There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of the
generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically attributes to
his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be
taken. This is said to have happened 'last year' (B.C. 406), and therefore
the assumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates
would already have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is
scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the 'recent'
usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413; and still less
with the 'recent' death of Pericles, who really died twenty-four years
previously (429 B.C.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a
past age; or with the mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is
nevertheless spoken of as a living witness. But we shall hereafter have
reason to observe, that although there is a general consistency of times
and persons in the Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an
invention of his commentators (Preface to Republic).

The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly
characteristic declaration of Socrates that he is ignorant of the true
nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time that
no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The
profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively
Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the fundamental
truths of morality. He evidently regards this 'among the multitude of
questions' which agitate human life 'as the principle which alone remains
unshaken.' He does not insist here, any more than in the Phaedo, on the
literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of the doctrine which
is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than suffering, and that a
man should be rather than seem; for the next best thing to a man's being
just is that he should be corrected and become just; also that he should