Not Yet Three Years
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Apollodorus — σαφὲς ὁ διηγούμενος, εἰ νεωστὶ ἡγῇ τὴν συνουσίαν γεγονέναι ταύτην ἣν ἐρωτᾷς, ὥστε καὶ ἐμὲ παραγενέσθαι. ἐγώ γε δή, ἔφη. πόθεν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὦ Γλαύκων; οὐκ οἶσθʼ ὅτι πολλῶν ἐτῶν Ἀγάθων ἐνθάδε οὐκ ἐπιδεδήμηκεν, ἀφʼ οὗ δʼ ἐγὼ Σωκράτει συνδιατρίβω καὶ ἐπιμελὲς πεποίημαι ἑκάστης ἡμέρας εἰδέναι ὅτι ἂν λέγῃ ἢ πράττῃ, οὐδέπω τρία ἔτη ἐστίν;
clear — the one telling it, if you think this gathering you are asking about took place recently, so that even I could have been there. I certainly do, he said. How so, said I, Glaucon? Don't you know that for many years Agathon has not been in residence here, and that since I have been spending my days with Socrates and have made it my concern every day to know whatever he says or does, it is not yet three years?
The section opens in the middle of a sentence Apollodorus began at the end of 172b — 'your man seems to have told you nothing …' — and finishes it: nothing clear. He then dates the party out of living memory, names the friend who stopped him in the street (Glaucon, at last), and states the only credential he has for telling the story.
The other half of the date is a self-portrait. Syndiatribō is not 'I know Socrates' but something closer to 'I wear the days away beside him', built on diatribē, the time you spend rather than the knowledge you acquire; and Apollodorus adds that he has made it epimeles — a standing charge, the thing that concerns him — to find out each day whatever Socrates says or does. That is his whole qualification, and he has held it for less than three years. He was not at the party; he was not even following Socrates when it happened. What he offers instead is an attention so complete it has no other content. The Phaedrus opens with the same figure seen from the other side: Phaedrus has spent a whole morning with one speech of Lysias and has nearly got it by heart (228a–b), and Socrates teases him into producing it from under his cloak. Plato likes to show us the enthusiast before he shows us the doctrine.
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