Note 30 — Chapter IX · APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.

It might seem superfluous to give such a warning; but many commentators speak as if they required it. They denounce the Platonic speakers in harsh terms, which have no pertinence, unless supposed to be applied to a real man expressing his own thoughts and feelings.

It is useless to enjoin us, as Stallbaum and Steinhart do, to mark the aristocratical conceit of Menon! — the pompous ostentation and pretensive verbosity of Protagoras and Gorgias! — the exorbitant selfishness of Polus and Kalliklês! — the impudent brutality of Thrasymachus! — when all these persons speak entirely under the prompting of Plato himself.

You might just as well judge of Sokrates by what we read in the Nubes of Aristophanes, or of Meton by what we find in the Aves, as describe the historical characters of the above-named personages out of the Platonic dialogues. They ought to be appreciated as dramatic pictures, drest up by the author for his own purpose, and delivering such opinions as he assigns to them — whether he intends them to be refuted by others, or not.