6 Catherine Zuckert,Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2009), 205.
7 Gene Fendt,“Five Readings of‘Euthyphro,’”Philosophy and Literature38 (2014): 496. The title of
Fendt’s article is itself an indication of a joke: five ways of reading the dialog, not just one, the right way,
which the author provides? Likewise, Patterson argues“Euthyphro:::appears comic all around.”Richard
Patterson,“The Platonic Art of Comedy and Tragedy,”Philosophy and Literature6 (1982): 82.
8 Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith,“Socrates’First Remarks to the Jury in Plato’s‘Apology of
Socrates,’”The Classical Journal81/4 (1986): 289–98; and theirSocrates on Trial, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1989), 38. See also Jacob Howland,“Plato’s‘Apology’as Tragedy,”The Review of
Politics70 (2008): 519–46.
9 William Chase Greene,“The Spirit of Comedy in Plato,”Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 31
(1920): 63; Diskin Clay,“The Tragic and Comic Poets of the‘Symposium,’”Arion: A Journal of
Humanities and the Classics2 (1975): 252; Diskin Clay,“The Origins of the Socratic Dialogue,”in
The Socratic Movement, Paul A. Vander Waerdt, ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 23–47.
The ancient source for this information is Diogenes Laertius: see Charles H. Kahn,“Did Plato Write
Socratic Dialogues,”The Classical Quarterly31 (1981): 305–20.
10 Notably David Leibowitz,The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s“Apology”(Cambridge: Cambridge
UniversityPress,2010) and Strauss, upon whom Leibowitz in some respects relies. Leo Strauss’“The
Problem of Socrates,”inThe Rebirth of Classical Rationalism,Thomas L. Pangle, ed. (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1989), 103–83,“On Plato’s‘Apology of Socrates’and‘Crito,’”inStudies in
Platonic Political Philosophy,Thomas L. Pangle, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983),
38 – 66, and the transcript of his class on theApologygiven in the fall of 1966. Available at: https://
leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/Plato%27s%20Apology%20%26%20Crito%20%
281966%29_0.pdf. In hisPlato’s“Apology of Socrates:”An Interpretation with a New Translation
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), Thomas G. West remarks on the“almost tragic”figure of Socrates
(p. 77) but also notes several allusions to jokes and comedy (pp. 74, 76, 100, 104, 145, 147–8, 177, 202,
220 – 1, 223, 225).
11 Ann N. Michelini,“Socrates Plays the Buffoon: Cautionary Protreptic in the‘Euthydemus,’”The
American Journal of Philology121 (2000): 514.
12 Roger Brock,“Plato and Comedy,”in“Owls to Athens”:Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir
Kenneth Dover, E.M. Craik, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 40; Greene,“The Spirit of Comedy in Plato,”
67, 72, 123.
13 Henri Bergson,Le Rire: Essai sur la Signification du Comique,inOeuvres complètes de Henri Bergson,
vol. 3, (Genève: Skira, 1945), 110.
14 Arlene Saxonhouse,Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 110.
15 Saxonhouse,Free Speech and Democracy,116–7; 82. Drew E. Griffin“Socrates’Poverty: Virtue and
Money in Plato’s‘Apology of Socrates,’”AncientPhilosophy 15 (1995): 1 points out that Socrates drew
attention to his conventionally shameful poverty three times (Apology, 23b–c; 31c; 36d).
16 For“historical”accounts, see M.I. Finley,“Socrates and Athens,”in hisAspects of Antiquity: Discoveries
and Controversies(New York: Viking, 1968), 58–72; Paul Millett,“The Trial of Socrates Revisited,”
European Review of History12 (2005): 23–62.
17 On Xenophon’s subtlety see Leo Strauss,“The Problem of Socrates,”127 ff., 136; Thomas L. Pangle’s
account, which emphasizes Xenophon’s“characteristic deftness,”“The Political Defense of Socratic
Philosophy: A Study of Xenophon’s‘Apology of Socrates,’”Polity18 (1985): 98–114; Kazutaka Kondo,
“Reputation and Virtue: The Political Achievement of Socrates in Xenophon’s‘Apology,’”Interpretation
42 (2015): 31–50; V.J. Gray,“Xenophon’s Defence of Socrates: The Rhetorical Background to the Socratic
Problem,”The Classical Quarterly39 (1989): 136–40.
18 Strauss,“The Problem of Socrates,”106. For anecdotes concerning Plato and Socrates, see Alice Swift
Riginos,Platonica: The Anecdotes Concerning the Life and Writings of Plato(Leiden: Brill, 1976), 52–60.
19 Strauss,On Tyranny; Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000), 28.
20 This is a paraphrase of Leibowitz,The Ironic Defense, 3. It is also a joke.
21 Leon Craig pointed out to me thatdeinosmeans“clever”only when modifying an art or skill; its primary
meaning is“terrible”in the sense of terrifying. Thus when Socrates indicated that he is adeinosspeakerhe
also means that he is a terrifying speaker because he speaks the truth about the received or conventional
stories that constitute the foundation of thepolisand that are expressed by the poets. And regarding the
poets, the only time Socrates says he is ashamed (aischynomai) is when he claims to tell the truth about
them: they do not make their poetry on the basis of wisdom but, rather like Euthyphro, on the basis of
30 Barry Cooper