Republic (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (73 page)

American Journal of Philology
13 (1892), pp. 349—372.

Information about Socrates, Thrasymachus, and other interlocutors in
Republic
is given in the introduction.

The major port city of Attica, about 4 miles from Athens.

The Thracian deity Bendis, identified by Greeks with the goddess Artemis. The cult of Bendis was officially accepted in Piraeus in 430 or 429 B.C.E.

The phrase evokes the Homeric poems; compare
Iliad
22.60 and 24.487, and
Odyssey
15.246.

Literally, “we who are approximately the same age often come to the same place.”

Athenian tragedian (c.496-406 B.C.E.), active as a playwright until his death.

Athenian general (c.528-462 B.C.E.) who masterminded the defeat of the Persian navy at the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.E.

Seriphos is a small island in the Aegean Sea.

Lyric poet (c.518-438 B.C.E.) whose work is cited again at 2.365b. The poem from which Cephalus quotes does not survive.

Lyric and elegiac poet (c.548-468 B.C.E.) from the island Ceos, whose work is also alluded to at 2.365c. The saying attributed to Simonides here does not match anything in the extant fragments of his poetry.

The grandfather of Odysseus (the hero of
Odyssey),
who is described in
Odyssey
19.392-398.

Bias and Pittacus were legendary wise men (“sages”) who lived in the sixth century B.C.E. Bias was from Priene (in Ionia), Pittacus from Mytilene (on the island Lesbos in the Aegean).

The expression suggests that, in Thrasymachus’ view, Socrates is wrangling unscrupulously for the sake of personal gain.

That is, an attendant at a public bath. Aristophanes,
Knights
1403 stereotypes bathmen, along with prostitutes, as disreputable individuals.

“Good” here is
agathos
in Greek, the positive form of the superlative adjective
aristos.

“Lyre”
(lyra)
can refer to any number of stringed instruments commonly played in ancient Greece.

Festival in honor of the goddess Bendis; see the first paragraph of 1.327.

In book 1 of his
Histories,
Herodotus (c.490-420 B.C.E.) relates a somewhat different story about how Gyges came to be king of Lydia (in western Asia Minor) in the late eighth century B.C.E. His descendant Croesus ruled Lydia in the middle of the sixth century B.C.E.

Athenian tragedian (c.525-456 B.C.E.). The reference here is to
Seven Against Thebes
592-594.

Aeschylus,
Seven Against Thebes
574-575.

An ancient commentator (scholiast) states that the source of the proverb is
Odyssey
16.97-98; compare
Iliad
21.308-309.

Poet from Boeotia (c. late eighth century B.C.E.), author of several major poems in dactylic hexameter, including the extant
Theogony
(about the origins of various gods and their conflicts with one another) and the didactic poem
Works and Days.
As far back as the fifth century B.C.E., Hesiod was frequently linked to (or contrasted with) Homer.

Hesiod,
Works and Days
232-233.

Odyssey
19.109-112.

Musaeus was a legendary singer, often associated with the singer Orpheus and also with the god Apollo, the Muses, and the Moon (see below at 2.364e). “His son” probably refers to Eumolpus, the legendary ancestor of the Eumolpidae clan in Eleusis.

God of the underworld; by extension, the underworld itself.

Itinerant prophets and seers, as well as bards and musicians, would have traditionally been guests in the households of wealthy, powerful men in Greek city-states.

Hesiod,
Works and Days
287-289.

Adapted from
Iliad
9.497-501.

Legendary Thracian singer and founder of the religious movement called Or phism, which entertained ideas about reincarnation and transmigration of the soul. The phrase “host of books” refers to Orphic texts.

From a poem by Pindar that is no longer extant.

The allusion is to a poem by Simonides.

Archilochus was an iambic and elegiac poet (early seventh century B.C.E.) from the island Paros; two extant fragments of Archilochus’ poetry deal with clever foxes.

From
Iliad
9.497-501, adapted above at 2.364d-e.

Literally, “sons of that man”—that is, Thrasymachus. Glaucon and Adeimantus are Thrasymachus’ “sons” insofar as they have continued the argument he began in book 1.

Possibly Critias (460-403 B.C.E.), a distant relation of Plato and his brothers, who eventually led the oligarchic coup of 404-403 B.C.E.

There were battles at Megara in 424 and 409 B.C.E.; if the “dramatic date” of
Republic
is meant to be 411 or 410 B.C.E., reference to the battle in 409 would be an anachronism.

The name Ariston evokes the adjective
aristos
(“best”); compare 9.580b.

That is, a polis, or city-state.

The Greek means, literally, “our need will create [or determine] it.”

Hetairai
in Greek. “Courtesans and cakes” are juxtaposed in lists of luxuries in, for example, Aristophanes,
Acharnians
1090-1092.

That is, to raise pigs for food. Although animals in the “healthy city” would be slaughtered for their hides, the inhabitants would apparently subsist on a vegetarian diet (2.372b).

Uranus
(Ouranos
in Greek), the ancient deity of the sky and mate of Gaia (Earth), was castrated by his son Cronus (Hesiod,
Theogony
154-181); Cronus was in turn deposed by his son, Zeus, the current ruler of the cosmos (Hesiod,
Theogony
453-506).

Pigs were typically sacrificed in the initiatory rites for the mystery cult at Eleusis.

There are several accounts of battles between the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, and the giants (created, according to Hesiod,
Theogony
185, when the blood of the castrated Uranus fell onto Gaia).

The story of Hephaestus’ binding of his mother Here (Hera), the wife and sister of Zeus, was apparently related by Pindar. Hephaestus is the god of fire and metal-working crafts.

Iliad
1.586-594. Zeus’ punishment left Hephaestus permanently lame.