Lysias has traditionally been counted among the earliest dialogues to have been written by Plato (cf. D.L. 3.35), some scholars have pointed however, a number of features that link the dialogue to works of the middle period (see Sowa 2007: 3-5). The theme of the dialogue is friendship. From our From our point of view it is interesting only because of the mention The dialogue is the subject of friendship. From our point of view, it is only interesting from the point of view of the mention of Hermay - the festival of boys, which was celebrated in the palestras.

Polish translations: Witwicki (1937), Sowa (2007). Text based on the edition by Burnet (1903).

Lysis 206c–e:

Socrates wants to talk to Lysias. Hippothales advises him on how best to arrange a conversation with the young man.

„ἀλλ᾽ οὐδέν, ἔφη, χαλεπόν. ἂν γὰρ εἰσέλθῃς μετὰ Κτησίππου τοῦδε καὶ καθεζόμενος διαλέγῃ, οἶμαι μὲν καὶ αὐτός σοι πρόσεισι— φιλήκοος γάρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, διαφερόντως [206d] ἐστίν, καὶ ἅμα, ὡς Ἑρμαῖα ἄγουσιν, ἀναμεμειγμένοι ἐν ταὐτῷ εἰσιν οἵ τε νεανίσκοι καὶ οἱ παῖδες.” […] καὶ ἅμα λαβὼν τὸν [206e] Κτήσιππον προσῇα εἰς τὴν παλαίστραν: οἱ δ᾽ ἄλλοι ὕστεροι ἡμῶν ᾖσαν. εἰσελθόντες δὲ κατελάβομεν αὐτόθι τεθυκότας τε τοὺς παῖδας καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰ ἱερεῖα σχεδόν τι ἤδη πεποιημένα, ἀστραγαλίζοντάς τε δὴ καὶ κεκοσμημένους ἅπαντας

"But nothing difficult, he said. If you go there with Ktezypp, sit down and start talking, I think he will approach you himself - for he is immensely fond of listening, [206d] Socrates. And yet, as they have Hermai now, the young men and the kids are mixed together." [...] So I took [206e] Ctesippus with me and went to the palestra, and the others followed us. On entering we saw that the boys had already offered sacrifices and that almost everything at the rite had already been done - everyone was playing so they were all playing dice, festively dressed

206d: Ἑρμαῖα (Hermaja) - the festival of Hermes, common throughout the Greek world (Johnston 2003: 161-162), and until a certain point the only one enjoyed in Athens by this god (Versnel 2011: 351). Hermaja were a festival for young boys attending the palestras, and sporting competitions were an important part of it (Scanlon 2002: 91-92). Hermes did not have his own temple in Athens (although a wooden image of him was located in the time of Pausanias in the temple of Athena Polias, Paus. 1.27.1), and the place where the feast was held was the city's gymnasia (Mikalson 1998: 195, note 78; cf. Aeschin. 1.10). In the Hellenistic period, an official called gymnasiarch (IG II2 1227.7). Christopher Planeaux (2001: 64-66) has suggested that the Hermaja, referred to in the dialogue, took place on the third day of the Antesteria, however, this is an isolated view. Under the name of the Hermaeans, the Athenian cavalry also celebrated another festival of Hermes, attested only in the second century BC. (IG II2 895.5). We also know of an inscription commemorating the victory of Demetrius of Faleron in a chariot race during the Hermes (IG II2 2971.13), probably other than those Plato mentions (Parker 2005: 392, note 23)

