Abstract

At Phaedo 59b Echecrates asks Phaedo who was present on the day when Socrates drank the hemlock in prison. Various Athenians are named, then various foreigners, but when Echecrates subsequently asks if two other foreigners, Aristippus and Cleombrotus, were present, Phaedo replies that they were said to be in Aegina. After this fleeting reference to Cleombrotus, Plato does not mention him again in the Phaedo or any other dialogue; and yet in later antiquity a certain Cleombrotus of Ambracia rose to fame in connection with the Phaedo. Callimachus is our earliest source for the anecdote which immortalized the Ambracian : Επας ‘Ἥλιε αρε’ Κλεμβρτος μβρακιτης λατ' φ' Ψηλο τεεος ες δην, ζιον οδν δν θαντου κακν, λλ Πλτωνος ν τ περ Ψυς γρμμ' ναλεζμενος.