104 Db WHEWELL, on THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 



Glaucon and Adimantus are most wantonly introduced; for the sole office they have, is to say 

 that they have a half-brother Antiphon, by a second marriage of their mother. No such 

 half-brother of Plato, and no such marriage of his mother, are noticed in other remains of 

 antiquity. Antiphon is represented as having been the friend of Pythodorus, who was the 

 host of Parmenides and Zeno, as we have seen. And Antiphon, having often heard from 

 Pythodorus the account of the conversation of his guests with Socrates, retained it in his 

 memory, or in his tablets, so as to be able to give the full report of it which we have in the 

 Dialogue Parmenides*. To me, all this looks like a clumsy imitation of the Introductions 

 to the Platonic Dialogues. 



I say nothing of the chronological difficulties which arise from bringing Parmenides and 

 Socrates together, though they are considerable ; for they have been explained more or less 

 satisfactorily ; and certainly in the Thecetetus, Socrates is represented as saying that he 

 when very young had seen Parmenides who was very oldj". Atheuseus, however |, reckons 

 this among Plato's fictions. Schleiermacher gives up the identification and relation of the 

 persons mentioned in the Introduction as an unmanageable story. 



I may add that I believe Cicero, who refers to so many of Plato's Dialogues, nowhere 

 refers to the Parmenides. Athenaeus does refer to it ; and in doing so blames Plato for his 

 coarse imputations on Zeno and Parmenides. According to our view, these are hostile 

 attempts to ascribe rudeness to Socrates or to Plato. Stallbaum acknowledges that Aristotle 

 nowhere refers to this Dialogue. 



* In the First Alcibiades, Pythodorus is mentioned as having paid 100 minse to Zeno for his instructions (119 a). 

 t p. 183 e. + Deipn. xi. c. 15, p. 106. 



