Socrates Playing with Meletus: the Pedigree, Birth, and Afterlife of a Chreia

The schema in (1) begins with speaker B, the respondent, named in the nominative (Socrates), then speaker A in an absolute participial construction (Melito non dicente in ablative absolute) framing his initiating move in indirect discourse ([non ...] ipsum deos putare). This is followed by another exchange indirectly reported, ultimately followed by the content of speaker B’s response, in direct discourse. It begins like more standard, simpler χρεῖαι sandwiching in speaker A between the attribution of speaker B and his ipsissima verba, his