S.'s edition of Plato's Menexenus in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series is additional evidence of the recent renewed scholarly interest in this uncommon Platonic dialogue, in the wake both of N. Loraux's seminal work (The Invention of Athens: the Funeral Oration in the Classical City [1986]) and critical approaches to it (E. Helmer [ed., French trans.], Ménexène [2019]; H. Parker and J.M. Robitzsch [edd.], Speeches for the Dead: Essays on Plato's Menexenus [2018]; N. Pappas and M. Zelcer, Politics and Philosophy in Plato's Menexenus: Education and Rhetoric, Myth and History [2015]). Like other volumes in the collection, S.'s edition comprises an introduction, Greek text and helpful philological notes.
The introduction's first section consists of a historical survey of the funeral oration in ancient Greece, both as a democratic ceremony and a specific kind of speech. S. notes that there is no archaeological evidence of collective burial of the war dead before the Persian Wars. Mass burial is consistent with Cleisthenes’ reforms to eliminate the potentially destructive aristocratic rivalry. The purpose of the ceremony is then to encourage the belief in the equality of all male Athenian citizens of fighting age.
The second part of this first introductory section briefly reviews the funeral speeches known to us, from Pericles’ in 439 – at least in the version of Thucydides – to Hyperides’ in 322 bc. This kind of speech left no place for inventiveness: it had to express conventional sentiments in attractive language and the idea that the sacrifice made by the dead made them heroes. Pericles’ funeral oration receives special attention, for Plato's funeral oration in the Menexenus is often said to be an imitation of his speech; but Plato's more likely target is less Pericles’ speech in particular than the rhetorical tradition as a whole (p. 8). Gorgias’ funeral oration was probably a piece of display, like the one Lysias – a constant target in many Platonic dialogues – wrote for the dead during the Corinthian War. Demosthenes’ funeral oration in 338 for those who died at Chaeronea, and Hyperides’ oration in 322 for the dead of the Lamian War are mentioned too, with some indications about the issue of their authenticity and stylistic features.
The second section of the introduction focuses on the Menexenus. S. first presents some of the classic issues on this apparently unparalleled Platonic dialogue. Regarding its authenticity, S. clearly epitomises the main arguments (style, anachronisms, ancient verdict, unorthodox Socratic statements) for considering it a fully or partially genuine work or an inauthentic one. According to S. the dialogue in its entirety is a genuine work of Plato (p. 13), as its thematic connections to other Platonic dialogues show. Rhetoric being central to the Menexenus, this dialogue belongs to the group of those that question the relation between mastering this art of language acquired by observation and experience, and the use of such an art for pursuing either wisdom and truth or dangerous seduction, power and domination. Its relation to the Gorgias leads to the conclusion that the Menexenus uses acknowledged techniques of a genre Plato considered flawed, the flaws being left to readers to identify. This feature is also to be found in the Euthydemus regarding the fallacies of Euthydemus’ and Dionysodorus’ arguments, as well as the idea that rhetorical and eristic talents can be acquired only by imitation, without genuine education and true knowledge. Close connections also exist between the Menexenus and the Phaedrus, such as the dramatic context of the discussion between Socrates and a young man and, mostly, Socrates’ rhetorical skills in imitating previously delivered speeches. But in the Menexenus there is neither a palinode nor a philosophical discussion on the soul and its relation to rhetoric, the word ‘psyche’ being significantly absent from the dialogue. As to the well-known anachronisms and historical inaccuracies of the text, they might be understood as a way to highlight the fictive and commonly low rhetorical character of the funeral oration (pp. 16–17).
The second part of this section presents the interlocutors and other figures mentioned in the dialogue. The fictional Socrates is very similar to his portrait in other Platonic dialogues, except that he intriguingly does not urge Menexenus to escape from those speeches. Menexenus, who is present also in the Lysis, is a typical young Athenian from a prominent family, who is about to enter public life, like Glaucon. But contrary to the Republic's deep examination of the ethical and theoretical groundings necessary to be a good ruler, the ‘Menexenus offers neither a critique of Aspasia's rhetoric nor an inducement to Menexenus to abandon his ambition and to pursue a life of philosophy instead’ (p. 26). S. presents Aspasia's polemic and satirised figure in contrast to Diotima in the Symposium, who engages Socrates in dialectic while Aspasia expects her pupil to deliver a slavish imitation of her speech. While Pericles’ mention in the Menexenus echoes his portrait in other Platonic dialogues as a lover of rhetoric and a bad politician, it is unclear why Socrates makes reference to Dion and Archinus (p. 32), who Dion is and what the opposition Socrates draws between Connus and Lamprus as music teachers is supposed to mean (p. 34).
S. provides us with a clear presentation of the Menexenus, and each part of the introduction sums up some of the main issues at stake in modern academic debates on this dialogue. The Greek text is followed by abundant and detailed comments, mostly of a philological nature, with references both to Plato's other dialogues and Greek literature in the broad meaning of the word. They are helpful for a better understanding of the syntax of the Greek text, and they also shed some light on historical events referred to in the funeral oration. Nonetheless, the perspective S. adopts in the introduction leaves some important, if not decisive, aspects untouched. First, the controversial common issue of ‘irony’, ‘parody’ or ‘pastiche’ to characterise the funeral oration of the Menexenus is just referred to, but not addressed as such, at the very end of the introduction (p. 39). Second, it is not only rhetoric that is at stake in this dialogue, but its use in a democratic context. The political dimension of the funeral oration of the Menexenus as controversially mirroring Platonic orthodox views in a democratic frame is key to the dialogue, but this edition does not hint at such a problem. In this respect, saying the central question of the dialogue is whether ‘the funeral oration in Menexenus reflects the sincerely held convictions of its author or, rather, demonstrates its author's ability, regardless of his own beliefs, to articulate the sincerely held convictions of the community at large’ (p. 39) makes the dialogue just a rhetorical exercise and does not do justice to its interwoven philosophical and political dimensions. Another example of this undervaluing perspective can be found in S.'s perplexity at the fact that Socrates does not dissuade Menexenus from a political career (p. 26), when the issue at stake here is precisely, like in the Republic, that of the proper education required to become a good ruler. S.'s edition, however, remains a helpful volume for entering this unique Platonic dialogue.
