Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1 — Plato — John Shaqi
Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1
Plato · en
Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 508 D.
Theopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had
composed an express treatise or discourse against Plato's dialogues,
in which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato's own,
but borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes,
Aristippus, and Bryson. Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth
century B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier),
spoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athenæ. xi. 509 C). This
is good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of "Sokratic
dialogues" belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and
Aristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato
borrowed _much_, from the three, is very doubtful.
Many dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely
to one or other of the _viri Sokratici_: Diogenes (ii. 64) reports the
judgment delivered by Panætius, which among them were genuine and
which not so. Panætius considered that the dialogues ascribed to
Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines, were genuine; that those
assigned to Phædon and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were
all spurious. He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus,
Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them
all. It is possible that Panætius may not have known the dialogues of
Bryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should
not accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the
contrary testimony of Theopompus. Moreover, though Panætius was a very
able man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we
learn that he declared the Platonic Phædon to be spurious.]
[Footnote 5: Diogen. Laert. i. 62-65; Athenæus, xi. p. 507 C.
Dion Chrysostom (Orat. lv. De Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289,
Reiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic
dialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to
conversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he
says about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.]
[Side-note: Æschines--oration of Lysias against him.]