A strange appearance: the opening issue and the socratic issue opened in Plato’s Protagoras

Abstract

Along the following lines a dramatic analysis of the sudden appearence of Socrates at the opening of Plato’s Protagoras is carried out starting from the initial question, the one with which the event is immediately indicated: «Where do you appear from, Socrates?» (309a1). The dialogue opens with the exclamation of an unkown character as a result of having noticed the advent of Socrates. Calling him, the character asks with some disbelief for the origin, the motivation and the circumstances of his appearance. The curiosity and the suspicion raised by the strangeness of the occasion require from Socrates a clarification and explanation about the affairs he is busy with in the city; in other words, it compels Socrates to get rid of the bad reputation he is starting to have and publicly present his service to his fellow citizens. The whole of it, set around 433 b. C., as soon as Socrates begins to get involved with the promising youth of Athens, when the periclean Athens was at its splendour but also at the threshold of its decline, takes a special meaning and leads us to read the Protagoras as a retrospective of the issue about the goodness of the activity of Socrates in the city.

Key words: Plato; Protagoras; Socrates; opening scene; first words.