Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 2.361

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[361] πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ὁ ἄδικος ὥσπερ οἱ δεινοὶ δημιουργοὶ ποιείτω—οἷον κυβερνήτης ἄκρος ἢ ἰατρὸς τά τε ἀδύνατα ἐν τῇ τέχνῃ καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ διαισθάνεται, 361a καὶ τοῖς μὲν ἐπιχειρεῖ, τὰ δὲ ἐᾷ· ἔτι δὲ ἐὰν ἄρα πῃ σφαλῇ, ἱκανὸς ἐπανορθοῦσθαι—οὕτω καὶ ὁ ἄδικος ἐπιχειρῶν ὀρθῶς τοῖς ἀδικήμασιν λανθανέτω, εἰ μέλλει σφόδρα ἄδικος εἶναι. τὸν ἁλισκόμενον δὲ φαῦλον ἡγητέον· ἐσχάτη γὰρ ἀδικία δοκεῖν δίκαιον εἶναι μὴ ὄντα. δοτέον οὖν τῷ τελέως ἀδίκῳ τὴν τελεωτάτην ἀδικίαν, καὶ οὐκ ἀφαιρετέον ἀλλʼ ἐατέον τὰ μέγιστα ἀδικοῦντα τὴν μεγίστην δόξαν αὑτῷ 361b παρεσκευακέναι εἰς δικαιοσύνην, καὶ ἐὰν ἄρα σφάλληταί τι, ἐπανορθοῦσθαι δυνατῷ εἶναι, λέγειν τε ἱκανῷ ὄντι πρὸς τὸ πείθειν, ἐάν τι μηνύηται τῶν ἀδικημάτων, καὶ βιάσασθαι ὅσα ἂν βίας δέηται, διά τε ἀνδρείαν καὶ ῥώμην καὶ διὰ παρασκευὴν φίλων καὶ οὐσίας. τοῦτον δὲ τοιοῦτον θέντες τὸν δίκαιον αὖ παρʼ αὐτὸν ἱστῶμεν τῷ λόγῳ, ἄνδρα ἁπλοῦν καὶ γενναῖον, κατʼ Αἰσχύλον οὐ δοκεῖν ἀλλʼ εἶναι ἀγαθὸν ἐθέλοντα. ἀφαιρετέον δὴ τὸ δοκεῖν. εἰ γὰρ δόξει δίκαιος 361c εἶναι, ἔσονται αὐτῷ τιμαὶ καὶ δωρεαὶ δοκοῦντι τοιούτῳ εἶναι· ἄδηλον οὖν εἴτε τοῦ δικαίου εἴτε τῶν δωρεῶν τε καὶ τιμῶν ἕνεκα τοιοῦτος εἴη. γυμνωτέος δὴ πάντων πλὴν δικαιοσύνης καὶ ποιητέος ἐναντίως διακείμενος τῷ προτέρῳ· μηδὲν γὰρ ἀδικῶν δόξαν ἐχέτω τὴν μεγίστην ἀδικίας, ἵνα ᾖ βεβασανισμένος εἰς δικαιοσύνην τῷ μὴ τέγγεσθαι ὑπὸ κακοδοξίας καὶ τῶν ὑπʼ αὐτῆς γιγνομένων, ἀλλὰ ἴτω ἀμετάστατος μέχρι 361d θανάτου, δοκῶν μὲν εἶναι ἄδικος διὰ βίου, ὢν δὲ δίκαιος, ἵνα ἀμφότεροι εἰς τὸ ἔσχατον ἐληλυθότες, ὁ μὲν δικαιοσύνης, ὁ δὲ ἀδικίας, κρίνωνται ὁπότερος αὐτοῖν εὐδαιμονέστερος.
βαβαῖ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὦ φίλε Γλαύκων, ὡς ἐρρωμένως ἑκάτερον ὥσπερ ἀνδριάντα εἰς τὴν κρίσιν ἐκκαθαίρεις τοῖν ἀνδροῖν.
ὡς μάλιστʼ, ἔφη, δύναμαι. ὄντοιν δὲ τοιούτοιν, οὐδὲν ἔτι, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, χαλεπὸν ἐπεξελθεῖν τῷ λόγῳ οἷος ἑκάτερον 361e βίος ἐπιμένει. λεκτέον οὖν· καὶ δὴ κἂν ἀγροικοτέρως λέγηται, μὴ ἐμὲ οἴου λέγειν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀλλὰ τοὺς ἐπαινοῦντας πρὸ δικαιοσύνης ἀδικίαν.

