Plato

David M. Johnson

Selections from Plato's 'Symposium', 'Alcibiades I', and 'Alcibiades II', with the complete fragments of the dialogue 'Alcibiades' by Aeschines of Sphettus. These translations and their accompanying notes and essay provide a rich discussion of how Athens' greatest philosopher loved and tried to teach his most ambitious young student, and why Athens turned on both of them.

Plato's Alcibiades I and II, Symposium (212c-223a), Aeschines' Alcibiades

Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts

Xenophon’s Socratic Works demonstrates that Xenophon, a student of Socrates, military man, and man of letters, is an indispensable source for our understanding of the life and philosophy of Socrates. David M. Johnson restores Xenophon’s most ambitious Socratic work, the Memorabilia (Socratic Recollections), to its original literary context, enabling readers to experience it as Xenophon’s original audience would have, rather than as a pale imitation of Platonic dialogue. He shows that the Memorabilia, together with Xenophon’s Apology, provides us with our best evidence for the trial of Socrates, and a comprehensive and convincing refutation of the historical charges against Socrates. Johnson’s account of Socrates’ moral psychology shows how Xenophon’s emphasis on control of the passions can be reconciled with the intellectualism normally attributed to Socrates. Chapters on Xenophon’s Symposium and Oeconomicus (Estate Manager) reveal how Xenophon used all the literary tools of Socratic dialogue to defend Socratic sexual morality (Symposium) and debate the merits and limits of conventional elite values (Oeconomicus). Throughout the book, Johnson argues that Xenophon’s portrait of Socrates is rich and coherent, and largely compatible with the better-known portrait of Socrates in Plato. Xenophon aimed not to provide a rival portrait of Socrates, Johnson shows, but to supplement and clarify what others had said about Socrates. Xenophon’s Socratic Works, thus, provides readers with a far firmer basis for reconstruction of the trial of Socrates, a key moment in the history of Athenian democracy, and for our understanding of Socrates’ seminal impact on Greek philosophy. This volume introduces Xenophon’s Socratic works to a wide range of readers, from undergraduate students encountering Socrates or ancient philosophy for the first time to scholars with interests in Socrates or ancient philosophy more broadly. It is also an important resource for readers interested in Socratic dialogue as a literary form, the trial of Socrates, Greek sexual morality (the central topic of Xenophon’s Symposium), or Greek social history (for which the Oeconomicus is a key text).

Xenophon’s Socratic Works

A textbook introducing the essential nature of poetry and providing sample poems and suggestions for the writing of poetry.

A Creative Approach to Teaching and Writing Poetry

Word Weaving

An exciting series that provides students with direct access to the ancient world by offering new translations of extracts from its key texts. Socrates is one of the ancient Greeks that everyone has heard of. He is responsible, more than any other individual, for adding a new urgency and vigour to the fundamental questions we ask about our own lives. Socrates, it turns out, was always rather mysterious, and intentionally so. He was more interested in making people think than in telling them what to think. Part of the Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts series, this book helps readers to discover the original Socrates.

Socrates and Athens

Paul Davis

John F. Crawford

Gary Harrison

Designed to offer a clear, concise, and accessible way to explore the familiar and unfamiliar territories of world literature, this two-volume version of The Bedford Anthology of World Literature offers students and teachers a broad and carefully balanced selection of literary works supported by extensive historical background and generous contextual materials.

David M. Johnson

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