The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 · Plato
APPENDIX II.
That the Dialogue which goes by the name of the Second Alcibiades is a genuine writing of Plato will not be maintained by any modern critic, and was hardly believed by the ancients themselves. The dialectic is poor and weak. There is no power over language, or beauty of style; and there is a certain abruptness and ἀγροικία in the conversation, which is very un-Platonic. The best passage is probably that about the poets, p. 147:—the remark that the poet, who is of a reserved disposition, is uncommonly difficult to understand, and the ridiculous interpretation of Homer, are entirely in the spirit of Plato (cp. Protag. 339 foll.; Ion 534; Apol. 22 D). The characters are ill-drawn. Socrates assumes the ‘superior person’ and preaches too much, while Alcibiades is stupid and heavy-in-hand. There are traces of Stoic influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (cp. 138 B, ὅπως μὴ λήσει τις ... κακά: 139 C, ὅτι πᾶς ἄφρων μαίνεται) and the writer seems to have been acquainted with the ‘Laws’ of Plato (cp. Laws 3. 687, 688; 7. 801; 11. 931 B). An incident from the Symposium (213 E) is rather clumsily introduced (151 A), and two somewhat hackneyed quotations (Symp. 174 D, Gorg. 484 E) recur at 140 A and 146 A. The reference to the death of Archelaus as having occurred ‘quite lately’ (141 D) is only a fiction, probably suggested by the Gorgias, 470 D, where the story of Archelaus is told, and a similar phrase occurs,—τὰ γὰρ ἐχθὲς καὶ πρώην γεγονότα ταῦτα, κ.τ.λ. There are several passages which are either corrupt or extremely ill-expressed (see pp. 144, 145, 146, 147, 150). But there is a modern interest in the subject of the dialogue; and it is a good example of a short spurious work, which may be attributed to the second or third century before Christ.
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