Plato Laws 1

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

Laws. Plato. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1926.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Laws (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 10-11. Bury, R. G., translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Νόμοι Perseus (Platonis Opera, Tomus V: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.) — 1 focus

Notes on the current edition

Laws

1. Cp. Hom. Od. 19.178 .
2. The grotto of Dicte on Mt. Ida.
3. Cp. Plat. Rep. 430e ff .: Proverbs xiv 32.
4. Tyrt. 12 (Bergk) . Tyrtaeus wrote war-songs at Sparta about 880 B.C.
5. He wrote sententious poetry about 550 B.C.
6. Tyrt. xi. 21.
7. i.e. courage comes after wisdom, prudence and justice.
8. Or Secret Service. Young Spartans policed the country to suppress risings among the Helots.
9. The Naked Games, held about midsummer.
10. Plato here ascribes the revolutions which occurred in these places to the intensive military training of the youth. Thurii was a Greek town in S. Italy, an off-shoot of Syhsris.
11. At the Feast of Dionysus in Athens it was customary for revellers mounted on wagons to indulge in scurrilous language during the processions.
12. i.e. involving more loss than gain—a proverbial expression, possibly derived from the fate of the Sparti (sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus, founder of Thebes ) who slew one another: cp. Pyrrhic victory.
13. A polite way of alluding to the proverbial mendacity of the Cretans (cp. Ep. Titus i. 12: κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται).
14. A proxenus was a native who acted as official representative of a foreign State.
15. Epimenides really lived about 600 B.C.
16. Evidently, drastic purgatives were commonly prescribed.
17. i.e. shame, which is fear of disgrace, induces fortitude under pain and the power of resisting vicious pleasures.