Plato Republic 2.380

θεὸς μὲν ‐‐ θέλῃ : Aesch. Fr. 160 . For other examples of this familiar Greek idea see Nägelsbach Hom. Theol. p. 321 and Nachhom. Theol. pp. 54 ff.

ἐν οἷς ‐‐ ἔνεστιν . I have left these words in the text, although they are certainly open to suspicion, and have been condemned by Platt ( Cl. Rev. III p. 72). The antecedent to οἷς is apparently τὰ τῆς Νιόβης πάθη: but the play was not called ‘The sufferings of Niobe’ but ‘Niobe,’ and the relative can hardly precede its antecedent in sentences of this kind. If οἷς is referred to ταῦτα understood after ποιῇ, then ἐν is difficult: ‘if any one puts into poetry topics in which these iambics occur’ gives no good sense. Unless Plato is writing very inaccurately, we must pronounce the clause a marginal gloss on τὰ—πάθη .

ὠνίναντο κολαζόμενοι . An earlier generation looked upon punishment as retributory— δράσαντι παθεῖν. This view appears in Hes. Fr. 217, ed. Goettling, and especially in Aeschylus, e.g. Ag. 1563 f., Choeph. 309—314, 400 —404, 886, 927: in Sophocles and Euripides it is rarer ( Ant. 1074—1076, El. 1411 f., 1495 f., Andr. 438, Suppl. 614 —616), and Euripides expressly argues against it in Or. 508 ff. Traces of a milder theory were however contained in the doctrine πάθος μάθος ( Ag. 176 ff.), as well as in the use of words like σωφρονίζειν, δικαιοῦν, εὐθύνειν, for ‘punish.’ In Plato punishment is remedial. Ignorance or vice is in the soul what disease is in the body (IV 444 C, cf. IX 591 A, B), and the judge is the soul's physician (III 409 E ff., Gorg. 478 D ): hence ( Gorg. 480 B ff.) the sinner should go before the judge as a patient visits his doctor, and we should even prosecute our guilty friends and relations. See also Laws 854 D, 862 E, 934 A, 944 D τὸν γὰρ κακὸν ἀεὶ δεῖ κολάζειν, ἵν’ ἀμείνων ᾖ. The punishment, again, which awaits the wicked after death is intended to cure their souls, unless they are incurable: and such as are themselves incurable, help to cure others by their deterrent example (X 616 A): so that in its deepest relations this doctrine reaches to the very roots of Plato's philosophy, with all due deference to Mr W. S. Lilly, who with much intemperance of language denounces those who attribute such a view to Plato ( Fortnightly Review N.S. XLVI p. 116).

ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ πόλει : ‘in one's own city,’ with reference to the subject of διαμαχετέον, not to τινα. Plato implies that the preachers of such theology must be suppressed in his ideal city. In all this Teichmüller ( Lit. Fehd. I p. 114) detects an assault upon Isocrates, but his evidence is of the slightest.

μυθολογοῦντα is rejected by Herwerden: Ast suggested μυθολογούμενα. The choice of the participle is determined by λέγειν, which is more important than ἀκούειν: for without saying hearing is impossible. μήτε νεώτερον μήτε πρεσβύτερον belongs both to λέγειν and to ἀκούειν.

νόμων τε καὶ τύπων . All laws are in Plato's view only moulds or outlines, within which our actions should fall. Cf. infra 383 C and especially Pol. 294 A ff.

ἆρα γόητα κτλ. Although the gods are constantly represented as deceivers in Greek poetry and legend, Plato was by no means the first to uphold the opposite view. In Pindar ( Ol. 10. 4) Truth is the daughter of Zeus, and the dramatists often teach a similar doctrine: see Nägelsbach Nachhom. Theol. p. 46. There is a close imitation of Plato's argument throughout this passage in Arist. Fr. 15. 1476^{b} 14 ff. ed. Rose.

αὐτόν is emphatic: the contrast is between actual and apparent transformations of the Deity. After αὐτόν, Herwerden would insert παντοδαπόν, comparing 381 E; before it, Richards adds ἄλλον, by which Benedictus and Ast replace αὐτόν. Hartman proposes <τι> γιγνόμενον. It has apparently escaped notice that γιγνόμενον, as well as ἀλλάττοντα τὸ αὑτοῦ εἶδος, belongs to εἰς πολλὰς μορφάς in the sense of ‘passing into’: cf. Tim. 57 A εἰς ἄλλο τι γιγνόμενον, infra III 400 B εἰς βραχύ τε καὶ μακρὸν γιγνόμενον, IX 588 C, and the frequent idiom γένεσις εἰς e.g. Phaed. 71 B , 71 E, Phil. 26 D , Tim. 49 C , 54 B.

ἁπλοῦν : one of the watchwords of Plato's State (370 B, C, 374 A—D al.): his citizens are to be nothing if not ἁπλοῖ. In making the gods a reflection of the type of human character which he desired to foster, Plato is acting strictly in accordance with the method of Greek theology, whose Olympus is an image of human society. The end of human action is ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν ( Theaet. 176 B ); and Plato's God, changeless and with ‘no shadow of turning,’ furnished the citizens of his ideal city with an abiding standard of human conduct. Cf. 383 C.

τί δὲ τόδε ; Steinhart ( Platon's Werke V p. 680) justly observes that the method of reasoning employed here— the disproof of each of the two members of the opposite alternative—recalls the arguments by which Parmenides established the attributes of Being (see RP.^{7} §§ 95, 98); but the resemblance is not close enough to suggest that Plato was thinking of Parmenides when he wrote this chapter. Although the unchangeableness of God was taught by Xenophanes and the Eleatics, there are few if any traces of such a doctrine outside the philosophers before Plato.

ὑπὸ μὲν ἄλλου κτλ . μέν has its counterpart in ἀλλ’ ἆρα αὐτὸς αὑτὸν κτλ. 381 B.

κινεῖται : a more general word for change than ἀλλοιοῦται: cf. Theaet. 181 D δύο δὴ—εἴδη κινήσεως, ἀλλοίωσιν, τὴν δὲ περιφοράν. The doctrine of the permanence and immutability of good enunciated here foreshadows, but does not presuppose, the metaphysical predominance of the Good in Book VI.

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 .