A Stroll Through Ancient Athens

After their initial discussion, Socrates and Hippocrates go to Callias’ house, where Protagoras stays. Here they have to persuade a doorkeeper (‘who, because of the great number of sophists… had taken a disliking to visitors’, comments Socrates (Plato, Protagoras 314d)) to let them in. Once inside, walking and talking in a courtyard, they encounter Athens’ high society, at least the part with time on their hand. They all dropped in to hear Protagoras talk. The encounters described in the dialogues have a small-town feeling; people just meet on the street or informally in their houses and talk. However, at the time of the Dialogues, Athens was the biggest city in Greece, with maybe 40,000 people living in the city and 25,000 more in Piraeus (Morris, 2005, p. 15). The participants in the Dialogues were members of the upper class with time on their hands and an interest in… <a href="https://medium.com/rambles-through-history-and-philosophy/a-stroll-through-ancient-athens-696bf6724571">Read More</a>