P. 97. Imitated after Protagoras.

This has been already remarked, intelligently enough, or copied, by Philostratus, who in the life of Protagoras, Vit. Soph. 494, says: γνοὺς δὲ τὸν Πρωταγόραν ὁ Πλάτων σεμνῶς μὲν ἐρμηνευόντα, ὑπτιάζοντα δὲ τῇ σεμνότητι καὶ τοῦ μακρολογώτερον τοῦ συμμέτρου, τὴν ἰδέαν αὐτοῦ μύθῳ μακρῷ ἐχαρακτήρισεν. Plato, knowing that Protagoras expressed himself with dignity, but was notwithstanding careless withal, and more diffuse than neat, imitated his style by a long speech. Only it is inconceivable how Olearius came to refer this to the Theætetus, when it manifestly relates to the myth in our present dialogue.

——— Another poem.

See Brunckii Anal. I. 122. X.

CHARMIDES.

P. 108. In his challenges.

See Plato’s Letters, Ep. vii. p. 324. D.

——— Notorious attempt.

Xenophon tells this Mem. Soc. i. 2, 33.

P. 109. As Xenophon represents it.

Mem. Socr. iii. 7. A dialogue which should be compared generally with this, that the reader may convince himself that there is here no such imitation or connection as to render our dialogue liable to suspicion.

PARMENIDES.

P. 122. From a passage in the Charmides.

See Charmid. p. 169. Μεγάλου δή τινος, ὦ φίλε, ἀνδρὸς δεῖ, &c.

P. 129. Another of that name far younger.

The greatest difficulty in understanding the father of Lysias to be the person here meant would be found in the two accounts, supposing them to be true, that Lysias was born at Athens, and that his father had already died before Lysias set out to travel to Thurii. Dionysius agrees with the first account, while the last is only supported by the composer of the Lives of the Ten Orators; an author sufficiently despised by all sound investigators. By it the supposition made in the Republic would be completely destroyed, for Plato’s brothers could in that case never have been in conversation with Cephalus. By the first account, Cephalus’ immigration would be placed so early that the dialogue between Socrates and Parmenides could not then have taken place. But this would indeed be a subordinate circumstance, which Plato might easily have overlooked. He represents Cephalus as a person who often came to Athens, and even his presence at this time does not look like an immigration, but a visit or a journey on business—whereby the impossibility of this dialogue having taken place, if Cephalus did really settle altogether at Athens before Ol. lxxx. 2, becomes still greater. Meanwhile it is difficult to decide in such matters about Dionysius, how much is accredited information, or when he only follows an opinion generally adopted. I may take this opportunity of advising the reader that in the Phædrus likewise, where the question turned upon the chronology of the life of Lysias, that the accounts of Dionysius, and not those in the Lives of the Ten Orators, are universally followed. And upon this point a few words now remain to be said, only for the reason that F. C. Wolf, in his translation of the Republic, has taken the opposite course. Both agree in the date of Lysias’ return to Athens, fixing it at the time of the first archonship of Callias, i. e. Ol. xcii. 1. Dionysius adds, that Lysias was at that time forty-seven years old, according to which his birth falls in Ol. lxxx. 2. On the contrary, the “Lives” place it in Ol. lxxxii. 2. According to both accounts he goes at the age of fifteen years to Thurii; which, according to that of Dionysius, falls in quite correctly with Ol. lxxxiv. 1, when the colony was actually being founded; according to the other with Ol. lxxxvi. 1, eight years later, when something important was to be distributed there. The confusion of the last account proceeds also from the circumstance that the author makes Lysias stay at Thurii till his sixty-third year, and consequently contradicts himself; wherefore Taylor’s endeavour by means of an emendation to bring the first account to agree with Dionysius is useless. So also the notice of the early death of Cephalus may be only a supposition, because the writers could not explain, what is nevertheless very easy to explain, how Cephalus should have permitted his sons, and one of them so young, to go abroad. And it might be a question whether the assumption, by no means general, or resting upon any sufficient testimony, that Lysias was born at Athens, may not have arisen only from the fact that nothing was known to the contrary. Then, like many others, he may perhaps have travelled to Thurii without coming straight from Athens, and his father may have fixed his residence at Athens after this emigration of Lysias, and not before, being persuaded to do so by Pericles, as indeed Lysias himself so distinctly asserts.

