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Setting and dramatis personae

The scene of the dialogue is the house of Polemarchus at Piraeus, a city-port connected to Athens by the Long Walls. Socrates was not known to venture outside Athens regularly. The whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place - possibly to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias and another unnamed person, but this interpretation is somewhat uncertain.^[5]

Characters

• Socrates(Σωκράτης), the protagonist
• Cephalus, an elderly arms manufacturer;^[6] appears only in the introduction
• Thrasymachus, a Chalcedonian sophist
• Glaucon, son of Ariston
• Adeimantus, son of Ariston
• Polemarchus, son of Cephalus
• Cleitophon, son of Aristonymus
• Charmantides, a Paeanian (silent)
• Lysias, son of Cephalus (silent)
• Euthydemus, son of Cephalus (silent)
• Niceratus, son of Nicias (silent)

In addition to the named characters, there are several members of the Piraean religious procession present.