(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus,Plutarch’s father; on controversial points connected with this identification see Ziegler in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Plutarchos, 642 ff. Soclarus,A friend of the household who appears in several of the Symposiacs and in the Amatorius also; he is not improbably the L. Mestrius Soclarus of Inscr. Gr. ix. 1. 61. Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon.A speaker also in De Defectu Oraculorum (cf. Mor. 412 e). Of the other speakers in this dialogue, nothing definite is known except what may be inferred from the present work.)