Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/441

Rh After diverting himself with the naïveté of Theages, he proposes ironically several sophists of reputation, and several famous statesmen, who were fit to instruct him in this grand art: but as it does not appear that the disciples of those sophists, or even the sons of those statesmen, have been much the better for their lessons, both Demodocus and Theages entreat and insist that Socrates himself would admit him to his company and favour him with his instructions. The philosopher very gravely tells them stories of his demon, without whose permission he undertakes nothing, and upon whom it entirely depends, whether his conversation shall be of any use, or not, to his friends; but at last he acquiesces, if Theages cares to make the experiment.

The scene of the dialogue is in the portico, described by Pausanias, i. 3, of Jupiter the Deliverer, in the Ceramicus, the principal street of Athens; and the time Ol. 92, 3-4, during the expedition of Thrasyllus, in which he was defeated at Ephesus by the Persians and other allies of Sparta. Socrates was then sixty years old.

P. 125. Callicreté.] The poem of Anacreon on Callicreté the daughter of Cyane, is now lost. Dacier seriously imagines that she was a female politician, like Aspasia. But it is more agreeable to Anacreon's gallantry, that we should suppose the seat of tyranny was only in her face.

P. 129. Κλειτόμαχον ἐρέσθαι.] This assassination of Nicias, the son of Heroscamander, by Philemon and Timarchus, and the condemnation of the latter with Euathlus, who had given him shelter, is not recounted in any other author.

Socrates, about the time that an accusation had been preferred against him for impiety in the court of the Βασιλεὺς, second Archon,