Plato Republic 2.372

ἐν αὐτῶν ‐‐ ἀλλήλους . The reply is to the first question, not to the second: see on V 465 E. In so far as δικαιοσύνη can be said to exist in so elementary a state, Plato would have identified it with the performance by each class (farmers, artisans, etc.) of their own work and no more. This is the first view of δικαιοσύνη in the Republic: for the second see IV 432 ff., 441 D ff., and for the third or metaphysical VI 504 B note

ὑποδήματα . I have placed the mark of interrogation after ὑποδήματα, as it is only the present participles which belong to διαιτήσονται. ‘And when they have built themselves houses’ marks a fresh start, no longer interrogative, for which reason I have also departed from the usual punctuation after ἱκανῶς (in B) and πόλεμον (in C).

θρέψονται κτλ. The picture which Plato proceeds to draw represents the working of well-regulated ἐπιθυμία or appetite—the psychological groundwork of the third or lowest order in Plato's city. τὰ μέν is the wheaten meal ( ἄλευρα), τὰ δέ the barley-meal ( ἀλφιτα). Only the wheaten meal was (as a rule) baked ( πέσσειν or ὀπτᾶν) into loaves ( ἄρτοι): the barley-meal was “kneaded into a simple dough ( μάσσειν, whence μᾶζα), dried in a mould, and afterwards moistened with water and eaten” (Blümner, Gr. Privatalt. p. 218). μᾶζαι made of barley meal was the staple food of the common Greek: the wheaten loaf was a luxury. The double chiasmus ἄλφιτα, μάξαντες, μάζας )( ἄλευρα, πέψαντες, ἄρτους is noticeable: cf. Crito 47 C.

τὰ μὲν πέψαντες κτλ. The asyndeton (as usual) is ampliative. The punctuation in the text avoids the difficulty of the two verbs θρέψονται and εὐωχήσονται. Schneider places the colon before μάζας, but this is much less natural. For μάζας γενναίας, ‘noble bannocks’ (J. and C.), cf. (with Stallbaum) Laws 844 E τὰ γενναῖα σῦκα ἐπονομαζόμενα. κάλαμον is not ‘a mat of reeds’ (Jowett, with L. and S.), which would be much too artistic, but ‘reeds,’ κάλαμον being collective as in Arist. Hist. An. IX 36. 620^{a} 35; and τινα is contemptuous (cf. II 363 D note).

παραβαλλόμενοι is also contemptuous for the παρατιθέμενοι of civilised society: it suggests throwing food before animals (cf. 372 D).

στιβάδων : not ‘mattresses’ (L. and S.): why should they ‘strew’ mattresses? The whole point of the passage is that instead of reclining on manufactured couches they lie on natural ones of bryony and myrtle boughs: contrast 372 D. στρωννύναι στιβάδας is simply ‘to make couches of leaves’: cf. στορέσαι λέχος. The word μῖλαξ means bryony (as Schneider saw): cf. Sandys on Eur. Bacch. 107 χλοήρει μίλακι καλλικάρπῳ. The ‘yew’ of the English translators would make a sombre and lugubrious couch.

ἐπιπίνοντες . ἐπί means ‘after’: cf. Xen. Cyr. VI 2 28 μετὰ δὲ τὸν σῖτον εἰ οἶνον ἐπιπίνοιμεν. In Greek banquets there was little or no drinking during dinner. The conjecture ὑποπίνοντες (Stephanus-Hase Thes. s. v. ἐπιπίνω) is unnecessary.

ἢ πόλεμον . The origin of war is over-population (373 D).

ἄνευ ὄψου κτλ. ὄψον is meant by Glauco in its narrower sense of animal food (whether fish or flesh); Socrates on the other hand uses the word in its wider sense of anything eaten in addition to, or along with, bread, e.g. vegetables (see Blümner Gr. Privatalt. p. 223). A spirited and athletic Athenian like Glauco cannot tolerate a vegetarian diet: cf. 372 D.

ἑστιωμένους : sarcastic, with reference to εὐωχήσονται: ‘you call it feasting when they have nothing but dry bread!’ (J. and C.).

ἅλας ‐‐ ἑψήσονται . ‘Of course they will make salt and olives and cheese and vegetables whether wild’ ( βολβούς) ‘or cultivated’ ( λάχανα) ‘into such boiled dishes as can be prepared in the country.’ ἕψημα is not ‘something for boiling,’ but something boiled; and ἑψήσονται is used with two accusatives, one external ( ἅλας, &c.) and the other internal ( ἑψήματα). Plato hints that cookery in the country ( ἐν ἀγροῖς, cf. κατ’ ἀγρούς III 399 D) is inferior to that in the town. For the kind of dishes in question cf. Ath. II 64 E περὶ δὲ τῆς τῶν βολβῶν σκευασίας Φιλήμων φησὶ τὸν βολβόν, εἰ βούλει, σκόπει | ὅσα δαπανήσας εὐδοκιμεῖ, τυρὸν μέλι | σήσαμον ἔλαιον κρόμμυον ὄξος σίλφιον· | αὐτὸς δ’ ἐφ’ αὑτοῦ )στὶν πονηρὸς καὶ πικρός .

