Menexenus (dialogue)

Part of the series on: The Dialogues of Plato

Early dialogues:

Apology – Charmides – Crito

Euthyphro – First Alcibiades

Hippias Major – Hippias Minor

Ion – Laches – Lysis

Transitional & middle dialogues:

Cratylus – Euthydemus – Gorgias

Menexenus – Meno – Phaedo

Protagoras – Symposium

Later middle dialogues:

Republic – Phaedrus

Parmenides – Theaetetus

Late dialogues:

Clitophon – Timaeus – Critias

Sophist – Statesman

Philebus – Laws

Of doubtful authenticity:

Axiochus – Demodocus

Epinomis – Epistles – Eryxias

Halcyon – Hipparchus – Minos

On Justice – On Virtue

Rival Lovers – Second Alcibiades

Sisyphus – Theages

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The Menexenus (Greek: Μενέξενоς) is a Socratic dialogue of Plato, traditionally included in the seventh tetralogy along with the Greater and Lesser Hippias and the Ion. The characters are Socrates and Menexenus, who is not to be confused with Socrates' son Menexenus. The Menexenus of Plato's dialogue appears also in his Lysis and the Phaedo. In the Lysis, he is identified as the "son of Demophon" (207b).

The Menexenus consists mainly of a lengthy funeral oration, satirizing the one given by Pericles in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. In this way the Menexenus is unique among the Platonic dialogues, in that the actual 'dialogue' serves primarily as exposition for the oration. For this reason, perhaps, the Menexenus has come under some suspicion of illegitimacy.

Perhaps the most interest in the Menexenus stems from the fact that it is one of the few extant sources on the practice of Athenian funeral oratory, even though it is a parody thereof.

Translations

• Plato, Appendix, Introduction, & English translation by Benjamin Jowett (~1892), – Project Gutenberg EBook (English) — Same  Menexenus. Wikisource. 
• Plato, Annotated English translation by Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 (1925), Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., – Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (English)
• Plato, Audio Book(s) - English translation by Benjamin Jowett, – Internet Archive, Community Audio, mp3 (64kp/128kp/Ogg Vorbis) (English)
• Plato, Ancient Greek, – Poesia latina, Greco interattivo (Ancient Greek)
• Schofield, Malcolm (edt); translations by Tom Griffith (2009) (in English). Plato: Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought). Cambridge University Press. pp. 264. ISBN 9780521837293. 

Further reading

• Collins, Susan D.; Stauffer, Devin (1999). "The Challenge of Plato's 'Menexenus'". The Review of Politics 61 (1): 85–115. doi:10.1017/S003467050002814X. 
• Coventry, Lucinda (1989). "Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Menexenus". Journal of Hellenic Studies (The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies) 109: 1–15. doi:10.2307/632028. JSTOR 632028. 
• Kahn, Charles H. (1963). "Plato's Funeral Oration: The Motive of the Menexenus". Classical Philology 58 (4): 220–234. doi:10.1086/364821. 
• Monoson, S. Sara (1998). "Remembering Pericles: The Political and Theoretical Import of Plato's Menexenus". Political Theory 26 (4): 489–513. doi:10.1177/0090591798026004003. 
• Rosenstock, Bruce (1994). "Socrates as Revenant: A Reading of the Menexenus". Phoenix (Classical Association of Canada) 48 (4): 331–347. doi:10.2307/1192572. JSTOR 1192572.