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Socrates and Gorgias at Delphi and Olympia: Phaedrus 235d6–236b4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Kathryn A. Morgan
Kathryn A. Morgan
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

It is a commonplace of modern criticism that every text is to be located within a complex network of cultural practices and material. Students of the ancient world may sometimes feel at a disadvantage; we simply do not have as much information as we would like in order to contextualize thoroughly. This has been especially true in the study of Platonic dialogues. The meagre remains of the writings of the sophists against whom Plato measured himself and of the art to which he refers (to mention only two areas) entail that analysis of Plato is often confined to the structure of his philosophy. Of course, the requirements of Plato's arguments must always be assigned primary importance; the relative lack of information about Plato's cultural context has not prevented detailed exposition of his method and achievements. Occasionally, however, a kindly fate allows us to set a dialogue, or part of it, in its appropriate material and ideological context and to create an interface between literary, philosophical, and archaeological evidence. Such evidence may not alter our evaluation of Plato's arguments on the analytic level, but it can enrich our appreciation of his literary artistry and recapture for us some of the resonance that his work would have had for a contemporary audience.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 375 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

1 Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1952), p. 33Google Scholar. Plut. Vit. Sol. 25 does assert that the statues were to be life-sized and set up at Delphi, but these details may be a corruption of : the tradition due to the influence of the Phaedrus. Compare Thompson, W. H., The Phaedrus of Plato, with English Notes and Dissertations (London, 1869)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Rhodes, P. J., A Commentary on the Aristotelian ‘Athenaion Politeia’ (Oxford, 1981), p. 135Google Scholar. On ἰσομτρητον, see further de Vries, G. J., A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato (Amsterdam, 1969), p. 77.Google Scholar

2 Griswold, C., Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus (New Haven, 1986), p. 54Google Scholar. His solution is that Socrates' victory will signal Phaedrus' transgression of the Delphic command to ‘know thyself’.

3 Ferrari, G. R. F., Listening to the Cicadas (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 103–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See, for example, Ferrari's discussion of the topography at the beginning of the Phaedrus (pp. 2–4), and A. Nightingale's work on intertextuality in Plato's, Gorgias (CA 11 [1992], 121–41).Google Scholar

5 Thompson, p. 22.

6 Pliny, H.N. 33.83, Cic. De Or., 3.129, Dio Chrys. 37.28, Philostr. V.S. 1.9.4, Val. Max. 8.15.

7 The nature of the Platonic critique implicit in Athenaeus' anecdote has recently been studied by P. Angeli Bernardini and Veneri, A., ‘II Gorgia di Platone nel giudizio di Gorgia e 1' ‘aureo’ Gorgia nel giudizio di Platone (Athen. ll,505d-e)’, QUCC n.s. 7 (1981), 149–60Google Scholar, who conclude that Gorgias is being criticized for his mercenary attitude towards his profession and his ostentation in displaying his wealth.

8 On the dramatic date of the Phaedrus see de Vries, p. 7. The same passage in Athenaeus cited above recounts Gorgias' none-too-favourable reaction to the dialogue bearing his name; evidently the hostility between Plato and the sophist extends over the composition of more than one dialogue.

9 Cf. 267a6–b2.

10 Cf. Griswold, pp. 18–25, 52–3; Ferrari, pp. 7–9.

11 Hackforth, pp. 33–4, with note 1 on page 34; Verdenius, W. J., ‘Notes on Plato's Phaedrus’, Mnemosyne 8 (1955), 272CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Griswold, p. 54, interprets χρυσος ironically as ‘truly golden’, that is ‘inwardly rich’.

12 Paus. 5.21.2–3. These images were made of bronze rather than gold.

13 Dittenberger, W. and Purgold, K., Die Inschriften von Olympia (Amsterdam, 1966Google Scholar) = E. Curtius and F. Adler (edd.), Olympia, Volume 5, No. 293. I reproduce the text of I. Z. Tzifopoulos, who has recently reexamined the stone, in ‘Pausanias as a ΣΤΗΛΟΣΚΟΠΑΣ. An Epigraphical Commentary of Pausanias' ἨΛΙΑΚΩΝ A and B' (Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1991), p. 211 (with bibliography and commentary). Cf. Hansen, P. E., Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1989), no. 830.Google Scholar

14 Bernardini and Veneri, [n. 7], 156.

15 For dating on the grounds of historical plausibility, see Fränkel, M., Arch. Zeitung 35 (1877) 43, No. 54.Google Scholar

16 Rowe, C. J., Plato: Phaedrus (Warminster, 1986), p. 152Google Scholar; de Vries, pp. 78–9.

17 Hermias, in his scholion on 236b, gives the version where it is the sons of Periander who make the dedication after having regained the tyranny. For a detailed discussion of the identity of the dedicator(s), see Servais, J., ‘Le “Colosse” des Cypsélides’, L' Antiquité Classique 34 (1965), 148–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 On the inscription, see below. Thompson, ad loc., also cites the colossus.