206e: τεθυκότας... τὰ περὶ τὰ ἱερεῖα - 'they have already offered sacrifices... at the rite" (literally, "at the sacrificial animals"; the word hiereion is the most general term for a sacrificial animal (Casabona 1966: 31-38). The Athenian Hermes, however, was rarely the recipient of a thysia-type sacrifice (inscriptionally attested is only a thysia for Hermes Hegemonios, IG II² 1496, Mikalson 1975: 145; see also Versnel's remark 2011: 351), so this may refer to a trapezomata-type sacrifice (see Gill 1974; Gill 1991), in which foods were offered to the gods in the form of deposits. These foods eventually went to the temple staff (Gill 1991: 15-19) or were eaten by the sacrificers themselves (when the offering was made in a private setting, see Versnel 2011: 358). The offering of sacrifices of this kind to Hermes in Athens seems to be suggested by a passus in Plutos (1103-1145). There Hermes contrasts himself with the Olympian gods, who feed on the smoke of burnt femurs (see Versnel 2011: 353-357). The diet of Hermes, on the other hand, overlaps with the human diet: it includes ham (1128), offal (1130) or biscuits (1142-1143), which one of the characters was in the habit of offering to Hermes and then eating himself, clearly indicating the trapezomatous model of sacrifice to which he refers. The allusion to trapezomatos for Hermes is found, perhaps, also in Peace 386-387, and the fact that piglets are mentioned there may suggest that domestic sacrifices are meant (public piglet sacrifices to Hermes are not are attested, see Olson 1998: comm. ad loc.). Plato's use of the the verb thyein does not necessarily indicate a thysia-type sacrifice - it is simply the most generalised term meaning 'to offer sacrifice"

Lysis 301e-302a:

The passus comes from Dionysodorus' second sophism, exploiting 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;

So these things," he says, "do you regard as your own, over which you have control, and with which you may [302a] do what you will? Take, for example, an ox or a sheep. Do you consider these to be yours, which you can both sell, and give, and sacrifice to whichever god you wish? And those which you cannot, for not yours?

In this place Dionysodoros establishes the meaning of the possessive pronoun that will crown his sophism: since to have is to be able to sell et cetera, then anyone who has native gods can sell them et cetera (302d-303a; cf. Parker 2005: 22-23). Interestingly, he uses the the example of livestock, and enumerates the possibilities The enumeration of possibilities faced by the owner of a sheep or an ox seems to be paradigmatic: to use one's own animal as one pleases is to do precisely one of these three things with it: sell it, give it to someone or sacrifice it to any god (Dionysodoros repeats this phrase in 302e). This last element of the enumeration can be seen as the equivalent of killing an animal so that it can be eaten - after all, many animals were bred for this very purpose. Detienne believed that all meat consumed by the Greeks came from sacrifices ('toute viand consommable doit venir d'une mise à mort rituelle', Detienne 1979a: 21), However, it seems that in such a radical formulation this thesis is not maintainable. See Ekroth (2007), Parker (2011: 131). In interpreting Dionysodorus' statement, we can take into account the way Plato framed sacrificial issues in his other dialogues. Thus, the Sophist does not list all the things we can do with our property (the list would be too long and would not serve purpose), but neither are his examples three randomly selected from the immensity of possibilities. What Dionysodoros gives are three modalities of giving: one can "give-as-commodity" (indicated by the verb ἀποδίδομαι, "to sell"), "to give-as-things" (in an unaccented way, hence the generic δίδωμι) or "give-as-a-gift" (θύω). Such reading of this passage requires the assumption of a direct association of the words θύειν and δώρεισθαι in the minds of the Greeks, and it seems that the consensus that has been developing among scholars in recent years tends to to confirm this assumption (see Parker 2011; Naiden 2013).

Without doubtless such an association existed in the mind of at least one Greek - Plato. We find traces of such thinking about sacrifice in several dialogues (Euthyphron 14a-15b, Politics 290c-d), but with the views of Plato himself, but we can identify them with certainty only in the Laws (716c-717a), where giving becomes a metonymy of the whole cult of the gods. The philosopher states there that for a good man the best thing is θύειν καὶ προσομιλεῖν ἀεὶ τοῖς θεοῖς εὐχαῖς καὶ ἀναθήμασιν καὶ συμπάσῃ θεραπείᾳ θεῶν ("to offer sacrifices and constantly commune with the gods by means of prayers, votive offerings and the whole worship of the gods", 716d), for the evil one, on the other hand, the opposite; since from a defiled man (μιαρός) neither another man nor a god can "receive gifts" in a proper way (716e-717a)