‘The origins of the Socratic dialogue’, in Waerdt, P. A. Vander (ed.), The Socratic Movement (Ithaca/London, 1994), pp. 23–47Google Scholar; Kahn (n. 3), pp. 1–35.

²⁵ The Platonic Dialogues of the early period are notoriously difficult to place in order of composition: see Brandwood, L., ‘Stylometry and chronology’, in R., Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 90–120 at p. 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the stylometric evidence, and the radical reordering by Kahn (n. 3), pp. 48–59.

²⁶ On this, contrast Vlastos (n. 2), pp. 45ff. and Stokes, M. C., ‘Socrates' mission’, in B., Gower and Stokes, M. C. (edd.), Socratic Questions (London, 1992), pp. 26–81 at pp. 77–79.Google Scholar

²⁷ Xen. Symp.1.1 Xenophon records his own presence at, for example, the occasion of The Symposium (I.1) which, at a dramatic date of 422 B.C., is clearly chronologically impossible, and reveals the claim as a literary convention strongly suggesting at least the semi-fictional nature of the conversation presented; see Kahn (n. 3), p. 32.

²⁸ On the late, i.e. post-Plato Symposium, date of Xenophon's Symposium, see Kahn (n. 3), pp.400–1.

²⁹ Thuc. 7.50. See, for example, Lane (n. 18), p. 112, n. 1 and Vlastos (n. 2), p. 160, n. 17.

³⁰ For a detailed attempt to extend the idea of ironic disjunction between literary and historical context to the whole Dialogue, suffering, unfortunately, from inaccuracy and overinterpretation, see Schmid, W. T., On Manly Courage: A Study of Plato's Laches (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1992).Google Scholar

³¹ Lane ([n. 18], p. 86) plays down the magnification of Socrates' role by mistranslating τήν πατρίδα όρθοûντα (181bl) as ‘proving a credit…to his country’.

³² Emlyn-Jones (n. 4), pp. 61–2.

³³ It may be significant that the professional soldier Xenophon fails to give Socrates' military distinction any prominence in contexts where it would be expected, e.g. Mem III.9.1, IV.6.10–11.

³⁴ At Ap. 23b, Socrates admits to having neglected both civic and private affairs for the service of the god, referring to his divinely inspired mission to spend his life questioning his fellow Athenians concerning the conduct of their lives.

³⁵ On the tension between the generations in the late fifth century, see Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1986), pp. 229–38Google Scholar, and Forrest, W. G., ‘An Athenian generation gap’, YCS, 24 (1975), 37–52.Google Scholar Respect for the views of their elders is not a quality attributed to the aristocratic youth of Athens in Plato's Apology, e.g. 23cff.

³⁶ On apragmones, Thuc. 2.40. See also Carter, L. B., The Quiet Athenian (Oxford, 1986), pp. 117ff.Google Scholar Pride in ancestry and ‘great deeds’ goes back to the Homeric aristocratic tradition: see Strauss, B. S., Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1993), pp. 72ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who is sceptical about the historical reality of Plato's picture of upper-class parental neglect, as far as the fifth century is concerned (pp. 87–9).

³⁷ In Meno 94c, Plato's Socrates represents Melesias as having been, together with his brother Stephanus, one of the best wrestlers in Athens. For the social connotations of wrestling and horsemanship in the fifth century, see Davies, J. K., Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens (New York, 1981; repr. of Oxford, 1965 edn), p. 176.Google Scholar

³⁸ It is notable that Socrates' essentially anti-democratic development of the ‘craft analogy’ is accepted without argument, as usual in the Socratic Dialogues; the absence of reservation or counter-argument is perhaps particularly noteworthy in Laches in view of the identity, and presumably at least nominal political allegiance of the public figures taking part.

³⁹ The historical Laches had, as a general, been active in attempts to make peace with Sparta in 423, b.c., see Thuc. 4.118.

⁴⁰ Thuc. 2. 39–40. On this comparison, see Sharples, R., ‘Knowledge and courage in Thucydides and Plato’, LCM 8.9 (1983), 139–40.Google Scholar

⁴¹ NB the contrast in Thucydides' portrait between Nicias the politician and Nicias the general, e.g., Thuc. 5.16.1, 6.24.1, and 7.42.ff., possibly, as seen above pp. 132–3, mirrored implicitly in Plato's treatment of Nicias' attitude to manteia.

⁴² ảδικεî δέ καί τοɉς νέονς διαΦθείρων: Diogenes Laertius II.40, quoting the second-century A.D. orator and philosopher Favorinus; a paraphrase of the indictment is quoted by Plato in Ap. 24b8ff.

⁴³ Contrast, for example, Grg. 463e2 and Prt. 328dff., where Polus and Protagoras respectively show considerable resistance to Socrates' attempts to alter the mode of procedure.

⁴⁴ See, in general, Eucken, C., Isokrates. Seine Positionen in der Auseinandersetzung mit den zeitgenossischen Philosophen (Berlin, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and, more recently, Nightingale, A. W., Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 13–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ For polarized argument as a standard mode of intellectual discourse in the sixth and fifth centuries b.c., see Lloyd, G. E. R., Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Greek Thought (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 86–171.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See, for example, Rutherford, R., The Art of Plato (London, 1995), pp. 8–10.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The Interlude in the Socratic Dialogue is typically the point at which the methodology of communal enquiry is discussed: contrast Euth. 11b6ff., where Socrates and Euthyphro reflect on the ‘mobility of λóγοι’ and Socrates ironically reproaches Euthyphro for ‘not teaching’ him; and Meno 80a, where Socrates is a ‘numbing wizard’ responsible for the dilemma in which the speakers find themselves.

⁴⁸ Socrates is well connected and respectable (Lysimachus, 180dff.), brave (Laches, e.g. 181a-b), and well-versed in intellectual matters (Nicias, 180c–d).

⁴⁹ See Rutherford (n. 46), p. 171. See also the end of Charmides (176c–d).

⁵⁰ This point can be made independently of an argument which places Laches in date of composition before Gorgias (see, for example, Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. IV: Plato, the Man and his Dialogues: Earlier Period [Cambridge, 1975], pp. 284–5)Google Scholar or after, (see Kahn [n.3], pp. 48ff.).