Note 34 — Chapter XXXIII · MENEXENUS.

By the language of Plato here, he seems plainly to bring his own harangue into competition not merely with that of Lysias but also with that of Perikles. But we must not suppose for that reason, that he necessarily has in view the Periklean harangue which we now read in Thucydides, ii. 35-43: which is the real speech, reported and drest up by Thucydides in his own language and manner. Probably the Periklean harangue was preserved separately and in other reports, so that Plato may have known it without knowing the history of Thucydides. When I see the extreme liberty which Plato takes throughout his harangue in regard to the history of the past, I can hardly believe that he ever read Thucydides; if he ever read the history, he certainly disregarded it altogether, and threw himself ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον: like the λογογράφοι of whom Thucydides speaks, i. 21, Lysias among them, though in a less degree than Plato. Æschines Sokraticus had composed among his dialogues one entitled Ἀσπασία. See Xenophon, Œconom. i. 14; Cicero de Inventione, i. 31: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32: also Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Attic. Antiq. p. 237.