Plato: Protagoras (review)

Given how delightful the read and how trenchant the issues over which the dialogue meanders, it is surprising that no text and commentary of the Protagoras has been produced in English in nearly a century. Nicholas Denyer's Cambridge "green and yellow" is therefore a welcome addition to the series. His commentary offers a wealth of information that will help any reader—especially the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate student—to appreciate Plato's style, the larger historical context of the scene, the nature of historic personae who populate the dialogue, and the relationship between this dialogue's highly idiosyncratic arguments and the thoughts expressed in the remainder of Plato's corpus, a corpus over which Denyer has striking command.

Throughout the commentary, Denyer does a masterful job of explaining the Greek, and of relating that explanation to the immediate discussion within this text and to Plato's general idiom and style. The comments on 323a1 furnish a wonderful example of a note that explains the ambiguities of grammar and syntax, as well as the thought Protagoras is expressing so loosely. Students of Greek will come to treasure the wealth of grammatical and stylistic explanations that are assiduously catalogued and patiently explained (e.g., 315c5 ἀστϱονομικὰ ἄττα, 325c4 οἴεσθαί γε χϱή, 328a1 οὐδ᾿ ἄν εἷς, 333d1, συνεχώρησεν). For these alone, this book is worth buying.

Denyer's prosopographies (see especially on 315a1–2, 315c1, 316a3–4, 316d5–316e1) provide excellent overviews of the figures mentioned and dramatized within the dialogue and go a long way to facilitate an appreciation of Plato's artistry and its significance for understanding the dialogue's arguments. Literary and mythological references are handled with aplomb (e.g., 321d1, 339c4–6). Detailed historical information and its bearing upon the arguments and their interpretation are admirably elucidated (e.g., on 315c2–3, 327d3-6, 334d1). Running throughout the commentary are excellent summaries of the arguments and their implications as well as analysis of their relationship to thoughts expressed in other dialogues. The commentary is so richly rewarding that it is easy to forgive minor oversights like neglecting to give a textual reference (on 310d ὕπνος ἀνῆκεν; Il. 2.71, 7. 289, 24.440) or including grammatical details that are a bit superfluous (309a1 ἦ δῆλα δὴ ὅτι).

The introduction, however, is a glaring defect that seriously compromises the utility of this volume. It lacks a summary of the dialogue's contents. Rife with oversimplifications ("Sophists earned lots," 3) and egregious ellipses (Gorgias of Leontini is never mentioned in the overview of sophists), it does nothing to contextualize the dialogue within the Platonic corpus or its relationship with Platonic philosophy abstractly conceived. It presumes identity between the historical Protagoras and the character in the dialogue. The textual apparatus does not illuminate. In general, advanced scholars will find nothing new and much to contest, while the less experienced are given no inkling as to why Plato may have chosen this singular setting with these specific characters to discuss these particular issues in a highly peculiar fashion—all matters that the commentary does so much to address. And so this reviewer is left scratching his head as to why the editors of such an esteemed press would permit so inadequate an overview to accompany so valuable a commentary. This reviewer hopes that there will be another permutation of this text and commentary that would permit what is a useful "green and yellow" to become an exemplary one.