“Dialogue,” the son of Philosophy, 2 accuses another, called “the Syrian,” of having broken the wings on which he, Dialogue, used to soar, and forced him to keep company with comedy and satire, thereby turning him into a monstrous freak,“put together out of disparate parts like a centaur”(Bis Acc. 33). 3 The glory days for which Dialogue waxes nostalgic are clearly those of Platonic dialogue. Like Plato’s Socrates, Dialogue favors short questions and answers over long speeches and is unfamiliar with law courts (Bis Acc. 33; cf. 28). His interests are specified through quotations from the Timaeus and Gorgias (Bis Acc. 34), and the wings he mourns allude to Socrates’ famous speech on erôs in the Phaedrus, which is quoted twice