Plato Republic 9.578

ἄπληστον : like the sieve in Gorg. 493 A —D (Nettleship). Nothing can ‘fill up the cistern’ of his lust.

τήν τε ‐‐ πόλιν . I follow the Oxford editors in putting τε for γε (see cr. n.). γε is not indefensible; but the balance with τόν τε τοιοῦτον ἄνδρα is strongly in favour of τε: see the examples cited in Hoefer de part. Plat. p. 12.

ὀδυρμοὺς δέ . See cr. n. Jowett defended τε: Campbell and all the other editors do better in accepting the text of Ξ. A few MSS have γε: and Plato may have written ὀδυρμοὺς δέ γε as Schneider suggests.

ἐν ἀνδρὶ κτλ. : ‘and in an individual,’ viz. as contrasted with a πόλις, whence the emphatic position to which the words are assigned. In ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ the idiom is akin to ‘partitive apposition’: see IV 431 A note

τήν γε πόλιν . γε is restrictive: our verdict on the individual has still to be pronounced. Cf. 582 B, C. J. and C. are the only editors who retain τε here (see cr. n.), but the anacoluthon would be too harsh, and τὸν ἔχοντά τε in 575 A is different: see note ad loc.

τοιοῦτος μάλιστα : i.q. ἄθλιος μάλιστα. The subject is οὗτος, and ὁ τοιοῦτος μάλιστα is in the predicate.

τυραννικὸς ὤν . “Have a care of inserting any negative particle here, as H. Stephanus would do, which would wholly destroy the sense” (Thomas Gray). Cf. 575 C, D and 579 C.

δυστυχὴς ᾖ . Cobet ( V. L.^{2} p. 534) revives Bekker's δυστυχήσῃ: but the MS reading is preferable: “significatur infelicitatem ei qui tyrannus factus sit, usque adesse perpetuoque eum comitari” (Schneider). Cf. VIII 561 A note and δυστυχεῖ εἷναι 580 A.

ἀλλ’ εὖ μάλα κτλ. : ‘but carefully study by means of argument the two individuals in question.’ τὼ τοιούτω is literally ‘the two such people,’ i.e. the two τυραννικοί, viz. the τυραννικός who lives an ἰδιώτης βίος, and the τυραννικός who becomes a τύραννος. It is the relative position of these two individuals in respect of misery which is the question before us now, and the rest of this chapter aims at answering it by argument: see 579 C, D, where the conclusion of the reasoning is given. No satisfactory explanation of the MS reading τῷ τοιούτῳ λόγῳ σκοπεῖν (cr. n.) has yet been offered. Some hold that τοιούτῳ refers forward (“nach folgender Regel,” Schleiermacher, Prantl), but τῷ τοιούτῳ cannot be thus used, although τοιούτῳ by itself might be. Others translate “by the help of such a process of reasoning as we now employ” (J. and C. etc.). I doubt whether this meaning, which does not, by the way, furnish a sufficiently pointed antithesis to οἴεσθαι, is easily conveyed by τῷ τοιούτῳ. The translations “bei einer solchen Untersuchung” (Schneider), “where the argument is of such a nature” (J. and C., comparing the altogether different τοῖς τοιούτοις κακοῖς in 579 C), and ‘in this high argument’ are untenable on grammatical grounds; nor can we easily explain the dative as meaning ‘in the interests of’ (“videndum ne dativus eam rem significet, cuius gratia accurate quaerendum esse Socrates dicat” Schneider). The emendations proposed are (1) τὼ τοιούτω λόγω (Stephanus), (2) τὸ τοιοῦτον λόγῳ or τὸν τοιοῦτον λόγῳ (Ast), (3) fortasse εὖ μάλ’ ἐν κτλ. (W. H. Thompson J. Ph. V p. 218). Did Stephanus mean by τὼ τοιούτω λόγω something like the δίκαιος and ἄδικος λόγος of the Clouds? τοιούτω could not convey so much, but Stephanus was, I believe, on the right track when he restored τὼ τοιούτω. The corruption was all the easier, because the dual is constantly corrupted in the MSS of the Republic: thus in III 410 E all MSS have ἀμφότερα, in III 412 A ἐπιτεινομένῳ was written by A^{1}, in IV 422 E πολέμια is the reading of A, and in IV 442 D both A and Π give τῷ ἀρχομένῳ for τὼ ἀρχομένω. Cf. also III 395 A note

ὅσοι πλούσιοι . We ought not, with J. and C., to understand ὄντες. The adjective logically belongs to ἰδιωτῶν, but is idiomatically placed in the relative clause: see Kuhner Gr. Gr. II pp. 924 ff.

ἐκείνου . On the transition from plural to singular see I 347 A note

τί γὰρ κτλ. : ‘Why of course, what should they be afraid of?’ sc. in their slaves. τί is not ‘why,’ but ‘what,’ as οὐδέν shews: cf. V 449 B note Campbell, making τί ‘why,’ translates οὐδέν by ‘Oh, for no reason,’ and refers to Prot. 310 B ; but there too οὐδέν is ‘nothing’: see my note ad loc.

εἴ τις θεῶν κτλ. It is a mistake to suppose from this passage that the treatment of slaves in Athens or Greece generally was exceptionally cruel or unkind. Granted the existence of slavery at all, what Plato here says would nearly always be found true, especially where, as in Athens, the slaves belonged for the most part to an alien and inferior race. See Gilbert Gk Const. Ant. E. T. pp. 170—174. Fifty slaves would of course be more than the average number belonging to a single citizen. In Athens, during the fourth century B.C., the slaves were probably little, if at all, more numerous than the free-born population and metoecs (Beloch Die Bevölk. d. Gr.Röm. Welt p. 99).

ὁπόσῳ . On ὁπόσῳ following ποίῳ see I 348 B note