Abstract

The thesis begins by introducing a vocabulary and a theoretical framework for thinking about the portrayal of moments of extraordinary human performance and achievement. Several examples from ancient texts--all involving a ritual context--are presented and certain recurring conceptual elements are elucidated These are found to entail the evocation of the moment in strongly visual terms. An analogy is drawn to the modern photograph and the psychology of the moment which it captures and in which it is taken. This framework is then applied to Book One of Plato's Republic and to his presentation of Sokrates there and elsewhere within the framework of traditional institutional roles. ;The opening of Book Two of the Republic presents the conversation of Book One as a prooimion. The implication of this designation in terms of the traditions of epic and hymnic performance are explored, along with the concomitant implication of Sokrates as an object of hymnic praise. Subsequent chapters delineate Plato's schematic portrayal of Sokrates as a sophos, a goes, and as a latter day usurper of many of the characteristics and social functions of the Delphic Oracle. ;Finally, Plato's suggestion of Sokrates' role in the politics and cultural politics of late fifth-century Athens is explored with particular attention to those aspects of Sokrates' influence and paideusis which are associated with the ideology of the hearth. Discussion of the relative emphasis on epichoric and pan-Hellenic perspectives is a theme which pervades the whole