Menexenus | Page 5

the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem., and
there is no similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon
in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of
the genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic
spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and
treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect
in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer,
in the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance,
traces of a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are
doubtful, as in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is
asserting or overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following
the argument 'whither the wind blows.' That no conclusion is arrived at
is also in accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues. The
resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus,
which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be
adduced on either side of the argument. On the whole, more may be
said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.

The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and is
interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators
praised 'the Athenians among the Athenians,' falsifying persons and
dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history.
It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and
was, perhaps, intended to rival that great work. If genuine, the proper
place of the Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus. The
satirical opening and the concluding words bear a great resemblance to
the earlier dialogues; the oration itself is professedly a mimetic work,
like the speeches in the Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested by a
comparison of the other writings of Plato. The funeral oration of
Pericles is expressly mentioned in the Phaedrus, and this may have
suggested the subject, in the same manner that the Cleitophon appears
to be suggested by the slight mention of Cleitophon and his attachment
to Thrasymachus in the Republic; and the Theages by the mention of
Theages in the Apology and Republic; or as the Second Alcibiades
seems to be founded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem. A similar taste
for parody appears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the Protagoras, in
the Symposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides.
To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First
Alcibiades, which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the
greatest merit, and is somewhat longer than any of them, though not
verified by the testimony of Aristotle, and in many respects at variance
with the Symposium in the description of the relations of Socrates and
Alcibiades. Like the Lesser Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to be
compared to the earlier writings of Plato. The motive of the piece may,
perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which
Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates.
For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this
dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At the same time,
the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in
the undoubted dialogues of Plato. We know, too, that Alcibiades was a
favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues bearing this name
passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to contemporaries of
Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real external evidence
(for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot be regarded as

trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks either of
poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we have
express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing
the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on
the genuineness of the extant dialogue.
Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an
absolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of
Plato. They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There
may have been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as
there are certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported.
The traditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may
have formed the basis of semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be
of the same mixed character which is apparent in Aristotle and
Hippocrates, although the form of them is different. But the writings of
Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle, seem never to have been
confused with the writings of his disciples: this was probably due to
their definite form, and to their inimitable excellence.