Positive dates of all the dialogues — unknown.
While even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus faintly marked in the case of a few, and left to fallible conjecture in the remainder — the positive chronology, or the exact year of composition, is not directly marked in the case of any one. Moreover, at the very outset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life did Plato begin to publish his dialogues? Did he publish any of them during the lifetime of Sokrates? and if so, which? Or does the earliest of them date from a time after the death of Sokrates?
When did Plato begin to compose? Not till after the death of Sokrates.
Amidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is remarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their mode of answering this question.[56] Most of them declare without hesitation, that Plato published several before the death of Sokrates — that is, before he was 28 years of age — though they do not all agree in determining which these dialogues were. I do not perceive that they produce any external proofs of the least value. Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum and Hermann believe) the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on the dialogue Lysis.[57] In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but adopt the opposite conclusion. It appears to me that Plato composed no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[56] Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Librorum ordine, p. 25, Berlin, 1854), Mullach (Democriti Fragm. p. 99), and R. Schöne (in his Commentary on the Platonic Protagoras), are among the critics known to me, who intimate their belief that Plato published no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates. In discussing the matter, Schöne adverts to two of the three lines of argument brought forward in my text:—1. The too early and too copious “productivity” which the received supposition would imply in Plato. 2. The improbability that the name of Sokrates would be employed in written dialogues, as spokesman, by any of his scholars during his lifetime.
Schöne does not touch upon the improbability of the hypothesis, arising out of the early position and aspirations of Plato himself (Schöne, Ueber Platon’s Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).
[57] Diog. Laert. iii. 85; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Lys. p. 90; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 370. Schleiermacher (Einl. zum Lysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote about the Lysis as unworthy of credence. Diogenes (iii. 38) mentions that some considered the Phædrus as Plato’s earliest dialogue; the reason being that the subject of it was something puerile: λόγος δὲ πρῶτον γράψαι αὐτὸν τὸν Φαῖδρον· καὶ γὰρ ἔχει μειρακιῶδες τι τὸ πρόβλημα. Δικαίαρχος δὲ καὶ τὸν τρόπον τῆς γραφῆς ὅλον ἐπιμέμφεται ὡς φορτικόν. Olympiodorus also in his life of Plato mentions the same report, that the Phædrus was Plato’s earliest composition, and gives the same ground of belief, “its dithyrambic character”. Even if the assertion were granted, that the Phædrus is the earliest Platonic composition, we could not infer that it was composed during the life-time of Sokrates. But that assertion cannot be granted. The two statements, above cited, give it only as a report, suggested to those who believed it by the character and subject-matter of the dialogue. I am surprised that Dr. Volquardsen, who in a learned volume, recently published, has undertaken the defence of the theory of Schleiermacher about the Phædrus (Phädros, Erste Schrift Platon’s, Kiel, 1862), can represent this as a “feste historische Ueberlieferung” — the rather as he admits that Schleiermacher himself placed no confidence in it, and relied upon other reasons (pp. 90-92-93). Comp. Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Phaidros, p. 76.
Whoever will read the Epistle of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, addressed to Cneius Pompeius (pp. 751-765, Reiske), will be persuaded that Dionysius can neither have known, nor even believed, that the Phædrus was the first composition, and a youthful composition, of Plato. If Dionysius had believed this, it would have furnished him with the precise excuse which his letter required. For the purpose of his letter is to mollify the displeasure of Cn. Pompey, who had written to blame him for some unfavourable criticisms on the style of Plato. Dionysius justifies his criticisms by allusions to the Phædrus. If he had been able to add, that the Phædrus was a first composition, and that Plato’s later dialogues were comparatively free from the like faults — this would have been the most effective way of conciliating Cn. Pompey.
Reasons for this opinion. Labour of the composition — does not consist with youth of the author.
All the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the rhetor Dionysius and others respecting the composition of the Platonic dialogues, announces them to have cost much time and labour to their author: a statement illustrated by the great number of inversions of words which he is said to have introduced successively in the first sentence of the Republic, before he was satisfied to let the sentence stand. This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the patient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.[58] A first-rate Greek composition was understood not to be purchasable at lower cost. I confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in Ast the affirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato was only 22 years old — and when I find Schleiermacher asserting, as if it were a matter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Phædrus, and Parmenidês, all bear evident marks of Plato’s youthful age (Jugendlichkeit). In regard to the Phædrus and Parmenidês, indeed, Hermann and other critics contest the view of Schleiermacher; and detect, in those two dialogues, not only no marks of “juvenility,” but what they consider plain proofs of maturity and even of late age. But in regard to the Protagoras, most of them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in declaring it to be a work of Plato’s youth, some time before the death of Sokrates. Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the decision turns upon “internal grounds,” each must judge for himself. The Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and elaborate of all the dialogues: in complication of scenic arrangements, dramatic vivacity, and in the amount of theory worked out, it is surpassed by none — hardly even by the Republic.[59] Its merits as a composition are indeed extolled by all the critics; who clap their hands, especially, at the humiliation which they believe to be brought upon the great Sophist by Sokrates. But the more striking the composition is acknowledged to be, the stronger is the presumption that its author was more than 22 or 24 years of age. Nothing short of good positive testimony would induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the Protagoras could have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained the plenitude of his powers. No such testimony is produced or producible. I extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis, Lachês, Charmidês, and other dialogues: though with a less degree of confidence, because they are shorter and less artistic, not equal to the Protagoras. All of them, in my judgment, exhibit a richness of ideas and a variety of expression, which suggest something very different from a young novice as the author.