Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue

941 Pages·2017·3.25 MB·English

by  Alessandro Stavru, Christopher Moore

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue

Socrates and
the Socratic Dialogue

Edited by

Alessandro Stavru
Christopher Moore

leiden | boston

Cover Illustration: socrates – Herm of Socrates, 470–399 b.c.e. National Museum of Archaeology, Naples,
Italy. Album / Art Resource, ny.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017040048

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

isbn 978-90-04-32191-5 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-34122-7 (e-book)

Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,
Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Abbreviations
ix

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue: An Overview from the First-Generation
Socratics to Neoplatonism
1
Christopher Moore and Alessandro Stavru

part 1
Around Socrates

A Sage on the Stage: Socrates and Athenian Old Comedy
31
Jacques A. Bromberg

Aristophanes’ Iconic Socrates
64
Andrea Capra

Protagorean Socrates, Socratic Protagoras: A Narrative Strategy from
Aristophanes to Plato
84
Michele Corradi

Isocrates as a Reader of Socratic Dialogues
105
David J. Murphy

The Origins of the Socratic Dialogue: Plato, Xenophon, and the Others
125
James M. Redfield

part 2
The Immediate Socratic Circle

On the Dialectical Character of Antisthenes’ Speeches Ajax and
Odysseus
141
Vladislav Suvák

Socratism and Eleaticism in Euclides of Megara
161
Aldo Brancacci

vi
contents

Aristippus on Freedom, Autonomy, and the Pleasurable Life
179
Kristian Urstad

Shock, Erotics, Plagiarism, and Fraud: Aspects of Aeschines of Sphettus’
Philosophy
202
Claudia Mársico

Phaedo of Elis: The Biography, Zopyrus, and His Intellectual Profile
221
Danilo Di Lanzo

part 3
Plato

Plato and the Socratics
237
Luc Brisson

Philosopher Socrates? Philosophy at the Time of Socrates and the
Reformed Philosophia of Plato
268
Livio Rossetti

A Literary Challenge: How to Represent Socrates’Daimonion
299
Stefano Jedrkiewicz

The Logical Structure of Socrates’ Expert-Analogies
319
Petter Sandstad

Crying for Help: Socrates as Silenus in the Euthydemus
336
Michael Erler

Socrates and Natural Philosophy: The Testimony of Plato’s Phaedo
348
Jörn Müller

Bios Praktikos and Bios Theôrêtikos in Plato’s Gorgias
369
Ivan Jordović

The Socratic Dubia
386
Harold Tarrant

Notes on Lovers
412
Sandra Peterson

contents
vii

part 4
Xenophon

How to Defend the Defense of Socrates? From the Apology to Memorabilia
Book 1
435
Pierre Pontier

Nature, Culture and the Rule of the Good in Xenophon’s Socratic Theory of
Friendship: Memorabilia Book 2
459
Gabriel Danzig

From Generals to Gluttony: Memorabilia Book 3
481
David Johnson

Xenophon’s Socratic Education in Memorabilia Book 4
500
Christopher Moore

Fundamental Parallels between Socrates’ and Ischomachus’ Positions in
the Oeconomicus
521
Louis-André Dorion

Aphroditê and Philophrosunê: Xenophon’s Symposium between Athenian
and Spartan Paradigms
544
Maria Consiglia Alvino

Xenophon’s Hiero: Hiding Socrates to Reform Tyranny
564
Federico Zuolo

Xenophon’s Philosophical Approach to Writing: Socratic Elements in the
Non-Socratic Works
577
Noreen Humble

part 5
Later Reception

Aristotle on Socrates
601
Nicholas Smith

Aristoxenus on Socrates
623
Alessandro Stavru

viii
contents

Socratic Protreptic and Epicurus: Healing through Philosophy
665
Jan Erik Heßler

From Competitor to Hero: The Stoics on Socrates
682
Robert Bees

Cicero and the Socratic Dialogue: Between Frankness and Friendship (Off.
i, 132–137)
707
François Renaud

Socrates and Alcibiades as “Satiric Heroes”: The Socrates of Persius
727
Diego De Brasi

Plutarch’s Reception of Socrates
744
Geert Roskam

“A Man of Outstanding Perfection”: Apuleius’ Admiration for
Socrates
760
Friedemann Drews

