The Portable Plato by Plato Read Free Book Online Page B

city of Athens, during the Peace of Nicias, a truce in the Peloponnesian War. The persons present have just been spectators at a celebration of a foreign festival. There is the atmosphere, though no explicit proposal, of the larger political responsibilities of Athens to the community of which it was a part, a foreshadowing to us with hindsight of the Alexandrian and Roman Empires, to the founding of which The Republic made great contributions. The Platonic Syracusan expeditions give occasion for such guesses.
    The plot might be imagined as the withdrawal from the Athenian Assembly, pictured in the first book, to the meeting of the philosopher-kings in Nocturnal Council, the city of the birds.
     
    The Persons of the Drama
    Cephalus. The name means “head.” A retired business-man, head of a business family. A man of experience and sound opinion.
    Polemarchus. The name means “war-lord” or “general.” Son of Cephalus, pupil of Lysias, the teacher of rhetoric.
    Thrasgmachus. The name means “rash fighter.” A sophist from Thrace.
    These three men speaking in character are caricatures of the three classes in the state which is constructed in the fourth book. Their types and others are fully characterized in the eighth book.
    Adeimantus. The name means “singer of oracles” or “sooth-singer.” An older half-brother of Plato, here a young man. His medium is poetry.
    Claucon. The name means “gleaming eyes” or “owl.” He is also a half-brother of Plato, a young man. The suggestion is that he is the owl of Athena, the bird that sees in the gathering twilight.
    Socrates. “Master of life.” In this great comedy Socrates takes all the roles of all the types of comic hero, including that of the playwright himself.

CHRONOLOGY

BIBLIOGRAPHY
    Translations into English:
    Benjamin Jowett. The Dialogues of Plato, with an introduction to each dialogue. 5 volumes. London: Oxford University Press, 1871
    The Dialogues of Plato. General introduction by Raphael Demos. 2 volumes. New York: Random House, 1937
    Various translators. Plato’s Dialogues in Greek and English. 11 volumes. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
    Francis M. Cornford. The Republic of Plato, with introduction and notes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1942
    I. A. Richards. The Republic of Plato. Condensed with the help of Basic English. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1942
    Commentaries and references:
    A. E. Taylor. Plato, the Man and his Work. New York: The Dial Press, 1926
    John Burnet. Greek Philosophy, Part I. Thales to Plato. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1914 Early Greek Philosophy. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920
    Paul Shorey. What Plato Said. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933
    Gilbert Murray. History of Ancient Greek Literature. New York: Appleton, 1927
    R. L. Nettleship. Lectures on the Republic of Plato. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936
    J. A. Stewart. The Myths of Plato. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1905 Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1909
    Robert S. Brumbaugh. Plato for the Modern Age. New York: Crowell Collier, 1962.
    Harold Cherniss, Riddle of the Early Academy. New York: Russell, 1945.
    Francis M. Cornford. Before and after Socrates. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1960.
    Raphael Demos. Philosophy of Plato. New York: Octagon, 1966.
    Jacob Klein. Commentary on Plato’s Meno. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1965.
    Karl R. Popper. Spell of Plato (Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I). Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1963.
    Leo Strauss. City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
    Eric Voegelin. Plato. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State U. P., 1957.
    John Wild. Plato’s Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law. Chicago: University of Chicago. 1953.

PROTAGORAS
     
    PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE
     
    SOCRATES, who is the narrator of the Dialogue to his Companion HIPPOCRATES ALCIBIADES CRITIAS PROTAGORAS, to HIPPIAS, PRODICUS, CALLIAS, a wealthy Athenian