The Alcibiades was widely read in antiquity as the very best introduction to Plato. In spite of its ancient reputation, many modern scholars have thought that the Alcibiades is not by Plato and it has therefore lacked a decent commentary. This edition remedies that situation. The notes explain difficulties of linguistic, literary and philosophical detail. The introduction includes a discussion of the dialogue's authenticity, and of the consequences that acknowledging its authenticity has for our conception of Plato's intellectual development.

The Protagoras is one of Plato's most entertaining dialogues. It represents Socrates at a gathering of the most celebrated and highest-earning intellectuals of the day, among them the sophist Protagoras. In flamboyant displays of both rhetoric and dialectic, Socrates and Protagoras try to out-argue one another. Their arguments range widely, from political theory to literary criticism, from education to the nature of cowardice; but in view throughout this literary and philosophical masterpiece are the questions of what part knowledge plays in a successful life, and how we may acquire the...