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

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Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 2.361 focus

[361] In the first place, the unjust man must act as clever craftsmen do: a first-rate pilot or physician, for example, feels the difference between impossibilities¹ and possibilities in his art 361a and attempts the one and lets the others go; and then, too, if he does happen to trip, he is equal to correcting his error. Similarly, the unjust man who attempts injustice rightly must be supposed to escape detection if he is to be altogether unjust, and we must regard the man who is caught as a bungler.² For the height of injustice³ is to seem just without being so. To the perfectly unjust man, then, we must assign perfect injustice and withhold nothing of it, but we must allow him, while committing the greatest wrongs, to have secured for himself the greatest reputation for justice; 361b and if he does happen to trip,⁴ we must concede to him the power to correct his mistakes by his ability to speak persuasively if any of his misdeeds come to light, and when force is needed, to employ force by reason of his manly spirit and vigor and his provision of friends and money; and when we have set up an unjust man of this character, our theory must set the just man at his side—a simple and noble man, who, in the phrase of Aeschylus, does not wish to seem but be good. Then we must deprive him of the seeming.⁵ For if he is going to be thought just 361c he will have honors and gifts because of that esteem. We cannot be sure in that case whether he is just for justice’ s sake or for the sake of the gifts and the honors. So we must strip him bare of everything but justice and make his state the opposite of his imagined counterpart.⁶ Though doing no wrong he must have the repute of the greatest injustice, so that he may be put to the test as regards justice through not softening because of ill repute and the consequences thereof. But let him hold on his course unchangeable even unto death, 361d seeming all his life to be unjust though being just, that so, both men attaining to the limit, the one of injustice, the other of justice, we may pass judgement which of the two is the happier.
Bless me, my dear Glaucon, said I, how strenuously you polish off each of your two men for the competition for the prize as if it were a statue.⁷ To the best of my ability, he replied, and if such is the nature of the two, it becomes an easy matter, I fancy, to unfold the tale of the sort of life that awaits each. 361e We must tell it, then; and even if my language is somewhat rude and brutal,⁸ you must not suppose, Socrates, that it is I who speak thus, but those who commend injustice above justice.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

οὕτω ‐‐ λανθανέτω . ἐπιχειρῶν ὀρθῶς means of course attempting possible, and abstaining from impossible, ἀδικήματα. But as an ἀδίκημα is possible only if the ἀδικῶν is able to conceal it (the alternative of open violence is recognised later 361 B), it is necessary that the unjust man should escape detection. Hence λανθανέτω, although λανθάνειν was not attributed (because not essential) to the pilot and doctor (360 E).

φαῦλον means a ‘bungler’ (D. and V.). With the sentiment cf. Prot. 317 A τὸ οὖν ἀποδιδράσκοντα μὴ δύνασθαι ἀπξδρᾶναι, ἀλλὰ καταφανῆ εἶναι, πολλὴ μωρία καὶ τοῦ ἐπιχειρήματος: also Laws 845 B, and the Spartan practice of punishing boys not for stealing, but for being caught (Xen. Rep. Lac. 2. 8). With ἐσχάτη γὰρ ἀδικία κτλ. the editors compare Cicero de Off. I 41 “totius autem iniustitiae nulla capitalior est, quam eorum, qui, cum maxime fallunt, id agunt, ut viri boni esse videantur.”

κατ) Αἰσχύλον ‐‐ ἀγαθόν . Sept. 592—594 (of Amphiaraus) οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ’ εἶναι θέλει | βαθεῖαν ἄλοκα διὰ φρενὸς καρπούμενος, | ἐξ ἧς τὰ κεδνὰ βλαστάνει βουλεύματα. Herwerden would expunge ἀγαθόν (“mente repetatur ἁπλοῦν καὶ γενναῖον”), on the ground that if Plato had added any adjective, it would have been δίκαιον. (The Scholiast substitutes δίκαιος for ἄριστος in Aeschylus.) ἀγαθόν gives excellent sense, and is nearer to the poet's words.

