1. Protagoras 325e-326a, Republic606e, Laws 858c-e; Aristophanes, Frogs 1006–12, 1030–36; Xenophon, Symposium III. 5; Isocrates, Panegyricus 159.

2. Republic 598d-e, and the evidence of the Ion in general. The statements in Xenophon, Symposium IV. 6–7, where several skills are said to be imparted by Homer, are perhaps derived from the Ion and so are not independent evidence; yet evidently they seemed plausible to Xenophon. Greek workmen, of course, learned their trade from each other, and had no need of Homer as a technical handbook. Presumably Greek laymen admired Homer’s technical descriptions (of ship-building or chariot-driving, for instance) because they found in them specialized information in a simplified and palatable form, with a sufficient sprinkling of jargon and patina of technicality to make them feel at least a little wiser – much as we today might enjoy a description of an atom-smasher or a rocket or the techniques of spies or racing-car drivers in a novel or magazine. See further Guthrie, IV, p. 208 n. 2.

3. Ion 533d, 536d, 541e, 542b. For epideixis, ‘lecture’, see pp. 32 and 50.

4. Verdenius (1943), pp. 251–2.