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Plato's Reply to Lysias: Republic 1 and 2 and Against Eratosthenes
- American Journal of Philology
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 125, Number 2 (Whole Number 498), Summer 2004
- pp. 179-208
- 10.1353/ajp.2004.0019
- Article
- Additional Information
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In his courtroom speech Against Eratosthenes, Lysias calls for revenge against the murderers of his brother Polemarchus. In Plato's Republic, however, Socrates convinces Polemarchus, in the presence of Lysias, that harming enemies is unjust. Socrates' argument focuses on certain problems and assumptions that turn out to be key features of Lysias' indictment of Eratosthenes. I argue that Socrates' conversation with Polemarchus is on one level a Platonic reply to Against Eratosthenes and that Plato's implicit criticisms of Lysias in the Republic harmonize with the picture of Lysias that he inscribes explicitly in the Phaedrus.