Menexenus | Page 7

of such
orations. To praise the Athenians among the Athenians was easy,--to
praise them among the Lacedaemonians would have been a much more
difficult task. Socrates himself has turned rhetorician, having learned of
a woman, Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles; and any one whose teachers
had been far inferior to his own--say, one who had learned from
Antiphon the Rhamnusian--would be quite equal to the task of praising
men to themselves. When we remember that Antiphon is described by
Thucydides as the best pleader of his day, the satire on him and on the
whole tribe of rhetoricians is transparent.
The ironical assumption of Socrates, that he must be a good orator

because he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermacher
supposes, but is rather to be regarded as fanciful. Nor can we say that
the offer of Socrates to dance naked out of love for Menexenus, is any
more un-Platonic than the threat of physical force which Phaedrus uses
towards Socrates. Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear which
Socrates expresses that he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia:
this is the natural exaggeration of what might be expected from an
imperious woman. Socrates is not to be taken seriously in all that he
says, and Plato, both in the Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to
admit a sort of Aristophanic humour. How a great original genius like
Plato might or might not have written, what was his conception of
humour, or what limits he would have prescribed to himself, if any, in
drawing the picture of the Silenus Socrates, are problems which no
critical instinct can determine.
On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whether
original or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs from
his character of a 'know nothing' and delivers a speech, generally
pretends that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus in
the Cratylus he is run away with; in the Phaedrus he has heard
somebody say something-- is inspired by the genius loci; in the
Symposium he derives his wisdom from Diotima of Mantinea, and the
like. But he does not impose on Menexenus by his dissimulation.
Without violating the character of Socrates, Plato, who knows so well
how to give a hint, or some one writing in his name, intimates clearly
enough that the speech in the Menexenus like that in the Phaedrus is to
be attributed to Socrates. The address of the dead to the living at the
end of the oration may also be compared to the numerous addresses of
the same kind which occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic element is
always tending to prevail over the rhetorical. The remark has been
often made, that in the Funeral Oration of Thucydides there is no
allusion to the existence of the dead. But in the Menexenus a future
state is clearly, although not strongly, asserted.
Whether the Menexenus is a genuine writing of Plato, or an imitation
only, remains uncertain. In either case, the thoughts are partly borrowed
from the Funeral Oration of Thucydides; and the fact that they are so, is

not in favour of the genuineness of the work. Internal evidence seems
to leave the question of authorship in doubt. There are merits and there
are defects which might lead to either conclusion. The form of the
greater part of the work makes the enquiry difficult; the introduction
and the finale certainly wear the look either of Plato or of an extremely
skilful imitator. The excellence of the forgery may be fairly adduced as
an argument that it is not a forgery at all. In this uncertainty the express
testimony of Aristotle, who quotes, in the Rhetoric, the well-known
words, 'It is easy to praise the Athenians among the Athenians,' from
the Funeral Oration, may perhaps turn the balance in its favour. It must
be remembered also that the work was famous in antiquity, and is
included in the Alexandrian catalogues of Platonic writings.
MENEXENUS
by
Plato (see Appendix I above)
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates and Menexenus.
SOCRATES: Whence come you, Menexenus? Are you from the
Agora?
MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates; I have been at the Council.
SOCRATES: And what might you be doing at the Council? And yet I
need hardly ask, for I see that you, believing yourself to have arrived at
the end of education and of philosophy, and to have had enough of
them, are mounting upwards to things higher still, and, though rather
young for the post, are intending to govern us elder men, like the rest of
your family, which has always provided some one who kindly took
care of us.
MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you
allow and