Aeschines of Sphettus - Socratic Dialogues

Socratic Dialogues

We know that Aeschines wrote the following dialogues:

• Alcibiades (not to be confused with either Platonic dialogue of the same name),
• Aspasia,
• Axiochus (not to be confused with the dialogue of the same name erroneously included in the Platonic corpus),
• Callias,
• Miltiades,
• Rhinon,
• Telauges.

Of these, we have the most information about the Alcibiades and the Aspasia, and only a little about the others. The Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia compiled a dozen centuries later, ascribes to Aeschines several other works called "headless" or "Prefaceless" (akephaloi): Phaidon, Polyainos, Drakon, Eryxias, On Excellence, The Erasistratoi, and The Skythikoi. Few modern scholars believe these other works were written by Aeschines.

The 2nd century AD sophist Publius Aelius Aristides quotes from the Alicibiades at length, preserving for us the largest surviving chunk of Aeschines' written work. Just before World War I, Arthur Hunt recovered from Oxyrhynchus a papyrus (#1608) containing a long, fragmentary passage from this dialogue that had been lost since ancient times. In the dialogue, Socrates converses with a young, ambitious Alcibiades about Themistocles and argues that Alcibiades is unprepared for a career in politics since he has failed to "care for himself" in such a way as to avoid thinking that he knows more than what he actually knows on matters of the most importance. Socrates seems to argue for the view that success is directly proportional to knowledge (though knowledge may not be sufficient for complete success), as opposed to being dependent merely on fortune or divine dispensation, independent of knowledge. Socrates' arguments cause the usually cocky Alcibiades to weep in shame and despair—a result also attested to by Plato in the Symposium. Socrates claims that it is only through loving Alcibiades that he can improve him (by cultivating in him a desire to pursue knowledge?), since Socrates has no knowledge of his own to teach.

Our major sources for the Aspasia are Athenaeus, Plutarch, and Cicero. In the dialogue, Socrates recommends that Callias send his son Hipponicus to Aspasia to learn politics. In the dialogue, Socrates argues, among other things, that women are capable of exactly the same military and political "virtues" as are men, which Socrates proves by referring Callias to the examples of Aspasia herself (who famously advised Pericles), Thargelia of Miletus (a courtesan who supposedly persuaded many Greeks to ally themselves with Xerxes who in turn gave Thargelia part of Thessaly to rule), and the legendary Persian warrior-queen Rhodogyne. (The doctrine is likewise found in Plato's Meno and Republic, and so is confirmed as genuinely Socratic.) A certain Xenophon is also mentioned in the dialogue—Socrates says that Aspasia exhorted this Xenophon and his wife to cultivate knowledge of self as a means to virtue—but this Xenophon may not be the same Xenophon who is more familiar to us as a historian and another author of Socratic memoirs.

In the Telauges, Socrates converses with the Pythagorean ascetic Telauges (a companion of Hermogenes who was Callias' half-brother and a follower of Socrates) and Crito's young son Critobulus. In the dialogue, Socrates criticizes Telauges for his extreme asceticism and Critobulus for his ostentatiousness, apparently in an attempt to argue for a moderate position.

The Axiochus—named after Axiochus, the uncle of Alcibiades—criticized Alcibiades for being a drunkard and a womanizer. Evidently, it was, like the Alcibiades, one of the many works that the Socratics published to clear Socrates of any blame for Alcibiades' corruption.

In the Callias, there is a discussion of the "correct use" of wealth; it is argued that how one holds up under poverty is a better measure of virtue than how well one makes use of wealth. In the dialogue, Prodicus is criticized for having taught Theramenes.

The setting of the Miltiades is the stoa of Zeus Eleutherios. The dialogue is between Socrates, Euripides, Hagnon (stepfather of Theramenes), and Miltiades son of Stesagoras. This Miltiades is not to be confused with Miltiades the Younger, but is probably a close relative of his. The dialogue contains an encomium to Miltiades for having had an exemplary training and education in his youth, perhaps in contrast to the kind of education offered by sophists like Protagoras.