INTRODUCTION TO THE SISYPHUS
AND
DEMODOCUS.
Of these dialogues, the former is said by Diogenes Laert., iii. 62, to be decidedly not written by Plato, and was one of those entitled Ἁκέφαλοι, and attributed to Æschines, son of Charinus, the sausage-maker; of whom Socrates remarked, as we learn from Diog. L. ii. 60, that he was the only person who knew how to honour him properly. Now though no reason is there assigned for the remark, it is not difficult to conceive, by comparing what we know of the conduct of some other pupils of Socrates, such as Critias and Alcibiades, and even Plato, that Æschines not only put in practice the precepts of his master, but gave a true representation of his sentiments, without altering them to suit, as Plato did, his own peculiar notions.
With regard to the subject matter of the dialogue, it may be expressed in the words of Xenophon in Cyrop. i. 6, 46, that "the wisdom of man no more knows how to choose what is best, than if a person were to do whatever might arise from the throw of a die;" a passage quoted opportunely by Davies on Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. 35, "Hoc est non considerare, sed quasi sortiri, quid loquare." And it was doubtless from the similarity of subject that Boeckh was led to attribute the Demodocus to the author of the Sisyphus; of which the only separate edition is to be found in my "Plato's Four Dialogues, the Crito, Hippias, Alcibiades, and Sisyphus," published by Valpy in 1831; while the Demodocus is one of the small portions of the Platonic and Pseudo-Platonic writings, that have never appeared in a separate form.
