From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordAthena’s removal of mist from Diomedes’ eyes supplies the final image of educational preparation.
- In Alcibiades IIThe allusion occurs precisely when Alcibiades asks who will educate him.
- In this editionNote 40 identifies Iliad 5.127–128.
- A place to readThe joint-inquiry phrase echoes Diomedes’ call for a companion, according to note 6.
Meaning
Athena’s removal of mist from Diomedes’ eyes supplies the final image of educational preparation. The quoted purpose is that he should distinguish god and man. Socrates transfers the image from heroic eyesight to Alcibiades’ soul and from those objects of recognition to bad and good.
Use in the book
The allusion occurs precisely when Alcibiades asks who will educate him. Instead of naming the man, Socrates describes a preliminary task by comparison with Athena. The mist must first be removed; only then can further things be applied that enable good discrimination. The sequence marks a preparation for instruction rather than an assertion that merely hearing the image has already cured Alcibiades.
The comparison does not require the educator to be a god. Athena supplies an analogy for enabling clearer judgement, while the prospective teacher is called the man who cares about Alcibiades. Identifying that man with Socrates is plausible in the scene but remains inferential. An imported revelation by a later religious saviour would move beyond both the wording and the edition’s explanation.
Diomedes is also present indirectly in the earlier invitation to inquiry at 140a. The edition hears the Iliadic tag about two going together, adapted so that the two are looking into a question. The pair of allusions supports cooperative perception: one passage needs a companion, the other the removal of an impediment. Neither promises that isolated confidence is enough.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Note 40 identifies Iliad 5.127–128. The dialogue changes Athena’s first-person announcement into third-person report and reuses the epic formula for knowing bad and good. Note 6 places the earlier companion tag at Iliad 10.224. These are distinct episodes, not one continuous scene retold here.