P. 129. Plutarch and Proclus.

See Plutarch de frat. am. ii. 484. E. “As Plato has given his brothers a celebrity by introducing them into the most beautiful of his writings; Glaucon, namely, and Adimantus into the Republic, and Antiphon, the youngest of them, into the Parmenides.” For the rest, Plutarch would hardly have wished that Antiphon to share with this one the celebrity of having transferred his tastes from philosophy to horse-breeding. Proclus also recognises this half-brother, and thence concludes very rightly that the dialogue between Cephalus and Antiphon cannot have been held until after the death of Socrates, without, however, expressly declaring that he considers this Cephalus to be a different person from the father of Lysias.

P. 131. If any one.

As Ast has notwithstanding lately done: see his Essay on Plato’s life and writings, p. 250. I may add, that I should not envy those readers their opinion to whom Ast has satisfactorily proved that the Parmenides was written at the earliest after the Theætetus, since in the latter the solution is at once so decidedly commenced of those problems which in the Parmenides are but slightly indicated. For, Ast has by no means distinctly shown in what respect the Parmenides completes the Theætetus, and even the Sophist and Statesman. Nor even if we allow that Socrates here, in the pains he takes and the problems he enunciates, shows himself to have arrived at the summit of dialectics, will, therefore, the investigations which Parmenides conducts and in which Socrates is perfectly passive, constitute the completion of those in the above-mentioned dialogues. The notion that from that perfection in the enunciation of the problems, and the success of Socrates’ endeavours, Parmenides may be intended to represent the erring philosopher, must appear to all persons accurately acquainted with Plato too ridiculous for anything to be said about it. I agree, however, with Ast, that in this dialogue the representation of virtuosity in investigation is the principal point, and it is upon this, as well as upon the circumstance that it contains only germs, that the arguments rest for the position which I have assigned to it, so that I find it unnecessary to enter more accurately into what Ast alleges in favour of his own opinion.

APOLOGY.

P. 134. Let not the reader start.

These words seem now no longer suitable after Ast’s total and uncompromising excommunication of this dialogue. But I believe there are very many persons to whom even my opinion will at first sight seem too bold, and hope that few only will allow themselves to be persuaded by Ast’s intricate criticism, that the Socrates here upon the stage is a conceited sophist,’ and that the whole of this defence belongs to the common and counterfeit art of rhetoric.

P. 136. Which Diogenes.

See Diog. Laert. Lib. ii. s. 41. We are there told that Plato wished to defend Socrates from the rostrum, but that at the first word the judges put him down by a sally of Attic wit. But this tale is too little accredited and too improbable in itself for anything to be built upon it. (Πλάτωνα ἀναβῆναι ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα, καὶ εἰπεῖν Νεώτατος ὤν, ὦ ἄνδρες ’Αθηναῖοι, τῶν ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα ἀναβάντων τοὺς δικαστὰς ἐκβοῆσαι καταβάντων, τουτέστι, καταβῆθι.)

P. 138. Much to change.

These imperfections are, in Ast’s opinion, among the sufficient grounds for excommunicating the piece; but an imitating sophist, and one who proceeded according to the rules of rhetoric, must have been far worse than the one here otherwise is, to commit such faults. But Socrates may commit them, because on every occasion he is hurried onwards by his higher objects, and the whole defence in particular looks like an occasion, such as common life might present, for following his calling.

——— Of the actual defence.

For Socrates must have defended himself, and I should have wished Ast to have given us some slight hint as to how, in his opinion, Socrates dispensed with this task.

HIPPARCHUS.

P. 157. Two great Masters.

Valckenaer on Herod. p. 398. and Wolf. Prol. p. 154.

——— Striking out.

Even Ælian mentions his doubts whether the Hipparchus is really a work of Plato; but this, in itself, would be but of little importance.

P. 159. For even the Menon.

Other points of resemblance between our dialogue and the Menon are mentioned by Boeckh. (in Minoem, p. 40.)

MINOS.

P. 163. Minos was never.

For an account in Diodorus that an Athenian conqueror at the Olympic games was called so has been already corrected by Boeckh. (See Pref. in Minoem.)

GORGIAS.

P. 175. In the Protagoras.

Compare the conversation in the Protagoras beginning p. 358.

