1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, with an English translation by R.D. Hicks, 1980, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
. W. G. Tennemann, System der Platonischen Philosophie, Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1792, vol. i. pp. 117-18. Tennemann himself does not try to substantiate his suggestion that the theme of love, which is central to the Phaedrus, made the ancients perceive something youthful in the dialogue. I have found the only attempt to do so in Krische’s work, in which he drew on Aristotle for support. (A. B. Krische, Platons Phaedrus, 1848, p.5.) But in the text to which he refers, that is Nicomachean Ethics 1156a31-b4, Aristotle notes that the young are amorous because they are emotional and indulge in pleasure: ‘they fall quickly in and out of love, changing often within a single day’. This kind of juvenile love has nothing to do with the love discussed by Plato in the Phaedrus, and the ancients could hardly have been mistaken on this. (Cf. W. H. Thompson, The Phaedrus of Plato, 1868, p. xxiv, n. 8.
3. Guthrie translates ‘because there was something youthful about the theme’ Guthrie, op. cit. p. 43.
4. Liddell & Scott render the term meirakieia felicitously as ‘boyish mischief’.
5. Cf. J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1954, p. lii.
6. This syntactic function of kai gar can be studied in any Greek author. I have noted down this type of kai gar wherever I came across it, in Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon, Isocrates, Aristotle, and Diogenes Laertius. To give an example, let me point to those kai gar passages that I noted in the Apology and in which I find the ratio of the causal and non-causal use of kai gar to be fairly representative. The non-causal use: 18d7-e3, 22b8-c3, 38e5-39b1, 39c1-3; kai gar can be interpreted as causal in 40e2-4.
7. Hermias in his Commentary on the Phaedrus reproduces the ancient criticism raised against the Phaedrus as follows: Ta de enklêmata nun legômen ha tines katêgorousi Platônos epi toutôi tôi sungrammati ... Phasi gar prôton men ou deontôs kat’ erôtos kai huper erôtos pepoiêsthai auton ton logon, hôsper meirakion philotimoumenon eis hekateron, epeita to antigraphein tôi Lusiou logôi kai hamillasthai baskanou tinos kai philoneikou neou eoiken einai, kômôidountos ton rhêtora kai eis atechnian auton diaballontos. (Hermias, In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, ed. Couvreur, Paris 1901, p. 9.) ‘Let us now present the critical remarks that some persons raise against Plato concerning this writing [i.e. the Phaedrus] ... In the first place they say that he did not work out appropriately the discourse against eros and for eros, like a youngling ambitiously contending on each side. Then they say that writing against the discourse of Lysias and competing with him, lampooning the rhetorician in the manner befitting the writers of comedy and accusing him of artlessness, appears like the work of a malign and contentious youngster.’
. It may seem that Hicks’ interpretation of tropos finds sufficient support in Plato’s tropos tês lexeôs in Republic 400d, where Liddell and Scott take it to mean ‘style’, but in fact tropos means here something much more comprehensive. It comprises both what is said and how it is said; the laudable tropos is eulogia (400d11), its opposite being kakologia (401a6), which correspond to the good and bad character (êthos, 400e2) of soul respectively. Liddell and Scott refer to Isocrates’ Antidosis 45 to support their rendering of tropos, and the passage is indeed instructive, but it goes against their interpretation. For Isocrates enumerates tropoi tôn logôn as follows: ‘some men have devoted their lives to research in genealogies of the demigods; others have made studies in poets; others have chosen to compose histories of wars; while still others have occupied themselves with questions and answers, whom people call controversialists’ (antilogikous). Incidentally, the last tropos applies to the Phaedrus as the ancient critics of Plato saw it.
9. L. G. Westerink, Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing, 1962, pp. 2-3.)
10. Olympiodorus, Commentary on the first Alcibiades of Plato, ed. L. G. Westerink, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing, 1956, p. 2.
