Aeschines of Sphettus and Tradition of Socratic Dialogue
Plato and Xenophon have both overshadowed other disciples and devotees of Socrates making everyone else appear of a lesser stature. Tradition, not without warranty, has relegated virtually all of these “minor” Socratics to positions inside one school or another. Driven to the periphery of the prize trail of philosophy blazed by Plato, his fellow Socratics, ended up as second-rate thinkers vis-a-vis Xenophon, not to cite Plato. The scanty texts and testimonies available to us are used either to reconstruct the doctrines of the so-called Socratic schools or to flesh out the historical persona of Socrates. However, it seems intriguing to consider these texts in their inter(con)textual relations with Plato's writings, with which they share dramatic features such as the dialogue form. Taking into account all of the above, the author proposes a number of suggestions concerning one of Socrates' most devoted disciples, Aeschines (Socraticus) of Sphettus. According to tradition, he composed Sōkratikoi logoi, i.e. Socraticdialogues. The genesis of this genre is a separate problem for scholars. An attempt tosolve it seems all the more interesting since it was Plato who maximally realized the genre's potentials. The starting point of our research are two out of the seven dialogues composed by Aeschines, the <i>Alcibiades</i> and the <i>Aspasia</i>. The fragments of these com-positions at our disposal, as well as supporting information concerning the works of other Socratics, lend plausibility to the assertion that Aeschines himself was a trail-blazer in his treatment of a theme that was of fundamental importance for Plato: the affinity between education and Eros.