P. 180. From the Lysis.

It must be left for the reader to decide, whether he can more easily conceive this to have been the case, or, on the contrary, that these hints afforded matter for his composition to the composer of the Lysis. Only, in that case, the composer will still remain entitled to be considered a more ingenious person than Ast will allow him to have been.

P. 185. No trace appears.

None, at least, according to my notions. Ast indeed thinks otherwise, and would conclude hence that Plato composed the Gorgias during the Socratic process, when I think it must be allowed he could scarcely have been in the humour for a work so extremely artificial, and, as even Ast will allow upon the whole, so extremely deep. But I refrain from saying more upon this point, and leave the case in the hands of every skilful reader.

——— In the Ecclesiazusæ of Aristophanes.

See the commentators upon different passages of this comedy, and more at length as to the whole of it, Morgenstern, Commentat. de Platonis Republ. p. 76—78. Should it be objected that this comedy did not perhaps contain so many allusions to Plato as is generally believed, it is still clear enough that philosophers, and especially Socraticians, are comprehended under its satire. and among them Plato was more effectively hit, inasmuch as he was distinguished above the rest by reputation and rank.

P. 187. The example of Archelaus.

Athenæus, in the well-known passage, xi. 507, Ed. Bip. iv. p. 384, writes strange things concerning this subject, which authors have copied from him, and hence have dreamed of a relation between Plato and Archelaus which is perfectly impossible. The passage runs as follows: “In the Gorgias he censures not only the person from whom the dialogue takes its title, but also Archelaus, the king of Macedonia, both as a man of low descent, and as one who had killed his lord and king. And this is the same Plato of whom Speusippus says, that by means of his close friendship with Archelaus he was the cause of Philip’s coming to the government.” Then, after bringing forward the passage of Speusippus referring to this point, Athenæus continues: “But whether or not this was actually the case, God knows.” In truth God knows how it could be the case not, that is, what Speusippus says, but what, in Athenæus, is thence inferred. Plato, by means of a confidential relation with Archelaus, who died in the same year with Socrates, is supposed to have been the cause that ten years later Philip came to the government. And how? Listen. Carystias of Pergamus, says Athenæus, writes as follows in his Memorabilia. When Speusippus learnt that Philip spoke ill of Plato, he wrote in a letter as follows: “As if it were not known that Philip owes even his kingdom to Plato. For Plato sent Euphræus to Perdiccas, who was influenced by him to assign some province to Philip. And as Philip maintained there an armed force, he had, when Perdiccas died, the means in readiness, and could put himself in possession of the kingdom.” Now is there here a single word about Archelaus, or any relation with him. Unless we do the sophist the injustice of accusing him of a monstrous falsification, he has confused, in the strangest and most ignorant manner, the Alcetas whom Archelaus slew, and the Perdiccas whom he succeeded, and the far later Perdiccas who reigned before Philip, all together. Too many words already for the contradiction of such miserable prattle. Only we see hence what bad authorities Athenæus followed in what he says against Plato, or what inconsiderate use he has made of his collectanea, without even taking care not to confound names and times. What Speusippus otherwise says must be true, if he really did say it, and may serve for the correction and completion of other accounts, which make Philip remain in Thebes till the death of Perdiccas.

THEÆTETUS.

P. 192. A contradiction.

See the Preface to the Laches (p. 100) and Charmides (p. 108), and the passages in each dialogue referring to what is there said.

P. 203. So Proclus.

In the second book of his commentary upon the first book of Euclid.

MENON.

P. 219. A son of Anthemion.

Plutarch tells a little story about the love of Anytus for Alcibiades, at one time speaking of Anytus the accuser of Socrates, at another of Anytus the son of Anthemion. But it might not be well to build too much upon this story; for it seems to be almost at variance with what is said in the defence of Socrates by Xenophon, that the son of Anytus at the time of that accusation was still a growing boy, and with the conclusion which we cannot help drawing from this passage in connection with the Menon, that the father of Anytus first attained to riches gradually by an extensive trade; hence it could hardly occur to his son in his younger years to fall in love with Alcibiades.

——— The same of whom Xenophon.

But when Gedike thinks that he can be the same as occurs in the first book of Thucydides, and that this Menon, who in the campaign of Cyrus owed his office of commander to his youthful beauty, also led an army at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, he may, if he can, come to an agreement with dates as to this point.

EUTHYDEMUS.