11. Thus M. Heidegger writes concerning the Phaedrus: ‘dieses Gespräch nach allen wesentlichen Hinsichten als das vollendeste angesprochen werden muß. Es kann daher auch nicht, wie Schleiermacher wollte, als das früheste Werk gelten; ebensowenig gehört es in die späteste Zeit, sondern in die Jahre der akmê des Platonischen schaffens.’ (Nietzsche, Vol. I, ed. Neske, 1961, p. 222.)
12. See Hermias, p. 9: eiôthe Platôn tôn antikeimenôn logôn exetasin poieisthai pros heuresin kai basanon tês alêtheias, houtôs kai en Politeiai kata dikaiosunês kai huper dikaiosunês, <kai> en Sophistêi peri tou ontos kai tou mê ontos. ‘Plato constantly examined contradictory arguments for the sake of finding and testing the truth; thus in the Republic against justice and for justice, and in the Sophist concerning being and not-being.’
13. See G. Stallbaum, Platonis Phaedrus, 2nd ed. Gotha, Sumptibus Hennings, 1857, pp. cxiii, cxvii, cxx. Cf. e.g. Hackforth, op. cit. p.3, G. J. De Vries, A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato, Amsterdam, 1969, p.8.
14. See Cicero, De re publica, The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero’s works, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1977, vol. xvi, p.9.
15. See Diog. Laert. iii. 35: phasi de kai Sôkratên akousanta ton Lusin anagignôskontos Platônos “Hêrakleis,” eipein, “hôs polla mou katapseudeth’ ho neaniskos.” Hicks translates: ‘They say that, on hearing Plato read the Lysis, Socrates exclaimed, “By Heracles”, what a number of lies this young man is telling about me!”
Cf. Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, edited L. G. Westerink, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1962, p. 9, l. 27-8: [Platôn] sungrammata exetheto, ha eti zôntos Sôkratous eis cheiras autou êlthon. ‘[Plato] published writings that came into the hands of Socrates while he was still alive’.
16. Tr. W. R. M. Lamb. The speech Against Eratosthenes was delivered by Lysias after the restoration of democracy in 403 B.C., that is four years prior to the trial and death of Socrates. Cf. W. R. Lamb’s ‘Chronological summary’ in Lysias, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976, p. xxiv.
17. Concerning this point see Ch. 1.
18. Cf. Plato, Republic 331d8-9.
19. Aristotle says in Ethica Eudemia ii. 10 that ‘Solon is right when he says’ (to Solônos echei kalôs) ‘that one should not ascribe happiness to a man while he is alive, but only after his life has reached its end’ (to mê zônt’ eudaimonizein, all’ hotan labêi to telos, 1219b6-7).
20. There would have been many citizens in Athens even among staunch democrats, let alone Plato's readers, who on reading Republic i would have recollected Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes and agreed with Plato that it would have been better for Lysias to follow Polemarchus' example as enacted in the Republic, that is to listen to Socrates and renounce the principle of 'harming enemies' as a model of justice, for in Against Eratosthenes Lysias attempted to reopen the wounds caused during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, and thus threatened to undermine the recently restored democracy.
As Plato recollects in The Seventh Letter, with the exception of a few bent on revenge against their enemies (timôrias echthrôn gignesthai tinôn tisi), the victorious democrats who then returned from exile showed great forbearance (pollêi ge echrêsanto hoi tote katelthontes epieikeiai, 325b3-5). And thus there are reasons to believe that Lysias lost his cause against Eratosthenes, irreparably harming his political prospects. For he had obtained Athenian citizenship as a reward for his deserts in rearming the democrats, but instead of joining the others in their exemplary forbearance he 'at once impeached Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty, for the murder of Polemarchus. Shortly afterwards, owing to a technical irregularity in Thrasybulus' procedure, Lysias lost his citizenship.' (W. R. M. Lamb, 'Introduction' to his edition of Lysias, The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1976, p. xiv.) All this must have made Lysias' silent presence in the Republic, his listening to Socrates’ upbraiding of Polemarchus, particularly poignant in the eyes of Plato's contemporary readers.
