Commentary on the First Alcibiades

Olympiodorus · Michael Griffin

Now then, the target (skopos) of the present dialogue, according to Proclus, is self-knowledge: and this is confirmed by a plurality of arguments. [5] First by the title: for the dialogue is entitled the ‘Greater Alcibiades, or On the Nature of a Human Being’. (It is ‘greater’ since there is another ‘lesser’ Alcibiades by Plato, just as there is a ‘greater’ and a ‘lesser’ Hippias). Next [he establishes that the target is something like this] on the basis of certain expressions in the dialogue; for example, it is stated in it ‘But, my good [10] friend, being persuaded by me and by the inscription at Delphi, “Know Thyself”. ’ And in addition in the dialogue before us the following three designations are distinguished: ‘me’, ‘what belongs to me’, and ‘what belongs to my belongings’. And [he argues] from the statement that all who were in love with the body of Alcibiades did not love …

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