φηγούς : ‘acorns,’ not ‘beech-nuts’ (D. and V.): see Blaydes on Ar. Peace 1137 .

ὑποπίνοντες . Wine was sipped during dessert. ὑπο‐ in ὑποπίνοντες emphasizes the moderation already expressed in μετρίως: cf. Lys. 223 B ὑποπεπωκότες ἐν τοῖς Ἑρμαίοις. Dr Jackson connects πρὸς τὸ πῦρ with ὑπο πίνοντες, comparing IV 420 E, Ar. Ach. 751 al. This may be right, but the ordinary view seems to me somewhat more natural.

ὑῶν . The city of Pigs is supposed by Zeller^{4} II 1 pp. 325, 893, and Dümmler Antisthenica pp. 5 ff., Proleg. zur Pl. Staat p. 61, to be a contemptuous allusion to Antisthenes' ideal commonwealth (on which see Susemihl in Fl. Jahrb. 1887 pp. 207—214). This conjecture requires us to interpret Plato's first sketch of a State as wholly ironical and intended ‘to warn us against the false ideal of a Nature-City’ (Zeller l. c.). I agree with Henkel ( Stud. zur Gesch. d. Gr. Lehre vom Staat pp. 8 f.) in thinking that there is no solid ground for Zeller's theory. The πρώτη πόλις is not of course Plato's ideal republic, and his description of it is plentifully bestrewn with irony, but it is nevertheless the foundation on which his city is built, and, in point of fact, although some of its features are implicitly corrected or superseded in the sequel, it still remains on the whole, and as far as it goes, a not unpleasing picture of the life of the lowest stratum in Plato's city, and it is nowhere expressly cancelled or abolished. See also on 369 B and 372 E. The εὐχερὴς βίος ( Pol. 266 C ) of the πρώτη πόλις is fitly compared to that of pigs, the εὐχερέστατον γένος τῶν ὄντων (ib.); and it is appropriate that Glauco, who is nothing if not θυμοειδής ( Introd. § 2), should thus express his contempt for a life which hardly if at all rises above the level of ἐπιθυμία.

καὶ οἱ νῦν ἔχουσι : e.g. fish, flesh, fowl: see on 372 C. The words ἅπερ—ἔχουσι are to be taken with τραγήματα as well as with ὄψα. Glauco is thinking of delicacies like the preserved sorb-apples ( ὄα τεταριχευμένα) alluded to in Symp. 190 D . See Blümner Gr. Privatalt. p. 222 note 2.

τρυφῶσαν πόλιν . Krohn ( Pl. St. pp. 34, 72) thinks that Plato originally meant to look for ἀδικία in this τρυφῶσα πόλις: but see on 369 A.

ἀληθινὴ ‐‐ φλεγμαίνουσαν . There is a vein of irony in ἀληθινή: for the πρώτη τόλις is not the final form of Plato's city. The epithets τρυφῶσαν, φλεγμαίνουσαν are not however ironical (as Dümmler seems to hold Proleg. p. 62): see III 399 E.

εἰδ)αὖ ‐‐ ἀποκωλύει . I have adopted Richards' suggestion, and printed a comma after βούλεσθε, a colon before οὐδέν. The meaning is: ‘but if you wish it, let us contemplate also’ etc. The scribe in Paris A must have understood καὶ θεωρήσωμεν in the same way, for he assigns the words οὐδὲν ἀποκωλύει to Glauco. We are hardly justified in making θεωρήσωμεν the subjunctive after βούλεσθε, in the absence of other examples in which the subjunctive follows a dependent βούλει ( βούλεσθε). A possible view would be to take θεωρήσωμεν as= δεῖ θεωρῆσαι and construe ‘but if you wish it and we are to contemplate’ etc., cf. Crat. 425 D εἰ μὴ ἄρα δἠ (MSS δεῖ)— καὶ ἡμεῖς— ἀπαλλαγῶμεν (‘unless we too are to get quit’), and Postgate in Transactions of the Camb. Philol. Soc. III Pt. I pp. 50—55. But Richards' proposal is a better one.

ταῦτα ‐‐ τισιν . γάρ is introductory and means not ‘for’ but ‘well.’ τισιν contains a sly allusion to Glauco: cf. V 465 E, VI 504 C.

πλούτου δὲ οὐδέν and Liebhold ( Fl. Jahrb. 1888, p. 107)

κόσμου δὲ ἄλλο μὲν <ἔχοντ)> οὐδέν for τοῦτον δὲ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν. Neither of these proposals has any plausibility, and it is best to regard this as one of the places where we owe the right reading to Π .