Plato Republic 6.492

μὴ ἐν προσηκούσῃ : i.q. ἐν μὴ προσηκούσῃ (which Stephanus wrongly read), by a common hyperbaton: cf. Crito 47 D and other examples in Braun De Hyperb. Pl. p. 15. With προσηκούσῃ it is usual to supply μαθήσει. I think Plato intentionally selects a vague expression, intending ἐν προσηκούσῃ to be taken with σπαρεῖσα—φυτευθεῖσα as well as with τρέφηται: for it is just as important that the philosophic nature should be sown and planted in a proper soil (491 D), as that it should receive proper education. Morgenstern, who formerly proposed προσηκούσῃ <γῇ>, afterwards adopted much the same view as this: see Schneider Addit. p. 46.

θεῶν . See on θεοῦ μοῖραν 493 A.

ἢ καὶ σὺ ἡγεῖ κτλ. This passage is appealed to by Grote (VIII pp. 200 ff.) in his famous defence of the Sophists. Plato certainly implies that the Sophists did not independently corrupt the young ‘to any extent worth mentioning’ ( ὅ τι καὶ ἄξιον λόγου). It is the Demos which is the primary source and fount of corruption; the Sophists are only the mouthpiece of a disgraceful public opinion which it is their profession to flatter and court (493 A—D). But from Plato's point of view this is itself a sufficiently grave indictment to bring against a professional teacher of Morality (see 493 C), so that the present attack on the Athenian people is far from being an apology for the Sophists.

ξυγκαθεζόμενοι κτλ. The Athenians sat at an Ecclesia: see Ar. Ach. 24 f. with Blaydes' note. For πολλοί I formerly read οἱ πολλοί with Hermann; but ἁθρόοι πολλοί is sound, and means ‘in large numbers together,’ like πολλοὶ ἁθρόοι in Gorg. 490 B . The subject is of course οἱ ταῦτα λέγοντες, i.e. οἱ πολλοί (492 A). The mention of numbers is to the point: how can one man stand against so many? Cobet is wrong in deleting πολλοί.

ξύν . See on IV 424 D.

ὑπερβαλλόντως . Cf. VIII 561 C ff. Exaggeration and excess are characteristic marks of democracy.

πρὸς δ’ αὐτοῖς κτλ. Plato is doubtless thinking of the Acropolis and the Dionysiac theatre. Cobet does ill to bracket τοῦ ψόγου καὶ ἐπαίνου: for Plato characteristically makes the rocks themselves applaud. Cf. VIII 563 C. Translate ‘Yea, and besides themselves, the rocks and the place wherein they are resound and give forth a reduplicated uproar of censure and applause.’ Cf. Euthyd. 303 B ἐνταῦθα δὲ ὀλίγου καὶ οἱ κίονες οἱ ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ ἐθορύβησάν τ’ ἐπὶ τοῖν ἀνδροῖν καὶ ἥσθησαν.

τίνα ‐‐ ἴσχειν . ‘Where, think you, is a young man's heart?’ For the saying cf. Isocr. Trap. 10 τίν’ οἴεσθέ με γνώμην ἔχειν; and Dem. adv. Aphob. II 21 τίν) οἴεσθε αὐτὴν ψυχὴν ἔξειν; καρδία as the seat of courage is colloquial and rare: cf. Archil. Fr. 58. 4 καρδίης πλέος and Plut. Reg. et imp. apophthegmata 185 E τοὺς δὲ Ἐρετριεῖς—ἔλεγεν ὥσπερ τευθίδας μάχαιραν μὲν ἔχειν, καρδίαν δὲ μὴ ἔχειν. q has τίνα ἂν οἴει, and Bywater and Herwerden propose τίν’ ἂν οἴει, but the MS reading is better and more picturesque.

