The medism and death of Pausanias, the son of Kleombrotos, is an old problem that is still with us. The chief source is Thucydides, who devotes a digression (1.128-38) to the parallel lives of Pausanias and Themistokles. Thucydides generally repressed his interest in biography, as Gomme once observed, remarking that in this, more than anything else, he showed his determination not to write like Herodotus, and not to beguile his readers with what was merely attractive. But at 1.128-38, he writes in a Herodotean vein, employing a style which shows marked differences with the rest of the History, and some lack of critical judgement in evaluating his evidence. There is much truth in Meiggs’ remark that ‘had Thucydides’ account been written by any other Greek historian, it would not have been taken seriously.’

Thucydides’ best known digression (1.89-118), constructed as a selective sequence of incidents illustrating the growth of tension between Athens and Sparta, was itself prefaced by a summary of how Athens came to be in a position to threaten Spartan power; the Athenians had converted an alliance into an empire. Why, and how, she did so was incidental to the main subject of the digression, and so with admirable brevity Thucydides covers this phase in just four chapters (1.96-99), mentioning just a few incidents to document the change; the four chapters cover a time span of ten years. The first of these chapters contains a sketch of the administrative arrangements made by the allies for continuing the war under Athenian leadership after the Spartans and their allies had withdrawn from further operations.

Two hundred years ago, at the very dawn of modern Platonic studies, W.G. Tennemann built his System of Platonic Philosophy around the assumption that the Phaedrus belongs to Plato’s later works. His name and his opus may have been forgotten, yet the shadow of his picture of Plato still hangs over current interpretations. For example, it was he who excised the historical Socrates from the dialogue and deprived of its Socratic character the discussion of the relative merits of the spoken and the written word. In the dialogue the spoken word is a proper vehicle for philosophy, for moral and intellectual growth and elevation, and the written word is its pale derivative with nothing truly positive to offer; stripped of its Socratic ‘veneer’, this view of the relative merits of language and writing had to be reinterpreted. Tennemann understands the criticism of the written word as an indication that Plato must already have published dialogues which had encountered a negative response: an important point for him, since he was the first to dismiss the ancient tradition that viewed the dialogue as Plato’s first. In the second half of the twentieth century G.E.L. Owen similarly deduces from it the dating of the dialogue, but he takes the disparagement of the written word as Plato’s self-criticism.

Towards the end of the first extended discussion of poetry in the Republic, Socrates and Adeimantus formulate criteria for the admission of poets into their ideal state. Dramatists are clearly excluded, but the acceptable poet is enigmatically described, according to the usual translation, as ‘the unmixed imitator of the good man’ (, 397d), and as ‘one who will imitate for us the speech of the good man’ (, 398b). ‘Imitation’ has been earlier so defined that it applies to direct impersonation such as is found in drama and the speeches of epic, and accordingly it might seem that, as an imitator, he should be himself a dramatist. This however is ruled out by the run of the argument, which requires us to associate him with a style which contains but little impersonation (396e). On the other hand, if a non-dramatic poet is in view, it seems paradoxical to call him an imitator when imitation has been defined in the way that it has.

The socio-economic composition of the assembly and the law-courts in the period from the mid-fifth century to 322 B.C. constitutes one of the most intractable problems in the history of Athenian public life. The difficulties arise from two major sources: the paucity and the character of the evidence, and the possible range of variables that may have affected participation in the Ekklesia and the Dikasteria.