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About MENEXENUS

typically included in the seventh tetralogy. Socrates and Menexenus, not to be confused with Socrates' son Menexenus, are the speakers. Plato's dialogue Menexenus also appears in the Lysis and the Phaedo, where he is referred to be the "son of Demophon." The Menexenus is primarily a long funeral oration, modelled after Pericles' oration in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates delivers a speech to Menexenus that he claims he learnt from Aspasia, Pericles' consort and a notable female Athenian scholar.

Socrates meets Menexenus, who is returning from Athens' Council Chamber, and inquires about what happened there. Menexenus responds that the Council was preparing to bury those who had died in combat and was about to choose someone to deliver the funeral oration, but he is concerned that the orators are unprepared. Socrates claims that a speech like this should not be difficult to write, and that he could have done it himself, having been schooled in these topics by Aspasia herself, who, according to Socrates, has taught the best orator of them all, Pericles, possibly with a sense of humour. Socrates believes that Aspasia had prepared a whole speech and had entrusted it to him.