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Plato does not only impersonate/represent Socrates, however. He also impersonates/represents Socrates impersonating/representing Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Adeimantus, and Glaucon. Embedding the participants in the dialog in this way, to say nothing of thus embedding its author, invites readers to lose sight of who is truly speaking. Not only is identity thus destabilized but character is too for, insofar as Socrates' account includes only a small portion of narrative in third-person form and a lot of narrative through mimesis, Socrates is depicted as acting not in the manner of a good man (396e) but of a common one (397a). With Plato impersonating/representing Socrates impersonating/representing his interlocutors, this observation redounds back on to Plato as well. What, if anything, does Plato risk in these representations? What is gained? To answer these questions, this essay stays with the material of Book I to orient the "Plato or Socrates" question away from verisimilitude and/or the pursuit of the factual identity of an author and toward a politics of authorship and authority. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]