21. Lysias says ‘We are told, indeed, that of the Thirty Eratosthenes has done the least harm, and it is claimed that on this ground he should escape.’ He does not dispute the claim of Eratosthenes’ supporters – the kaloi kagathoi present at the trial – that Eratosthenes ‘has done the least harm’ from among the Thirty, but he maintains that he has committed more offences against the Athenians than all the other Greeks (hoti de tôn allôn Hellênôn pleista eis humas hêmarten) and that this is why he ought not to be exculpated but destroyed (xii. 89).
22. Cf. Plato, Seventh Letter 325a-b.
23. Cf. Thompson, op. cit. n. on Phaedrus 242b3.
24. See B. D. Meritt, ‘Greek Inscriptions’, Hesperia 8, 1939, p. 76.
25. Plato says in the Seventh Letter that at the beginning of the aristocratic revolution, because of his youth (hupo neotêtos) he believed that the aristocrats would govern the city so as to bring men out of their life of injustice into a life of justice (ôiêthên gar autous ek tinos adikou biou epi dikaion tropon agontas dioikêsein tên polin), but that he soon realized how badly he misjudged them, ‘seeing that these men in a short time proved the former government to have been precious as gold by comparison’ (horôn dêpou tous andras en chronôi oligôi chruson apodeiknuntas tên emprosthen politeian, 324d4-7).
26. Plato quotes from Hesiod’s Opera et Dies 40.
27. Plato, Seventh Letter 324b-326b.
28. E. B. England in his commentary The Laws of Plato (Manchester, 1921) says aptly ad loc: ‘This restriction of the property of xenoi and freedmen seems to have been Plato’s own [as opposed to other laws that Plato in England’s view derived from Athenian law]. He apparently disapproved of the generous treatment accorded to metoikoi by the Athenians. In this his relatives Critias and Charmides would have agreed with him.’
29. In Herodotus i.30-33 we learn that Solon, a great Athenian philosopher, statesman, lawgiver, and poet, arrived at the court of Croesus, the powerful and wealthy King of Lydia in Asia Minor. Croesus asked him whether in his travels devoted to philosophy (philosopheôn) he saw a man whom he regarded as being most happy and blessed (ei tina êdê pantôn eides olbiôtaton). Croesus expected that Solon would answer that Croesus was the most happy and blessed man that he had seen, but Solon ‘tells him the truth as it is’ (tôi eonti chrêsamenos legei). He names Tellos, an Athenian under whose leadership the city did well, who had noble and good children, whose children in their turn had children of whom none had died as long as Tellos lived. Tellos ended his life most gloriously (teleutê tou biou lamprotatê epegeneto). There was a battle between the Athenians and their neighbours in Eleusis, Tellos won the battle and found a most noble death on the battlefield (tropên poiêsas polemiôn apethane kallista). The Athenians gave him a public funeral, buried him at the spot where he fell and honoured him greatly (kai etimêsan megalôs).
The disappointed Croesus asks who would Solon think the second most happy and blessed man. Solon names two young men from Argos, Cleobis and Biton, describes the deed that made them famous and admired by all the people of their country and ends by describing their blessed death at the height of their fame.
Solon explains that even a very rich man is in no way more happy and blessed than a man who has just enough for a day, unless he lived a good life and ended his life well (ei mê panta kala echonta eu teleutêsai ton bion). Croesus dismisses Solon as a worthless man. In the next 58 chapters Herodotus describes the subsequent fate of Croesus that fully corroborates Solon’s view of life. Defeated by Cyrus - at i.86 - standing on a pyre on which he is to be burnt alive, Croesus realises how right Solon was when he maintained that no living man is happy and blessed (to mêdena einai tôn zôontôn olbion), and so he shouts three times ‘Solon Solon Solon’, having realized that Solon did not have him in particular in mind, but that he spoke of all men, and especially of those men who thought of themselves as being happy and blessed.
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