Plato: Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras

Dramatis personae

Dates of birth and death given below are conjectural, except for Socrates.

CALICLES His boyfriend Demos, son of Plato's stepfather Pyrilampes, was in Dodds's words (Plato: Gorgias, p.261, relying here primarily on Aristophanes' Wasps 98) ‘a leading beauty about 422’. On usual assumptions about relative ages of lover and beloved, we might infer that Callicles was probably in his mid to late twenties at the same point in time. Although his ambition to succeed in politics makes Socrates describe him as lover of the Athenian demos (punning on Demos), this behaviour must be interpreted as opportunistic on Callicles' part. The views Plato attributes to him are anything but democratic. And it is probably significant that of the friends of Callicles mentioned at 487c, one at least – Andron – is known to have been a member of the short-lived oligarchic regime of the Four Hundred in 411, and the other two probably to be identified with Athenians known from other evidence to have been wealthy men. There is no trace of Callicles in history outside the Gorgias. It seems likely that for whatever reason his ambitions were unfulfilled.

CHAEREPHON (467–401) One of Socrates' oldest and closest friends, and a well-known figure in the Athens of the Peloponnesian War, frequently the topic of jokes on the comic stage, perhaps in part because of his demonic energy (Apology 21a, Charmides 153b).