Note 62 — Chapter VII · PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.

In regard to the theory (elaborated by Schleiermacher, recently again defended by Volquardsen), that the Phædrus is the earliest among the Platonic dialogues, composed about 406 B.C., it appears to me inconsistent also with what we know about Lysias. In the Platonic Phædrus, Lysias is presented as a λογογράφος of the highest reputation and eminence (p. 228 A, 257 C, and indeed throughout the whole dialogue). Now this is quite inconsistent with what we read from Lysias himself in the indictment which he preferred against Eratosthenes, not long after the restoration of the democracy, 403 B.C. He protests therein strenuously that he had never had judicial affairs of his own, nor meddled with those of others; and he expresses the greatest apprehension from his own ἀπειρία (sects. 4-6). I cannot believe that this would be said by a person whom Phædrus terms δεινότατος ὣν τῶν νῦν γράφειν. Moreover, Lysias, in that same discourse, describes his own position at Athens, anterior to the Thirty: he belonged to a rich metic family, and was engaged along with his brother Polemarchus in a large manufactory of shields, employing 120 slaves (s. 20). A person thus rich and occupied was not likely to become a professed and notorious λογογράφος, though he may have been a clever and accomplished man. Lysias was plundered and impoverished by the Thirty; and he is said to have incurred much expense in aiding the efforts of Thrasybulus. It was after this change of circumstances that he took to rhetoric as a profession; and it is to some one of these later years that the Platonic Phædrus refers.