Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue

The dialogue called Protagoras presents a larger assemblage of varied and celebrated characters, with more of dramatic winding, and more frequent breaks and andperson- resumptions m the conversation, than any dialogue of Plato—not excepting even Symposion and Republic. It exhibits Sokrates in controversy with the celebrated Sophist Protagoras, in the presence of a distinguished society, most of whom take occasional part in the dialogue. This controversy is preceded by a striking conversation between Sokrates and Hippokrates—a youth of distinguished family, eager to profit by the instructions of Protagoras. The two Sophists Prodikus and Hippias, together with Kallias, Kritias, Alkibiades, Eryxiinachus, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Agathon, the two sons of Perikles (Paralus and Xanthippus), Charmides son of Glaukon, Antimoerus of Mende, a promising pupil of Protagoras, who is in training for the profession of a Sophist—these and others are all present at the meeting, which is held in the house of Kallias. Sokrates himself recounts the whole—both his conversation with Hippokrates and that with Protagoras—to a nameless friend.

This dialogue enters upon a larger and more comprehensive ethical theory than anything in the others hitherto noticed. But it contains also a great deal in which we hardly recognise, or at least cannot verify, any distinct purpose, either of search or exposition. Much of it seems to be composed with a literary or poetical view, to enhance the charm or interest of the composition. The personal characteristics of each speaker—the intellectual peculiarities of Prodikus and Hippias—the ardent partisanship of Alkibiades—are brought out as in a real drama.