ποίαν ἄν . I agree with Goodwin ( MT. pp. 66, 68, 71) and others that ἄν with the future was occasionally used by the best Attic prose writers. In Plato it occurs Ap. 29 C , 30 B, Symp. 222 A , Rep. X 615 D, Crito 53 D, Euthyd. 287 D , Phaedr. 227 B , and probably also elsewhere. All these instances have been ‘emended,’ and it is possible enough that some of them are corrupt. Here ἄν is in all the MSS, and is therefore better retained, although it may of course be an erroneous repetition of the last syllable of ποίαν (as Cobet and others suppose). We may regard the idiom as one of Plato's numerous half-poetical efforts: see X 615 D note Richards proposes δή: but see V 450 C note

καὶ φήσειν κτλ. In oratio recta the whole sentence would have run ποία ἂν αὐτῷ παιδεία ἰδιωτικὴ ἀνθέξει, ἢ οὐ κατακλυσθεῖσα—οἰχήσεται φερομένη—καὶ φήσει—καὶ ἐπιτηδεύσει—καὶ ἔσται τοιοῦτος; i.e. (literally translated) ‘what private training of his will stand fast, which will not be swamped by such censure or praise, and carried down the stream wherever the stream leads, and he will say’ etc. (The metaphor is from a mole or breakwater swept away by a flood.) In this there is nothing but the common passage of a relative into a main sentence (see II 357 B note and cf. Ap. 40 A with my note ad loc.), coupled with an easy change of subject, as in Crito 46 A. The sentence assumes the form which it has in the text, because both subordinate and main clauses can take the accusative with infinitive in Greek oratio obliqua: see Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 1056. Stallbaum (followed by J. and C.) understands οὐκ οἴει to account for φήσειν, but the negative cannot be supplied, and if it could, it would give a wrong sense. Schneider's translation is correct, but not his note in the text. With the sentiment cf. Gorg. 510 D ff.

σοφισταί . The Demos is the Arch-Sophist: cf. 492 A note οὗτοι is the contemptuous isti: ‘these teachers and sophists of yours.’

θανάτοις . The fate of Socrates was the most conspicuous example of this in Plato's time, but it is hardly likely that Plato is specifically alluding to it here (as Steinhart and Susemihl suppose). The description is quite general. Contrast VII 517 A note

οὔτε γὰρ κτλ. Plato has just declared that it would be the height of folly in a teacher even to attempt to make a young man run counter to public opinion. The present sentence explains why. There is not, never has been, and never will be produced a character different (from the Many) in respect of virtue, by having been educated on principles opposed to the education which the Many provide (the force of public sentiment, expressed in assemblies etc.). Consequently every attempt to produce such a character by means of education in the teeth of public opinion is foredoomed to failure. The statement appears at first sight extraordinary; but from Plato's point of view it is, with the limitations which he makes, strictly correct. Cities are either actual or ideal. In the ideal city, education does not produce a type of character which conflicts with public opinion, because public opinion is itself formed by education. In actual cities, education must conform to the same standard if it is to exist at all: for τὸν μὴ πειθόμενον ἀτιμίαις τε καὶ χρήμασι καὶ θανάτοις κολάζουσι (492 D). How then are we to explain the presence of great and good men in existing cities? They are θεῖοι ἄνδρες, saved from corruption by grace of God: see on 493 A. In these circumstances, what is the political reformer to do? He must break with all existing cities (497 B), and found—as Plato now wishes to do—a new commonwealth in which sound education and public opinion no longer differ, but agree. In other words, his policy must be to make the Philosopher King. For other views of this passage see App. II.

ἀνθρώπειον : sc. <*>θος: ‘a merely human character.’ Plato makes an exception in favour of a θεῖον ἦθος, playing on the proverb τὸ θεῖον ἐξαιρῶ λόγου, for which cf. Symp. 176 C Σωκράτη δ ἐξαιρῶ λόγου , Phaedr. 242 B Σιμμίαν Θηβαῖον ἐξαιρῶ λόγου (a delicate way of hinting that Socrates and Simmias are θεῖοι ἄνδρες), and Theaet. 162 D . Any ἦθος which in existing cities conspicuously transcends the public standard of morality (and is thus ἀλλοῖον πρὸς ἀρετήν) is θεῖον, and for that very reason sporadic and exceptional (see next note).