Plutarch's Portrait of Socrates

Abstract

Since the recent studies of K. DOring, it is clear that there was a renewal of interest in the person of Socrates in the first and second centuries A.D. uch an interest is reflected, for example, by Dio of Prusa's speeches on Socrates {Or.54 and 55), and by frequent references to him in the works of Seneca and of Epictetus.Indeed, as DOring observed in Exemplutn Socratis, a study of Socrates' influence on the Cynic-Stoic popular philosophy of the early Empire, Plutarch was influenced by and contributed much to his contemporaries' concerns with Socrates,^writing at least three works on Socrates, two of which are lost: A Defense of Socrates ('AnoXoyia hnkp ZcoKpdioTx;), and On the Condemnation of Socrates (Oepl xfii; ZcoKpdTOU(; v(ni<p{oeco<;).3A third work.On the Sign of Socrates (flEpl -cou ScaKpaxoug 5ai^ovio\) orDe genio Socratis) is still extant, and has recently received great attention.'*Moreover, the first of the Platonic Questions