2 - The beginnings of dialogue Socratic discourses and fourth-century prose

Summary

Dialogue is unusual among literary genres in that we can speak quite specifically about where and when it began, and can even point to an historical individual who inspired the form: the first prose dialogues were representations of Socrates, the Athenian philosopher and teacher who was put to death in 399 BCE. One might have supposed dialogue to be far older, given that verbal duelling and antithetical argument feature so prominently throughout Greek literature; but, while a number of antecedents to the genre have been identified, there is no evidence that anyone wrote prose dialogues before these so-called Sôkratikoi logoi – Socratic ‘dialogues’, ‘discourses’ or ‘texts’. Origins, of course, usually turn out to be elusive on close inspection, and there are some cloudy spots in this picture: it is unclear whether Socratic logoi began to be written while Socrates was still alive or if it was his execution that provided the impulse for the new form; there is also some question as to whether we should accept Aristotle's testimony that Socratic dialogues were first written by the otherwise unknown figure Alexamenus; it seems unlikely that a person who made such a contribution should be so obscure. What is not in doubt, however, is the sudden and late appearance of prose dialogue in Greek literature, as well as the role that Socrates played in the first specimens of the genre.