εἴη is explained by Stallbaum as an optative of wish (though in a subordinate clause): ‘it is not clear therefore whether he is fain to be just,’ etc. This gives a fair sense, but the idiom is obscure, and unsupported by other examples. J. and C. remark that “the optative accords with the conditional nature of the case in an imagined future,” taking ἄδηλον as for ἄδηλον ἂν εἴη. But an omitted ἂν εἴη cannot be responsible for the mood of τοιοῦτος εἴη, nor could ἂν εἴη easily be omitted (see Schanz Nov. Comm. Pl. p. 33). Still less should we accept Hartman's ἄδηλον <ἂν> οὖν, sc. εἴη. Madvig ejects εἴη altogether, understanding ἐστι after τοιοῦτος. This may be right, but its intrusion is not easy to explain. I think the word is genuine, and means ‘was’: ‘it is not clear then, say they, whether he was just,’ etc. Glauco again disclaims responsibility: cf. 360 B note εἴη would in direct speech be ἦν: and the idiom is like that in III 406 E, where see note. For the sequence of moods and tenses cf. VI 490 A note Failing this interpretation, the word must (I think) be spurious. Herwerden's proposal— τοιούτῳ εἶναι, ἄδηλον ὄν (retaining εἴη)—does not surmount the difficulty and is also wrong in point of sense.

ἀπ’ αὐτῆς . See cr. n. The sense required is not ‘what is produced by’ ( ὑπό) ‘it,’ but ‘what results from it’: cf. γίγνεσθαι ἀπό (in a similar connexion) 357 C and 358 B. The scribe no doubt assimilated the preposition to the preceding ὑπό.

ἔστω . See cr. n. I formerly read ἴτω with A^{1} and the majority of editors, but I now agree with Schneider that ἔστω is right. ἴτω cannot be used by itself as a synonym for ‘live,’ or as a copula: we should require ἴτω διὰ βίου, instead of ἴτω μέχρι θανάτου (to transpose the two phrases would of course be too violent a change). The sole authority for ἴτω is the first hand in A: and this is certainly insufficient to outweigh the inherent superiority of ἔστω. Most MSS have ἤτω, a late form for ἔστω.

ἐκκαθαίρεις : not ‘polish up’ (J. and C.) but rather ‘scour clean’ (D. and V.), ‘purge’ from all extraneous matter: see 361 C γυμνωτέος δὴ πάντων πλὴν δικαιοσύνης.

ἀγροικοτέρως is said with reference to the exaggeration and coarseness of the description: cf. Ap. 32 D , Gorg. 509 A .

δεδήσεται : ‘will be kept in chains.’ δεθήσεται (so v and some other MSS) is required by Herwerden, and may be right. But in Xen. Cyr. IV 3. 18 δεδήσομαι is similarly combined with several first futures.

ἐκκαυθήσεται κτλ. Schneider refers to Hdt. VII 18 θερμοῖσι σιδηρίοισι ἐκκαίειν—τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, and Gorg. 473 C ἐὰν—στρεβλῶται καὶ ἐκτέμνηται καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐκκάηται. That ἐκκαυθήσεται (and not ἐκκοπήσεται, the reading of some inferior MSS, and of the ancient authorities who cite this passage) is right here, is probable also from X 613 E ἃ ἄγροικα ἔφησθα σὺ εἶναι ἀληθῆ λέγων, εἶτα στρεβλώσονται καὶ ἐκκαυθήσονται, whether the last clause is genuine or not. It is not clear that Cicero ( de Rep. III 27) did not find ἐκκαυθήσεται in his text; for though he has effodiantur oculi, he adds afterwards vinciatur, uratur. Herwerden recasts the words of Plato to suit Cicero's translation, but Cicero is a much less trustworthy witness than Paris A.

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 .

Plato Republic 2.361

ed. John Burnet

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