APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.
Adopting the order of precedence above described, for the review of the Platonic compositions, and taking the point of departure from Sokrates or the Sokratic point of view, I begin with the memorable composition called the Apology.
The Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates before the Dikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional transformation.
I agree with Schleiermacher[1] — with the more recent investigations of Ueberweg — and with what (until recent times) seems to have been the common opinion, — that this is in substance the real defence pronounced by Sokrates; reported, and of course drest up, yet not intentionally transformed, by Plato.[2] If such be the case, it is likely to have been put together shortly after the trial, and may thus be ranked among the earliest of the Platonic compositions: for I have already intimated my belief that Plato composed no dialogues under the name of Sokrates, during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[1] Zeller is of opinion that the Apology, as well as the Kriton, were put together at Megara by Plato, shortly after the death of Sokrates. (Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio, p. 19.)
Schleiermacher, Einl. zur Apologie, vol. ii. pp. 182-185. Ueberweg, Ueber die Aechtheit der Plat. Schrift. p. 246.
Steinhart thinks (Einleitung, pp. 236-238) that the Apology contains more of Plato, and less of Sokrates: but he does not make his view very clear to me. Ast, on the contrary, treats the Apology as spurious and unworthy of Plato. (Ueber Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 477, seq.) His arguments are rather objections against the merits of the composition, than reasons for believing it not to be the work of Plato. I dissent from them entirely: but they show that an acute critic can make out a plausible case, satisfactory to himself, against any dialogue. If it be once conceded that the question of genuine or spurious is to be tried upon such purely internal grounds of critical admiration and complete harmony of sentiment, Ast might have made out a case even stronger against the genuineness of the Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Parmenidês.
[2] See chapter lxviii. of my History of Greece.
The reader will find in that chapter a full narrative of all the circumstances known to us respecting both the life and the condemnation of Sokrates.
A very admirable account may also be seen of the character of Sokrates, and his position with reference to the Athenian people, in the article entitled Sokrates und Sein Volk, Akademischer Vortrag, by Professor Hermann Köchly; a lecture delivered at Zurich in 1855, and published with enlargements in 1859.