Socrate, Platone e la tradizione degli esordi apollinei

The traditional role of Apollo as the god of beginnings, both poetic and cultic, arguably shapes the biography of Plato’s Socrates and informs the structure of two such foundational dialogues as the Phaedo and the Phaedrus. In the Phaedo, the Apollonian opening and the closure marked by Apollo’s son Asclepius arguably follow a traditional cultic pattern, which highlights a parallel between Socrates’ conversion to the life of philosophy as reported in the Apology and the poetic conversion, recounted in the Phaedo, where Socrates suddenly becomes a poet. The structure of the Phaedrus, in turn, can be read against the Apollonian motto γνῶθι σεαυτόν, the quotation of which at 229e-230a can be better appreciated in light of two probable references, hitherto unnoticed, to the Hymn to Apollo and to a para-etymology aimed at explaining the god’s name. In the Phaedrus, the Apollonian quest leads Socrates to discover in himself the germs of the poetic conversion he experiences in the Phaedo, something that foreshadows Plato’s own writing.