P. 220. Though no one.

Even Ast’s rejection, since published, does not take up this ground, but only because Plato so often exposes the sophists occasionally, he does not think that he could have dedicated a particular dialogue to this purpose. As if Plato did not treat of many things in this dialogue occasionally, and expressly in the others; and as if his dialogues of this nature had not always a variety of objects, and not one merely. And as to Ast’s discovery, that it is but lost labour to look for any other bearing or object in this dialogue, and his accurate method of examining and explaining it in consequence, both are now before the world, together with my introduction, and every reader may try and choose. But any one inclined for a jest might say that he should not be sorry if another author besides Plato were to be found to whom such a dialogue as this could be ascribed.

P. 223. Xenophon.

In the third book of the Memorab. of Socrates, chap. i.

P. 224. In the Cratylus. Just at the beginning.

——— Aristotle also.

De Soph. El. cap. xx. Ed. Bip. iii. p. 599, with which compare Rhet. ii. cap. xxiv. Ed. Bip. Vol. iv. p. 292.

——— Another passage.

De Soph. El. cap. xxxiv. Ed. Bip. Vol. iii. p. 639. Tennemann, if I mistake not, has already expressed the supposition that when Plato mentions these ὀψιμαθεῖς, Antisthenes is meant. We see how this does, indeed, refer immediately to his Euthydemus; but there are still some other grounds for the supposition.

PHÆDON.

P. 291. In the speech of Diotima. See Symp. p. 205, 206.

P. 294. To interest itself. Phædr. p. 246.

P. 301. Here in the Phædon. See p. 72, e. 73, a.

P. 304. The Protagoras. P. 68, 69.

P. 305. As it is said. Politic. p. 269.

THEAGES.

P. 321. In the Apology. P. 33, e.

——— Two notices.

The other is in the Republic, B. vi. p. 496, where it is said that his health compelled him to keep to philosophy by withholding him from politics.

——— A parenthetic digression. P. 150, 151.

——— In the Apology. P. 31, d.

P. 324. The expressions of Xenophon.

Particularly in the Memorabilia, i. 1, 2—4. 19.

——— In the Euthyphron. P. 3, b. c.

ERASTÆ.

P. 326. The other professedly.

There is a passage quoted from Thrasyllus in Diog. Laert. ix. 37, which most persons have understood to imply that this critic thought that the nameless μουσικὸς of our dialogue was Democritus. But the passage is probably not free from corruption, and Thrasyllus can scarcely have intended this piece of folly, but only meant to say that Democritus was a philosopher such as the other person alluded to in the passage had described him to be, who resembles an athlete (πένταθλος), something in every thing, good in nothing. Moreover the same passage contains the most ancient doubt on record of the genuineness of our dialogue, in the words, Εἴπερ οἱ Ἀντέρασταὶ Πλάτωνός εἰσιν.

MENEXENUS.

P. 337. Which Thucydides.

But how does it happen that Plutarch, in his life of Pericles, does not mention this oration? thus tacitly giving us to understand that Thucydides only ascribed it supposititiously to Pericles, while on the other hand he celebrates another oration of the great statesman delivered at an earlier period, during the Samian war. Dionysius also says that in his opinion Plato here imitated Thucydides. But may not Plato, when he makes Socrates’ say that Aspasia supplied much that was omitted in the speech she made for Pericles, have had in his mind that earlier and more genuine one?

P. 340. When Socrates.

If Menexenus, as we must conclude from the beginning of the Phædon, was one of Socrates’ more intimate friends, it is scarcely possible that this should only appear so accidentally as it does; if he was not, then this is a stupid and pointless expression of respect.

But we must not overlook the fact, that even Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 14, p. 376, Bipont.) quotes from the dialogue which surrounds the speech, under the head of Σωκράτης ἐν Ἐπιταφίῳ, the passage, that it is easy to praise Athenians before Athenians.

EXTRACT from BOECKH’S PHILOLAUS, referring to

Schleiermacher’s note on the PHÆDRUS, p. 72.

