Republic

As in all of the Platonic dialogues, the participants in the debate are friends or acquaintances of the central speaker, Socrates, and they conduct their conversations in the house of one of the participants. The dialogue in the Republic takes place in Cephalus' house; Cephalus is an older man, a wealthy and retired merchant. He has assembled several friends and acquaintances in his house on a feast-day in honor of the Thracian goddess, Bendis (the Greek mythological goddess Artemis, goddess of the moon). Some of the guests simply audit the debate and remain silent; some are very minor participants in the dialogue. The main speakers are Socrates (the persona for Plato, as in all the dialogues); Cephalus; Polemarchus, Cephalus' son; Thrasymachus, a teacher of argument, a Sophist; and Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato's elder brothers. (Mr. Scott Buchanan, whose suggested etymologies of the names I have adopted, says that Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus show themselves to be caricatures of the three classes in the state developed in Book IV, and that they are more fully developed in Book VIII.)