The two persons who converse with Sokrates are, Theodôrus, an elderly man, eminent as a geometrician, astronomer, &c., and teaching those sciences--and Theætêtus, a young man of great merit and still greater promise: acute, intelligent, and inquisitive--high-principled and courageous in the field, yet gentle and conciliatory to all: lastly, resembling Sokrates in physiognomy and in the flatness of his nose. The dialogue is supposed to have taken place during the last weeks of the life of Sokrates, when his legal appearance as defendant is required to answer the indictment of Melêtus, already entered in the official record.[1] The dialogue is here read aloud to Eukleides of Megara and his fellow-citizen Terpsion, by a slave of Eukleides: this last person had recorded it in writing from narrative previously made to him by Sokrates.[2] It is prefaced by a short discourse between Eukleides and Terpsion, intended to attract our sympathy and admiration towards the youthful Theætêtus. [Footnote 1: Plato, Theætêt. ad fin. p. 210.] [Footnote 2: Plato, Theætêt. i. pp. 142 E, 143 A. Plato hardly keeps up the fiction about the time of this dialogue with perfect consistency. When it took place, the indictment of Melêtus had already been recorded: Sokrates breaks off the conversation for the purpose of going to answer it: Eukleides hears the dialogue from the mouth of Sokrates afterwards. "Immediately on getting home to Megara" (says Eukleides) "I wrote down memoranda (of what I had heard): then afterwards I called it back to my mind at leisure, and as often as I visited Athens I questioned Sokrates about such portions as I did not remember, and made corrections on my return here, so that now nearly all the dialogue has been written out." Such a process would require longer time than is consistent with the short remainder of the life of Sokrates. Socher indeed tries to explain this by assuming a long interval between the indictment and the trial, but this is noway satisfactory. (Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 251.)