Socrates in Maximus of Tyre
772
Michael B. Trapp

Socrates in the Ancient Biographical Tradition: From the Anonymous PHib.
182 to Diogenes Laertius
787
Tiziano Dorandi

An Embodiment of Intellectual Freedom? Socrates in Libanius
799
Heinz-Günther Nesselrath

Political Philosopher or Savior of Souls? Socrates in Themistius and Julian
the Emperor
816
Maria Carmen De Vita

Proclus on Socratic Ignorance, Knowledge, and Irony
836
Danielle A. Layne

Index of Passages
855
Index of Ancient Names
912
Index of Modern Names
921

Abbreviations

dk
Diels, H. and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed., Berlin 1966.
dl
Dorandi, T., Diogenes Laertius: Lives of eminent philosophers, Cambridge 2013.
lsj
Liddell, H.G. and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., rev. H. Stuart Jones,
1925–1940.
pcg Kassel, R. and C. Austin, Poetae comici graeci, i–viii, Berlin 1983–2001.
ssr
Giannantoni, G. Socratis et socraticorum reliquiae, i–iv, Napoli 1990.
svf
von Arnim, H., Stoicorum veterum Fragmenta, Leipzig, 1903–1905–1924.
tgf
Nauck, A. Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, suppl. B. Snell, Hildesheim 1964.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004341227_002

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue:
An Overview from the First-Generation Socratics to
Neoplatonism

Christopher Moore
Pennsylvania State University

Alessandro Stavru
Università Bocconi Milano

1
Scope and Organization of This Collection

The last decade has featured a spawning of studies on Socrates and the Socratic
literature that is unprecedented in both quantity and methodological variety.
Nearly a dozen edited collections have appeared (among them three Compan-
ions to Socrates),1 along with a great many editions, translations, monographs,
and scholarly articles.2 Basic issues of Socratic scholarship that in the second
half of the twentieth century had been bracketed or even rejected as unin-
teresting or fruitless—such as those of the “historical Socrates,” the “Socratic
question,” or the “Socratic schools”—have returned as urgent research direc-
tions in this recent upsurge in Socratic studies.
The hypotheses advanced to resolve these issues still need to be verified, and
some of them remain highly problematic. It is difficult, in the first place, to
establish the extent and the reliability of “Socratic literature” as such,3 and,
consequently, to determine whether and to what degree such literature can
yield a “Socratic personality” or a “Socratic philosophy.”
One major feature of the “Socratic question” concerns the reliability of the
extant sources’ apparent claims about the man named Socrates of Alopece.
Granted, these are all and without question literary portraits of Socrates, that
is, fictional representations of his personality and teaching. But it is also a fact

1 See Karasmanēs 2004; Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar 2006; Trapp 2007a and 2007b; Rossetti
and Stavru 2008 and 2010; Morrison 2011a; de Luise and Stavru 2013; Bussanich and Smith
2013; Zilioli 2015; Danzig, Johnson, and Morrison (forthcoming).
2 For detailed surveys on the major trends of recent scholarship on Socrates and the Socratics
see Stavru and Rossetti 2010; Stavru 2013; and Wolfsdorf (forthcoming).
3 Trapp 2007c; Dorion 2011; Wolfsdorf (forthcoming).

2
moore and stavru

thattheserepresentations(i)containanumberof realistic—whileperhapsnot
altogether historical—features that exceeds by far those we can find in other
fictional genres of antiquity,4 and (ii) exerted, both through their fictional and
their realistic features, a great influence on ancient philosophy and history.5
These considerations limit or even undermine whatever hopes one might have
to make univocal claims about the “fictionality” or the “historical reliability” of
Socratic literature.
Many attempts have been made to solve the Socratic question by identi-
fying and then studying those sources assumed to yield the “historical” or at
least a “reliable” or a “realistic” Socrates. Scholars have often restricted their
inquiry, accordingly, to specific texts, or to some range of texts, by a “quadriga”
of authors,namelyAristophanes,Plato,Xenophon,andAristotle.6Suchaselec-
tion led to important scholarly work, but it often failed to account for the lit-
erary and philosophical complexity to which these texts refer, and upon which
they largely depend.
In fact most scholars opted for a focus on Plato alone.7 This yielded a wide
range of studies that while meant to deal with “Socrates” actually investi-
gated problems particular to the Platonic corpus.8 But a similar treatment was
applied to the other major Socratic authors. Calls to re-examine their presen-
tations of Socrates led mostly to studies restricted to the works or the portions