“But in determining the relation between the doctrine of Philolaus and the works of Plato, I come a second time upon a question, with regard to the solution of which our countryman Schleiermacher and myself have been many years at variance. It is whether traces of the system of Philolaus are or are not contained in the Phædrus of Plato, and I cannot help a second time answering it in the affirmative, and defending my friend’s opponent against him in a matter, from which, moreover, not the slightest inference can be drawn for or against Schleiermacher’s arrangement or views of the Platonic works, with which I fully coincide. Now that, first of all, the possibility of Plato’s acquaintance with the writings of Philolaus cannot be denied, appears from the above investigation; for the accounts as to the sale of the Philolaic books in Sicily have proved incredible, and it is more probable that he published in Thebes, where he taught, something which, considering the short distance of Athens from Thebes, might be early known in that mart of arts and sciences. But even supposing that he wrote nothing during his residence in Thebes, still it is scarcely conceivable, with the lively zeal for philosophizing, which Anaxagoras, Socrates and the Sophists had excited at Athens, that none of the ideas of the neighbouring philosopher should have penetrated to Athens from Bœotia; that the mental feast and the mental light should have remained among the sensual Bœotians, while Copaic eels for the Attic palate, and Bœotian wicks for the Attic lamps, came to Athens. And are we to suppose Simmias and Cebes to have retained nothing whatever of the doctrine of Philolaus, or to have mentioned nothing of it in Athens? The only question, therefore, is, whether in the Phædrus Philolaic echoes can actually be heard; a point which can only be made out by comparison with the fragments and extracts preserved; the spuriousness of which, I am firmly convinced, can never be hereafter proved. Now, in the Phædrus, the souls, in their circuitous route through the universe, for the purpose of contemplation, start from the house of the gods, in which Hestia alone remains behind, and climb up, upon it, to the highest sub-celestial arch; breaking through this, they come at last to the super-celestial region, where they contemplate the formless and pure essence of things, that is, the ideas here mythically represented. Not intending again to defend all particulars referring to this point, contained in an earlier essay, I am nevertheless compelled to recognise it as perfectly Philolaic; not, however, in such a sense as that Philolaus said exactly the same, but as grounded upon the Philolaic conception of the form of the universe. Hestia remains alone in the house of the gods: is not the Pythagorean Hestia, the house of Zeus, clearly enough indicated here—of that Zeus, I say, who in Plato leads the procession of the gods? Is not, on the other hand, the supra-celestial region exactly the Olympus of Philolaus? Observe, moreover, that these conceptions are perfectly unplatonic. Plato himself considers the earth as the centre-point, as is said in the Timæus; he knows nothing in his system of such a dwelling of the gods as we find in the Phædrus; but that in the Phædrus the earth is not the dwelling of the gods and the earth of the world he is clear at once from this, that those souls which cannot follow the gods in that procession, fall down upon the earth, which must therefore, certainly, be something different from the dwelling of the gods; and that this conception also may be explained without obscurity, and without confusion, out of the Philolaic system of the world, I have shown in the treatise de Platonico systemate cœlestium globorum et de verâ indole astronomiæ Philolaicæ, (p. 27—32). Then again the assumption of a super-celestial region is quite as little Platonic; for as Aristotle remarks, (Phys. iii. 4.) the developed Platonic doctrine places nothing without the heavens, not even the ideas, which are not indeed in space at all; some foreign matter, therefore, predominates in the Phædrus, of which Plato availed himself for the purposes of a mythical composition; but, though foreign, not unsuitable. For in the Pythagorean super-celestial region is the Unlimited, a formless entity, the pure first origin; and it is precisely the formless, pure essence of things which, according to the Phædrus, the souls contemplate there. But enough of this. Moreover, it appears from what has been said, that in the Timæus no coincidence with the Philolaic doctrine is to be found; and the only point they have in common is, that in the Timæus the soul of the world proceeds from the centre, and the whole universe is again enveloped in it, and Philolaus also regards the central fire as the chief seat of the soul, or the divine principle, and represents the All as surrounded with the soul. It is not therefore my opinion that Philolaus, as, according to some authors quoted in Simplicius, was the case with certain Pythagoreans, considered the central fire as the formative power, situate in the centre of the earth, and nourishing it from thence, and the counter-earth (ἀντίχθων) as the moon; which, when applied to Philolaus is perfectly unsuitable: but it can scarcely be overlooked, that the central fire has the same relation to the soul of the world, which, according to some physical conceptions, the brain, according to others, the heart, has to the human soul.”

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Footnotes

1. But see the extract from Boeckh’s Philolaus, p. 104. at the end of this volume. (Tr.) ↩