The Apology of Plato

Extract

I wish to reply to the attack on my book, The Composition of Plato's Apology, which you have seen fit to publish over the signature G. T. in the last issue of JHS. (liv, p. 225). The general purport of the review is that I have invented a non-existent problem, and that the solutions of it, in general and in particular, which I have offered are misconceived and can be lightly dismissed. The writer's view, I gather, is that the Apology is throughout a substantial reproduction of Socrates' actual speech, from which nothing has been subtracted and to which nothing has been added; this at least appears to be meant by the words ‘ When he wrote the Apology, his motive was—why not?—to tell the truth.’ Now it is perfectly legitimate to believe that: what is illegitimate is to represent it as a fact which no one but a fool could question. Any well-informed student of Plato must know that competent critics from the days of Dionysius of Halicarnassus to those of Wilamowitz, J. B. Bury and Gilbert Murray, have been unable to accept it; there have been, indeed, as I pointed out in my preface, all shades of opinion expressed on this question. To disregard this fact, which is surely a material fact for a reviewer, betrays either astonishing ignorance or an arrogant and impudent dogmatism.