Menexenus

And lastly, we may remark that one or two great writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly devoid of aristotelian one credentials may be fairly attributed to plato on the ground of two length three excellence and four accordance with the general spirit of his writings indeed the greater part of the evidence for the genuineness of ancient greek authors may be summed up under two heads only one excellence and two uniformity of tradition a kind of evidence which though in many cases sufficient is of inferior value proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusion that nineteen twentieths of all the writings which have ever been ascribed to plato are undoubtedly genuine there is another portion of them including the epistles the eponymous the dialogues rejected by the ancients themselves namely the axiochus de justo de virtut demodocus sisyphus eryxias which on grounds both of internal and external evidence we are able with equal certainty to reject but there still remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they are genuine or spurious they may have been written in youth or possibly like the works of some painters may be partly or wholly the compositions of pupils or they may have been the writings of some contemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of plato or of some platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master not that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject them some difference of style or inferiority of execution or inconsistency of thought can hardly be considered decisive of their spurious character for who always does justice to himself or who writes with equal care at all times certainly not plato who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power in the formation of sentences and in the use of words if his earlier writings are compared with his later ones say the protagoras or phaedrus with the laws or who can be expected to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of political and literary transition, certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which separates his later writings from Aristotle.

The dialogues which have been translated in the first appendix, and which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the First Alcibiades.

Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration are cited by Aristotle, the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in the Rhetoric.

Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues.

The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be adduced on either side of the argument.

On the whole, more may be said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.

The Menexenus, or funeral oration, is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised the Athenians among the Athenians, falsifying persons and dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history.

It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was perhaps intended to rival that great work.

And Ascenes says that Lysiscles, the sheep-dealer, a man of low birth and nature, came to be the first man at Athens, by having with Aspasia after the death of Pericles.

And in the Menexenus of Plato, even though the first part of it be written in a sportive vein, there is, at any rate, this much of fact, that the woman had the reputation of associating with many Athenians as a teacher of rhetoric.

However, the affection which Pericles had for Aspasia seems to have been rather of an amatory sort.

For his own wife was near of kin to him, and she had been wedded first to Hipponicus, to whom she bore Callius, surnamed the Rich.

Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which separates his later writings from Aristotle.

The dialogues which have been translated in the first appendix, and which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the First Alcibiades.

Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration are cited by Aristotle, the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in the Rhetoric.

Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues.

The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be adduced on either side of the argument.

On the whole, more may be said in favor of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.

The Menexenus, or funeral oration, is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised the Athenians among the Athenians, falsifying persons and dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history.

It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was perhaps intended to rival that great work.