The work is placed chronologically between Plato's first and middle dialogues. Its dramatic action can be established between 420 and 404 BC. (Guthrie 1975: 267). The dialogue is a long speech by Socrates, who reports to his friend Kriton the verbal struggle he had with two Sufi-panocratic brothers who came to Athens from Thourioi - Dionysodorus and Euthydes. The places commented on are taken from the two sophisms of Dionysodorus, in which the eloquent boxer plays on the ambiguity of grammar (the first sophism) and on expressions with possessive pronouns (the second sophism). For general comments on sophisms, see Chance (1992), Palpacelli (2009), among others.

Text based on the Méridier edition (1931a).

Euthydemus 301c-d:

This passus is an enumeration of the tasks of the magejros (mageiros), butcher and cook in one, whose participation in blood sacrifice resulted from his very nature (see Berthiaume 1982).

τί δέ, σφάττειν τε καὶ ἐκδέρειν τὰ μικρὰ κρέα κατακόψαντα ἕψειν καὶ ὀπτᾶν; [301d] μάγειρον, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ.

And who butchers, skins and, after cutting the meat into pieces, cooks and roasts it? [The butcher, I replied.

Mageiros is mentioned in a row with the blacksmith and the potter, which seems to confirm Berthiaume's (1982: 12-14) supposition that in the fifth century we can already speak of a trained profession accompanying the butcher's sacrifices. Significantly, the Sophist does not say that the butcher's tasks include animal sacrifice (thyein), but rather lists a series of activities whose nature must be considered technical, with slaughtering (sphattein) in first place. This allows us to better understand the relationship in which the verbs sphattein (= sphazein) and thyein remain in relation to each other ('Σφάζω s'oppose à θύω, non plus comme un rite à l'ensemble, mais comme un terme techinque à un terme général', Casabona 1966: 335; see also Henrichs 2012: 186).

Euthydemus 301e-302a:

The passus derives from the second sophism of Dionysodorus, which exploits the ambiguity of possessive pronouns.

ἆρ᾽ οὖν, ἔφη, ταῦτα ἡγῇ σὰ εἶναι, ὧν ἂν ἄρξῃς καὶ ἐξῇ [302a] σοι αὐτοῖς χρῆσθαι ὅτι ἂν βούλῃ; οἷον βοῦς καὶ πρόβατον, ἆρ᾽ ἂν ἡγοῖο ταῦτα σὰ εἶναι, ἅ σοι ἐξείη καὶ ἀποδόσθαι καὶ δοῦναι καὶ θῦσαι ὅτῳ βούλοιο θεῶν; ἃ δ᾽ ἂν οὕτως ἔχῃ, οὐ σά;

Do you then consider these things, he says, as your own, over which you have control and with which you can do what you will? Take, for example, an ox or a sheep. Do you consider them yours, which you can give and give and sacrifice to any god you wish? What about those you cannot, because they are not yours?

Here Dionysodoros establishes the meaning of the possessive pronoun that crowns his sophism: since to have is to be able to sell et cetera, then whoever has natives can sell them et cetera (302d-303a; cf. Parker 2005: 22-23). Interestingly, he uses the example of cattle, and the enumeration of the possibilities open to the owner of a sheep or an ox gives the impression of being paragmatic: to use one's animal as one pleases is to do precisely one of these three things with it: to sell it, to give it to someone, or to sacrifice it to any god (Dionysodoros repeats this fraction in 302e). This last item on the list can be regarded as the equivalent of killing an animal in order to eat it - after all, many animals were bred for this very purpose. Detienne believed that the entire meat eaten by the Greeks came from sacrifices ('toute viand consumble doit venir d'une mise à mort rituelle', Detienne 1979a: 21), it seems, however, that in such a radical formulation the thesis is untenable. See Ekroth (2007), Parker (2011: 131). In interpreting Dionysodorus' claim, we can take into account the way Plato treated sacrificial issues in his other dialogues. Thus, the sophist does not list all the things we can do with our possessions (the list would be too long and would serve no purpose), but his examples are not even three chosen at random from a multitude of possibilities. What Dionysodoros gives are three modes of giving: one can 'give-as-merce' (indicated by the verb ἀποδίδομαι, 'sell'), 'give-as-things' (non-natively, hence the generic δίδωμι) or 'give-as-gift' (θύω). Such a reading of the passage requires the assumption of a direct association of the words θύειν and δώρεισθαι in the minds of the Greeks, and the consensus developing among scholars in recent years seems to be moving towards confirming this hypothesis (see Parker 2011; Naiden 2013). No doubt such an association existed in the mind of at least one Greek - Plato. We find traces of such thinking about sacrifice in several dialogues (Euthyphro 14a-15b, Politics 290c-d), but we can only identify it with certainty with Plato's own views in the Laws (716c-717a), where donation becomes a metonymy for the whole cult of the gods. The philosopher states there that the best thing for a good man is θύειν καὶ προσομιλεῖν ἀεὶ τοῖς θεοῖς εὐχαῖς καὶ ἀναθήμασιν καὶ συμπάσῃ θεραπείᾳ θεῶν ("offering sacrifices and having constant dealings with the gods through prayers, offerings and all the worship of the gods", 716d), while the opposite is true of the wicked; for from a defiled man (μιαρός) neither another man nor a god can 'receive gifts' properly (716e-717a).