Writing in the fourth century B.C., in an Athens that had suffered a humiliating defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Plato formulated questions that have haunted the moral, religious, and political imagination of the West for more than 2,000 years: what is virtue? How should we love? What constitutes a good society? Is there a soul that outlasts the body and a truth that transcends appearance? What do we know and how do we know it? Plato's inquiries were all the more resonant because he couched them in the form of dramatic and often highly comic dialogues, whose principal personage was the ironic, teasing, and relentlessly searching philosopher Socrates.In this splendid collection, Scott Buchanan brings together the most important of Plato's dialogues, including Protagoras, The Symposium, with its barbed conjectures about the relation between love and madness, Phaedo and The Republic, his monumental work of political philosophy. Buchanan's learned and engaging introduction allows us to see Plato both as a commentator on his society and as a shaper of the societies that followed, who bequeathed to us a hunger for the ideal as well as a redeeming habit of humane skepticism.

In this new edition, two of Plato's most accessible dialogues explore the question of what exactly makes good people good.This lively and accessible new translation conveys the literary elegance and subtle humor of Plato's original dialoguesIncludes suggestions for further reading, a glossary, and explanatory notesAbout the AuthorPlato (c. 427–347 b.c.) founded the Academy in Athens, the prototype of all Western universities, and wrote more than twenty philosophical dialogues.Adam Beresford teaches philosophy and classics at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.Lesley Brown is Centenary Fellow in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford.

At the Great Festival, Elsu woos the beautiful Kai and swears a rash vow to win Kai's hand. Now Elsu and his best friend sail to the forbidden sunken city of Angor Drava to steal the eyes from a statue. But a terrible and deadly evil awaits them in the dark water.On another world, another time, at the Great Festival of Ascension, the young chieftain Elsu woos a beautiful maiden named Kai. She accepts his proposal, but a misunderstanding causes Elsu to swear a rash vow to win her hand. Now Elsu, together with Bane, his best friend, and Kai, sail to the forbidden sunken city of Angor Drava, lost beneath the waves a thousand years before, to steal the diamond eyes from a statue. But Bane harbors secrets and Elsu refuses to believe warnings of a terrible evil dwelling in the temple.

The trial and death of Socrates (469-399 BCE) have almost as central a place in Western consciousness as the trial and death of Jesus. In four superb dialogues, Plato provides the classic account.