Theagês—has been declared spurious by some modern critics—grounds for such opinion not sufficient

This is among the dialogues declared by Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various other modern critics, to be spurious and unworthy of Plato: the production of one who was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly imitator. Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them, reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato. The arguments which are adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient. It has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other dialogues—these the above-mentioned critics call un-platonic: it has other features of similarity—these they call bad imitation by a falsarius: lastly, it is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues. But I am prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others. I also reckon with certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of similarity as well as points of dissimilarity. Lastly, the critics find marks of a bad, recent, un-platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus—a judge at least equally competent upon such a matter—found no such marks. He expressly cites the dialogue as the work of Plato, and explains the peculiar phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.