I originally read the Euthyphro in John Burnet's text with commentary-- Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito (Oxford UP, Clarendon Paperbacks)--along with the other two works in that collection. Burnet's commentary, which I no longer own (all of the pages fell out of the spine), is more philological, philosophical, and advanced than this one by Bailly. Bailly's commentary, in contrast, is intended mainly for intermediate students who are not yet proficient in reading ancient Greek. Accordingly, his commentary deals primarily with problems of grammar, but there is also considerable discussion of the dialogue's philosophy interspersed in the grammatical notes. In addition, Bailly provides substantial and sometimes rather lengthy expositions, separate from the notes and in paragraph form, of the dialogue's cruxes and details of some of the philosophical problems that it raises.

Bailly's manner of presentation of the other dialogue included in the volume, the Clitophon, is the same as that of the Euthyphro. It is highly unusual, and probably unprecedented, to find the Clitophon, a seldom-read dialogue whose authorship is disputed, included in a text for undergraduate students. This dialogue has the advantage, like the Euthyphro, of relatively manageable Greek; but so do several of the undisputed "Socratic" dialogues, any of which would be a far better choice for tyro students of Greek. The Clitophon, unlike the "Socratic" dialogues, has the disadvantage of its comparative obscurity and lack of importance within Plato's oeuvre.

If intended as a commentary for students of Greek reading Plato as their first author, this book suffers from a major ambiguity of purpose. As I noted above, it is intended, on the one hand, as an aid to a first reading of Plato's Greek (and, by extension, of Attic Greek generally). It mostly fails in this purpose on account of its cluttering of grammatical notes with somewhat difficult philosophical points. This intrusion of fairly advanced philosophical matter into the elementary grammatical notes can hardly fail to distract, and will perhaps overwhelm, neophyte students struggling merely to understand the language. This distraction is magnified by the commentary's extensive and numerous discussions devoted only or mainly to philosophical problems. For students of Greek reading Plato as a first author, the notes on the text should be dedicated almost exclusively to such basic grammatical help as is necessary to get through a first reading of a dialogue. (The Bryn Mawr Commentaries series, for example, admirably meets just this need.) However, there are two academic settings in which Bailly's approach may well be effective: either a course intended for relatively advanced philosophy students who are just beginning to learn Attic Greek, or a more advanced Greek course intended for Classics students who wish to learn ancient philosophy. In any event, however, I would recommend omitting the Clitophon. ( )