The aim of this monograph has been to survey the evidence for the existence of a stichometric, musical structure in the Symposium and Euthyphro. The following briefly discusses several implications related to the musical structure.

Summary of the case

The allegorist's dual aims of communication and concealment force interpeters to build strong cases by assembling many reinforcing lines of evidence. A series of salient points are important at the outset of the verification stage, in which the bare existence of the dialogues' musical structure is confirmed:

• the methods employed here are typical of those used by scholars to interpet allegorical texts by authors such as Dante, Spenser and Joyce (§1.8);

• allegory was debated in the circles around Socrates, as is attested by the references in Plato's dialogues and by the Derveni papyrus (Ch. 1).

• symbolism of various kinds and the practice of reserving doctrines were common in antiquity and were especially associated with the early Pythagoreans (Ch. 1);

• the early Academy reported that Plato was a Pythagorean; Sayre, Dillon, Kahn and other scholars argue in different ways that Plato had an innovative Pythagorean philosophy that was not spelled out openly in the dialogues but which can be found there by subtle intepretation (§1.5);

• the theses advanced here are conservative in that they restore the status quoante: Plato was often read as a symbolic writer who reserved his true philosophy through late antiquity and the Renaissance (§1.6);

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