4 What we argue here is not that Socratic literature should be considered historical, but that
its historical elements (references to events, persons, etc.) are a clear hint to the fact that this
literature claims to be realistic. It is a matter of fact that Socratic literature was considered
historical throughout antiquity. This makes Socratic literature radically different from other
fictional literature of Antiquity such as poetry or myth, where the claim to realism is much
weaker if not altogether absent.
5 See Morrison 2011b, xviii.
6 The “quadriga” approach is championed by Guthrie 1971, 7, but is still observable among
present-day studies. A useful account of the major interpretations of Socrates relying on
a selection between these four authors, or on combinations of them, is in Trapp 2007c,
xix.
7 Mostly in the wake of Gregory Vlastos’ distinction between a “Socratic” SocratesE and a
“Platonic” SocratesM.
8 This way of dealing with Plato’s Socrates can be observed in many of the essays contained
in the three recent Companions to Socrates (Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar 2006; Morrison
2011a; Bussanich and Smith 2013). Here, the common practice of labeling as “Socratic” what
is actually “Platonic” often goes hand in hand with the claim that the historical Socrates is
to be found in the Platonic dialogues and not in Socratic literature—i.e., within the broader
context in which Plato’s dialogues were written and to which they constantly refer.

socrates and the socratic dialogue
3

of texts these authors explicitly devoted to Socrates—and only in rare cases
to explorations of their literary and authorial context. For example, Socratic
scholars dealing with Aristophanes mostly limited their study to the Clouds
and some passages of Frogs and Birds; or those dealing with Xenophon to his
Socraticworks;orthoseworkingonAristotletothepassagesinwhichthename
“Socrates” occurs.9 Little attention has been paid to the presence of Socratic
themes in other works or passages of these authors, or to the conceptual and
intertextual links between the Socratic passages of these authors and other
testimonies of the Socratic literature.
This collection aims to set out on a new path. It presents a comprehensive
picture of Socrates and the Socratic dialogue in ancient Greek and Roman
literature, from the comedies of Eupolis and Aristophanes, written during
Socrates’ middle age, to the treatises of Proclus, more than eight hundred years
later. Each chapter addresses an author or group of authors whose work reveals
something significant either about the thinking associated with Socrates and
his nearest associates, especially the authors of “Socratic dialogues,” or the
power and texture of the Socratic icon as formed in these dialogues and passed
down, reinterpreted, and redeployed in the thought, biography, oratory, and
literature of the ensuing generations.
Special attention is paid to the Socratic literature of the first generation.
Almost two thirds of the contributions directly explore texts written by authors
who either knew Socrates directly (from the Comics to Xenophon) or may
have relied on oral reports about him (Aristotle and Aristoxenus). Even the last
third of contributions (from Epicurus to Proclus) contributes to reconstructing
and understanding the dialogues of the first-generation Socratics, as it deals
with the reception and interpretation both of well-known and of fragmentary
Socratic literature.
That Socrates has left neither writings10 nor formal institutions comparable
to the schools founded after his death (the Clouds’ “Thinkery” notwithstand-

9
For detailed surveys of these scholarly approaches see the literature cited in n. 2 above.
10
The issue of Socrates’ agraphia is far from clear. In Plato, Socrates disavows writing
(Phdr. 274b–275c), but composes a hymn to Apollo and verse retellings of Aesop’s fables
shortly before dying (Phd. 60d–61b). The Hellenistic scholar Dionysodorus denies that
he did (dl 2.42), but Diogenes Laertius himself, Ath. 14.628f, and Them. Or. 2.27b–c
seem to confirm it. According to a tradition going back to the second-generation Socratic
Menedemusof Eretria(c.345–260bce),Socrateswrotedialoguesthatafterhisdeathwere
passed on to Aeschines from Xanthippe (dl. 2.60, also noted by Ath. 13.611d–e, who draws
on the Epicurean philosopher Idomeneus of Lampsacus [c. 325–270 bce]).

