The dramatic nature of Plato’s dialogues is delightfully evident in the "Symposium." The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon’s...

Socrates is on trial for his life. He is charged with impiety and corrupting young people. He presents his own defense, explaining why he has devoted his life to challenging the...

After Socrates is sentenced to death by the Athenian court, his friend Crito comes to the prison to help him escape and go to another country. Socrates responds by saying that he...

Gorgias of Leontini, a famous teacher of rhetoric, has come to Athens to recruit students, promising to teach them how to become leaders in politics and business. A group has...

The "Republic" poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul?...

Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him...

The Menexenus has more the character of a rhetorical exercise than any other of the Platonic works. The writer seems to have wished to emulate Thucydides, and the far slighter...

The Philebus appears to be one of the later writings of Plato, in which the style has begun to alter, and the dramatic and poetical element has become subordinate to the...

Yesterday evening I returned from the army at Potidaea, and having been a good while away, I thought that I should like to go and look at my old haunts. So I went into the...

Some dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their relation to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. The Theaetetus, like the...