Charmides

Key Facts

full title  ·  Charmides

author  ·  Plato

language  ·  Ancient Greek

time and place written  ·  Athens, c.380 B.C. (exact year unknown)

speaker  ·  Socrates (469–399 B.C.), Plato's mentor.

other main characters  ·  Charmides and Critias.

translation used in this note  ·  Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press (1994).

setting  ·  A palaestra in Athens.

primary topic of the dialogue  ·  Temperance (sophrosyne)

other topics  ·  Passionate desire, self-knowledge, the ideal state.

conclusion to the dialogue  ·  Aporia; nothing is decided.