How to use these pages

From the "home page" (or from here to begin with), you may want to read, the first time around, the introductory material on Plato (A short biography of Plato) and his works (A list of Plato's works), and the brief history of interpretation of these works. But whether you read these pages or not, you should read the section presenting the new hypotheses here introduced, because they govern the reading of all the dialogues.

There, you will find out that the dialogues are presented in tetralogies (not the traditional ones attributed to Thrasyllus, though). From there on, the map of the dialogues becomes the "switchboard" to further reading (the primary version of it uses HTML 3 table markup, but a version using only HTML 2 markup, called the "non tabular version" in later references, is available if your browser doesn't support table markup). From it, you may go first to an overview of the whole set (we recommend that you read it first), then to general introductions to each tetralogy, and eventually to comments on individual dialogues, and follow the links from general introductions to each dialogues to more specific topics.

Not all the pages will be ready at the same time, so for a while, some pages will not be available. The map of the dialogues will only show as links the titles of tetralogies and dialogues for which a comment is available, though a frame is there for all of them and might be reached from other links. Please be patient and come back from time to time if you enjoyed the first trip through.

In the introductory page of each dialogue, a link is available to the Greek text and a translation of it in English in the Perseus digital library of ancient Greek texts, for those who might want to consult it. The Perseus text help page gives instructions on how to display the Greek texts with Greek characters or Latin characters, depending on what you choose. Links from specific quotations within the text of these pages are also provided (to the English text when the quotation is not provided in the comment, to the Greek text if the quotation is provides in English in the comment). Unless otherwise specified, quotations in English are my translations.

A subset of the site called the Tools section provides context and perspective on the time in which Socrates and Plato lived and maps of ancient Greece and the Greek world in their time. An index of persons and locations lists all people and places for which there is an entry at the site. These entries provide biographical information on people of interest in reading the dialogues (politicians, artists, philosophers, characters from mythology, etc.) and mythological and historical information on cities and places of ancient Greece located on the various maps. Each entry for a location includes a clickable minimap locating the place and linking to a full size map including it.

In all pages, the picture of Plato is clickable and gets you back to the home page.

Readers are encouraged to send their comments, criticism and questions to the author through e-mail. Each page contains a clickable mention of the author's name at the top and bottom of it, that can be used to open a mailto: window, if your browser supports this facility ; it also shows the author's e-mail address next to it, for you to copy into your mail software, if it doesn't.

As indicated in the home page, these pages are best viewed with a screen resolution of 800x600 and 64K colors (true RBG colors), using a browser which can handle HTML 3.2 (such as Netscape Navigator V3).

Plato and his dialogues : Home - Biography - Works and links to them - History of interpretation - New hypotheses - Map of dialogues : table version or non tabular version. Tools : Index of persons and locations - Detailed and synoptic chronologies - Maps of Ancient Greek World. Site information : About the author.

Last updated November 14, 1998
© 1996 Bernard SUZANNE (click on name to send your comments via e-mail)
Quotations from theses pages are authorized provided they mention the author's name and source of quotation (including date of last update). Copies of these pages must not alter the text and must leave this copyright mention visible in full.