List of Plato’s Dialogues

Abstract

Extract All Plato’s works are conventionally called “dialogues,” even though some scarcely involve any give and take between interlocutors, and one, Apology of Socrates, is an alleged transcript of the defense speeches Socrates, Plato’s teacher, gave at his trial in 399 bce. Throughout the book I use the standard means of precise reference to Platonic texts. I might refer, for instance, to Lysis 222a–c. These numbers and letters refer to the pages and sections of pages of the edition of Plato’s works by Henri Estienne (aka Stephanus) that was published in Geneva in 1578. This edition was in three volumes, each with separate pagination. Each page was divided into two columns, with the Greek text on the right and a Latin translation on the left. The column with the Greek text was divided into (usually) five sections labeled “a” to “e” by Stephanus. So Lysis 222a–c is a chunk of text that occupied some or all of sections a–c of page 222 in one of Stephanus’s volumes (the second, as it happens). This convention is followed in all editions of Plato’s works and by those who write about him.