Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1Grote, George
Philosophy
Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1
Grote, George
Philosophy, Ancient; Plato; Socrates, 470 BC-399 BC
[Footnote 6: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Cicero, De Invent. i. 31;
Athenæus, v. 220. Some other citations will be found in Fischer's
collection of the few fragments of Æschines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788,
p. 68 seq.), though some of the allusions which he produces seem
rather to belong to the orator Æschines. The statements of Athenæus,
from the dialogue of Æschines called Telaugês, are the most curious.
The dialogue contained, among other things, [Greek: tê\n Prodi/kou
kai\ A)naxago/rous _tô=n sophistô=n_ diamô/kêsin], where we see
Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as
Prodikus. Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic
dialogues--[Greek: Peri\ A)retê=s, Peri\ Plou/tou, Peri\ Thana/tou]--as
the works of Æschines. But this is noway established.]
[Footnote 7: Athenæus, xiii. pp. 611-612. [Greek: Peisthei\s d' u(p'
au)tou= toiau=ta le/gontos, kai\ a(/ma oi)o/menos tou=ton Ai)schi/nên
Sôkra/tous gegone/nai mathêtê/n, kai\ peri\ dikaiosu/nês kai\ a)retê=s
pollou\s kai\ semnou\s le/gonta lo/gous, ou)k a)/n pote e)picheirê=sai
ou)de\ tolmê=sai a(/per oi( ponêro/tatoi kai\ a)dikô/tatoi a)/nthrôpoi
e)picheirou=si pra/ttein].
We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines--[Greek:
peri\ sukophanti/as] (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the
same oration differently described.]
[Side-note: Written Sokratic Dialogues--their general character.]
The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,[8] were
composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who
were not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different
authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the
rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied,
dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from
which general character Plato alone departed--and he too not in all of
his dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to
have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed
confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which
his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like
Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover
the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or
divining prophecy of their master.[9] Some dialogues circulating under
the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious,
and the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier
at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have
kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have
afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the
Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured
reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made
much money after his death by delivering them before select
audiences.[10] Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as
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