19 Strabo 8.3.30; 8.6.20. For the archaic nature of sphyrelaton statues, see Servais, 160–2, and Papadopoulos, J., Xoana e Sphyrelata (Rome, 1980), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

20 Of course, the term colossus itself is not proof that the statue was larger than life, since the word may originally have meant merely a statue with its legs placed together, but Strabo does call the Zeus εὐμεγθης (8.6.20). Cf. Servais, 156–7; Papadopoulos, pp. 86–7; Donohue, A. A., ‘Xoana’ and the Origins of Greek Sculpture (Atlanta, 1988), p. 27 and n. 65Google Scholar. Griswold (p. 54) is incorrect to say that the statue would have been placed in the temple of Zeus, but his association of the statue of Socrates with Zeus, the patron god of philosophers in the Phaedrus, receives confirmation.

21 Schweitzer, B., Platon und die bildende Kunst der Griechen (Tübingen, 1953), p. 24.Google Scholar

22 Op. cit., p. 23.

23 Paus. 5.17.3. Servais, 169 n. 69, follows W. Dinsmoor in supposing that the group of Hera and Zeus was not chryselephantine and is opposed by Pausanias by virtue of its simplicity to the gold and ivory statues that follow. Yet even these are described as ρχαῖα.

24 Cf. Servais, 169 n. 69.

25 Schweitzer, p. 23.

26 Nor is Boreas the only composite entity on the chest. Next to him is carved the fight between Heracles and triple-bodied Geryon. Other composites include the Centaurs (Paus. 5.19.7–8).

27 Paus. 5.17.7–10. Amphiaraus is reported as being so angry that he can scarcely restrain himself from attacking Eriphyle. Do we have here an anticipation of the transports of passion characteristic of the black horse in the myth of the charioteer (254)?

28 Cf. Dumortier, J., ‘L'attelage ailé du Phèdre,’ REG 82 (1969), 345–8Google Scholar, and Schweitzer, pp. 61–6.

29 For descriptions of the black and white horses, see 253d3–e5.

30 Pliny, H.N. 33.83: ‘auream statuam et solidam’, and Val. Max. 8.15: ‘universa Graecia… statuam solido ex auro posuit, cum ceterorum ad id tempus auratas collocasset’, follow the account of Cicero.

31 Griswold, p. 54.

32 Servais, 156.

33 Cobet, C., ‘Ad Photii Lexicon’, Mnemosyne 9 (1860), 422–6Google Scholar; Geffcken, J. and Herbig, G., ‘Ναξς’, Glotta 9 (1918), 97–109Google Scholar. Geffcken asserts that the second version of the epigram, which reads ναξς, is the correct one, and that the version that reads σφυρλατος is a simplified and vulgate tradition, the one known by Plato. The meaning of ναξς has been disputed, but the word seems to mean ‘full’ or ‘solid’: Servais, 161–2 with note 47. On C. Gallavotti's unconvincing emendation of ναστς to ἄξους (RFIC 40 [1962], 291–4), see Papadopoulos, p. 87.

34 See above, note 21.

35 Servais, 159–71.

36 On the interdependence of statue and epigram, see Svenbro, J., Phrasikleia. Anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1988), p. 50.Google Scholar

37 Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that such a dedication would be almost unique. The terminology of votive dedications was quite conservative and such a vaunt is unparalleled. Cf. Svenbro, p. 47, Lazzarini, M., ‘Le formule delle dediche nella Grecia arcaica’, Memorie dell' Accademia nazionale del Lincei. Classe di scienze morali storiche e filologiche, series 8, vol 19.2 (Rome, 1976), pp. 58–60.Google Scholar

38 The tax: Arist. [Oec] 2.1346a; Strabo 8.3.30, 8.6.20; Paus. 5.2.3. The story according to which Periander stole the gold from the Corinthian women to fulfil a vow he had made to dedicate a golden statue if he won the Olympic chariot race (Diog. Laert. 1.96) reminds us uncomfortably of Phaedrus' own agonistic ethos and offer.

39 I hope to take up the larger theme of the place of statues in the Phaedrus elsewhere.

40 To be sure, Socrates' argument is that a piece of writing always means the same, does not change. It only underlines his point, however, if we discover that even an inscription can give rise to different textual traditions: πλημμελοὑμενος δ κα οὐκ ν δκη λοιδορηθες το πατρς ε δεῖται βοηθο˙ αὐτς γρ οὕτ' μνασθαι οὕτε βοηθσαι δυνατς αὑτῷ (275e3–e5).

41 I would like to thank June Allison, Andrea Nightingale, Stephanie Winder, and the anonymous referee of Classical Quarterly for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.