Plato’s Charmides employs a number of theatrical tropes. The introductory section appropriates all three genres of dramatic poetry: (a) the tragic irony hidden in plain view in the reference to lethal battle that claimed the lives of many of Socrates’ and Chaerephon’s acquaintances (153b–c); (b) the comic shuffle caused by Charmides’ approaching Critias and his friends (155c); and (c) Socrates erectus, as though coming straight from the chorus of a satyr drama (155d). Critias’ rage against Charmides plays on the stereotypically tense relationship between a poet and his actor (162d). Critias himself stages an extempore performance with Socrates playing the doctor who promises to cure Charmides the patient (156d–157c). Last, but not even by a long shot least, Socrates addresses thrice his anonymous narratee, the person who listens to the narrative of the Charmides in silence. Both the ithyphallic Socrates and the demolition of the fourth wall are unique instance in the Platonic corpus.
