Note 1 — Chapter XII · ALKIBIADES I. AND II.
Reading edition
Plato, Alkib. i. 103, 104, 105. Perikles is supposed to be still alive and political leader of Athens — 104 B.
I have briefly sketched the imaginary situation to which this dialogue is made to apply. The circumstances of it belong to Athenian manners of the Platonic age.
Some of the critics, considering that the relation supposed between Sokrates and Alkibiades is absurd and unnatural, allege this among their reasons for denying the authenticity of the dialogue. But if any one reads the concluding part of the Symposion — the authenticity of which has never yet been denied by any critic — he will find something a great deal more abnormal in what is there recounted about Sokrates and Alkibiades.
In a dialogue composed by Æschines Socraticus (cited by the rhetor Aristeides — Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς, Or. xlv. p. 23-24), expressions of intense love for Alkibiades are put into the mouth of Sokrates. Æschines was γνήσιος ἑταῖρος Σωκράτους, not less than Plato. The different companions of Sokrates thus agreed in their picture of the relation between him and Alkibiades.