How The Works of Cicero drew on Phaedrus
A documented line of influence: Marcus Tullius Cicero demonstrably engaged Plato’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Phaedrus
Plato · c. 370 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Works of Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero · c. 50 BCE
Ancient RomeRelevance
8/10
On The Works of Cicero’s page
- De Oratore names its source out loud: a character points to "Socrates as he appears in the Phaedrus of Plato" and asks why they shouldn't do the same
- Cicero even translated bits of the Phaedrus into Latin himself, citing them in his Orator
- Read Plato first and the plane-tree staging, the leisurely setting, the whole shape of Cicero's rhetorical dialogues stops feeling like decoration and starts reading as homage
On Phaedrus’s page
- The dialogue Cicero couldn't stop imitating — he opens De Oratore under a plane tree and has a character ask outright, "why do we not imitate Socrates as he appears in the Phaedrus of Plato?"
- Cicero translated passages of the Phaedrus directly, quoting them in his Orator
- Plato's roadside conversation on rhetoric and the soul became the Roman model for how a serious dialogue should sound and where it should sit