In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to public
opinion, the Gorgias most nearly resembles the Apology, Crito, and portions
of the Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another point of view,
may be thought to stand in the same relation to Plato's theory of morals
which the Theaetetus bears to his theory of knowledge.

d. A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant
irony in the reason which is assigned for the pilot's modest charge; and in
the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of self-condemnation; and in
the mighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds. (2) The reference
of the mythus to the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the
fate reserved for incurable criminals such as Archelaus; the retaliation of
the box on the ears; the nakedness of the souls and of the judges who are
stript of the clothes or disguises which rhetoric and public opinion have
hitherto provided for them (compare Swift's notion that the universe is a
suit of clothes, Tale of a Tub). The fiction seems to have involved Plato
in the necessity of supposing that the soul retained a sort of corporeal
likeness after death. (3) The appeal of the authority of Homer, who says
that Odysseus saw Minos in his court 'holding a golden sceptre,' which
gives verisimilitude to the tale.

It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing 'both sides of the
game,' and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus, we are
not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only attempting to
analyze the 'dramatis personae' as they were conceived by him. Neither is
it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato is a dramatic
writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be those which he
puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who appears to have
the best of the argument; or to repeat the observation that he is a poet as