4
moore and stavru

ing) shows the necessity of studying his thought through this second-hand,
interlocutionary,reflectiveSocratism.Inotherwords,thewaySocrateslivedhis
life—in public, in constant conversation, in pursuit of the promising youth of
his city, in a shared philosophy of mutual examination—means that to study
Socrates requires studying his effect and influence on those around him and
those, in turn, around them.
We may note a basic dichotomy among the first-generation literature on
Socrates. On the one hand we have the logoi Sôkratikoi, written by companions
and pupils of Socrates; on the other, works by Comics or Sophists, whose main
feature is their polemic against both Socrates and his circle. This collection
includes both. The extant and fragmentary texts by Socrates’ associates consti-
tute its main focus, as we will see, but not its only focus. Nor could it be, as the
ComicsandtheSophistsprovideanindispensablebackgroundforunderstand-
ing how Socrates and the dialogues reporting about him were perceived “from
outside.” Comic literature of the fifth century gives important information for
reconstructing the origins of the Socratic dialogue, especially the political and
philosophical motivations prompting the Socratics to represent their master
through a new literary form (chapters 1–3). Sophistic literature of the fifth and
fourth century provides a lively insight into the way Socrates’ teaching was per-
ceived before and after his death, as well as into the polemics between the
Socratics and attentive readers of the logoi Sôkratikoi, such as Polycrates and
Isocrates (chapters 3–4).
Most of the chapters (5–40), while “monographic” and concentrating on a
single author or corpus of texts, deal with a wide range of extant and fragmen-
tary Socratic dialogues. This applies to the section on the major companions
of Socrates (Antisthenes, Euclides, Aristippus, Aeschines, and Phaedo) as well
as to those on Plato, Xenophon, and later reception.Throughout these sections
we get a vivid picture not only of Socrates and his teaching but also of the intra-
Socratic polemics that characterize each of these authors’ work.
We can summarize and say that this collection tackles Socrates as he has
been depicted in the logoi Sôkratikoi; in the literature that deals polemically
with Socrates and these dialogues; and in the later reception that relies in
turn on these dialogues and polemics. But these swathes of literature could
prove too capacious taken without some principle of further selection. Our
main criterion of choice was that of intertextuality: we decided to include
only contributions about authors and texts that refer directly, and not merely
hypothetically, to topics treated in the Socratic dialogues, or, from the other
direction, about authors and texts to which the Socratic dialogues explicitly
refer. This meant excluding from the collection figures who may have in fact
played a pivotal role for Socrates’ education and teaching, such as Archelaus,

socrates and the socratic dialogue
5

Anaxagoras, or Euripides (cf. dl 2.18–19). Their importance for the Socratic
dialogue can be only indirectly inferred, textual evidence for their influence
on Socrates’ thought being very poor.11

2
The Chapters of This Collection

Across forty chapters, the collection brings into one place, for the first time,
and by an international range of scholars, the remarkable sweep of sources,
perspectives, and arguments worth considering by the present-day student of
Socrates and the dialogues that rose around him, and of their philosophical
legacy. We hold that understanding Socrates means, in an essential and pro-
nounced way, understanding his significance to those who watched and talked
to him, heard about him, and learned from him through the written testimony
of the Socratic dialogues. The collection focuses therefore on the Socratic dia-
logues, their context, and their reception in later centuries. We have arranged
the collection into two halves: the period and authors around Socrates, and
later reception. In the first half, we address Athenian comedy, members and
competitors of the Socratic circle, Plato, and Xenophon. In the second half,
chapters tackle the Peripatetics, Hellenistic schools, Roman Imperial writers,
Middle Platonists, Neoplatonists, and other authors important for understand-
ing the reception of Socratic dialogues.

a
Around Socrates
The collection begins with a section on texts dealing with the literary and
rhetorical context of Socrates’ lifetime.Three chaptersare devotedto Old Com-
edy and the peculiarly intense and ramifying force that Aristophanes—our
earliest comprehensive witness to Socrates—had in influencing what every-
onesincePlatohasthoughtaboutSocrates.EveryoneremembersthatinPlato’s
Apology (19c), Socrates blames Aristophanes, especially his Clouds, for foment-
ing prejudice and hatred against himself. But as Jacques Bromberg (“A Sage on
Stage: Socrates and Athenian Old Comedy”) reminds us, an entire sub-genre
of comic drama arose in the 430s–420s, lampooning Socrates and parodying
intellectuals of every variety. This broader vantage allows us to reassess Aristo-
phanes’ motivations in depicting Socrates as he did. On this reassessment, the

11
Difficulties in determining the extent of the influence of single Presocratics on Socrates
surface in the recent collection by Laks and Saetta-Cottone 2013, which features contribu-
tions on Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia.