Plato: Protagoras (review)

It is remarkable that the Protagorashas not received a full-scale philological treatment in English since the appearance of the Pitt Press text and commentary by James and Adela Adam in 1893. That book has been reprinted numerous times and has served reasonably well the needs of many generations of students and scholars. Philosophically challenging yet accessible, and at the same time ranking among Plato’s most exquisite literary creations—equalled in this respect perhaps only by the Symposiumand Phaedrus—the dialogue is one of the Platonic works best suited for serious undergraduates. So a new commentary in contemporary idiom which reflects the progress of Platonic scholarship over the past century and more is badly needed. This need is now filled by Denyer’s unfailingly interesting analysis of the Protagoras. Informed readers will find interpretations and assertions with which they disagree, as is only to be expected, and the Adams’ work is not by any means now rendered obsolete (it can be searched on the Perseuswebsite), but this new commentary will prove to be indispensable for future work on the dialogue.

Denyer makes no great claims for the short (eleven-page) Introduction to this edition (vii: “contains general remarks that could not conveniently be digested into the piecemeal format of the commentary”). Three sections, on “The sophists, Protagoras and the Protagoras,” “Socrates the sophist?” and “Plato and the example of Socrates” tantalize by their brevity (a fourth section, “Evidence of the text,” merely describes in bare outline the basis for the text which Denyer prints). Taken together, these sections can hardly be viewed as an adequate introduction to the Protagoras, nor are they intended to be, but many essays which perform this service are available elsewhere, and experience suggests to me that the topics on which Denyer has chosen to focus are those which catch the attention of most students (the primary audience for the “Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics” series) and help them to relate this work to wider intellectual themes and personalities of the fifth century bc. Many who are looking for the general introduction to the dialogue not provided in this edition, however, will want more guidance than Denyer offers. Of the twelve books on the Protagorasthat he lists in his bibliography (apart from Burnet’s Oxford edition), two are exclusively in Italian, three in German, two in French, and another contains essays in both German and English. This will be off-putting to some students. So also may be the list of “other works,” which here and there leans towards the eccentric, e.g. J.M. Keynes, Two Memoirs, P.D. Stanhope, The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, and Tom Stoppard, Jumpers.

It would be unfair to dwell on this element of the book, since students and others will use it mainly for its commentary, and it should be judged on that basis. Denyer does an especially good job of relating the Protagorasto other Platonic literature and to the intellectual contexts evoked by the dialogue’s themes. In addition to generally sound exegesis, the commentary abounds in parallels; these tend to be ignored by learners, but in this book they are usually quoted or translated (or both) rather than simply cited, and for the most part Denyer is careful to contextualize them and explain their specific relevance as well. It is rich in illustrative Platonic material, but there are also many opportunities in this dialogue for Denyer to draw upon the writings of Presocratics and lyric poets, for instance, in order to reveal the large canvass on which Plato worked. The most capable students who wade carefully through the notes will learn a great deal about Greek literature, thought and language. Others will want more basic help in translating the Greek itself than they will often find in this commentary.

It is very hard to meet the needs of all students who are reading this dialogue for the first time, while also providing scholars with a useful...