aw
This quotation and the two following are from
Iliad
24.527-532.
ay
In
Iliad
4, the Trojan Pandarus breaks the truce between the Greeks and the Trojans by shooting an arrow at Menelaus, the husband of Helen and the brother of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek forces.
az
Daughter of Zeus, goddess of war, wisdom, and crafts, and patron of the Greeks at Troy. In
Iliad
4.85-104, Athena disguises herself as a Trojan and prompts Pandarus to wound Menelaus.
ba
Probably a reference to Iliad 20.1-74, where Zeus dispatches the goddess Themis to call the gods to the council.
bb
From a lost play about Niobe by Aeschylus.
bc
Daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, Niobe boasted that her twelve children made her more blessed than the goddess Leto, mother (by Zeus) of the gods Apollo and Artemis. Apollo and Artemis killed all the children of Niobe, who subsequently turned to stone in grief.
be
Odyssey
4.455-460 describes the shape-changing of Proteus, a minor sea-god.
bf
Pindar, in the fourth Nemean ode, describes how Thetis, a minor goddess who became (by the mortal Peleus) the mother of the mortal warrior Achilles, transformed herself in order to avoid marrying Peleus.
bg
From a lost play by Aeschylus.
bh
Indicated here are the tales about “bogey monsters,” such as those mentioned in Aristophanes,
Frogs
293.
bj
Perhaps from Aeschylus’ lost Contest of
Arms
(Hoplon krisis). Whatever the origin of the quotation, “her fair progeny” refers to Achilles, and “Phoebus” refers to the god Apollo.
bk
Odyssey
11.489-491. The verses, spoken by the ghost of Achilles in the underworld, are also quoted in Republic at 7.516d. From this point on, the representation of Achilles’ conduct (in Iliad) is one of the chief foci of Socrates’ criticism of poetry’s content.
bl
Iliad
20.64-65. Pluto is another name for Hades, the god of the underworld.
bn
Odyssey
11.493-495. Tiresias is the legendary blind Theban prophet. In Odyssey 11, in order to learn about his future, Odysseus calls up the spirit of Tiresias from the underworld.
br
Two rivers in the underworld.
bs
Allusion to Iliad 24.10-12, which describes the grief of Achilles as he mourns for his recently killed companion Patroclus.
bt
Allusion to Iliad 18.23, when Achilles first learns of Patroclus’ death.
bu
Iliad
22.414-415. Priam, king of Troy, is “kinsman of the gods” because he is descended from Zeus.
bv
Iliad
18.54. Thetis, Achilles’ mother, is the speaker.
bw
Iliad
22.168. The speaker is Zeus.
bx
Iliad
16.433. Again, the speaker is Zeus. Sarpedon is Zeus’ son by a mortal woman and is hence himself mortal. Zeus laments his pending death at the hands of Patroclus.
ca
Iliad
4.412. Diomedes was one of the Greek chieftains at Troy.
cb
These verses do not follow Iliad 4.412. The first is Iliad 3.8, the second Iliad 4.431.
cc
Iliad
1.225, addressed by Achilles to Agamemnon. Although Achilles is the best warrior in the Greek army, Agamemnon is its commander; hence the judgment that Achilles’ words are “ill spoken.”
cf
Iliad
14.281. In
Iliad
14, Here (Hera) seduces Zeus and thus temporarily distracts him from his supervision of the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans. The description above of Zeus lying awake “devising plans” is actually derived from
Iliad
2.1-4.
cg
In
Odyssey
8.266-366, the Phaeacian bard Demodocus relates a story about how Hephaestus caught his wife, Aphrodite, the goddess of lust and sensuality, in bed with the handsome young war-god Ares.
ch
Odysseus in
Odyssey
20.17-18.
ci
Saying attributed to Hesiod.
cj
In
Iliad
9, Phoenix (along with Odysseus and Ajax) brings gifts from Agamemnon to Achilles in an effort to persuade Achilles to relent in his anger toward Agamemnon and to rejoin the fighting against the Trojans.
ck
Although Achilles refuses the gifts from Agamemnon in Iliad 9, he accepts them in
Iliad
19 as he prepares to go back into battle.
cl
Achilles kills Hector, the leading warrior of the Trojans and Priam’s son, in Iliad 22. In Iliad 24, he accepts ransom for Hector’s body and returns it to Priam.
cn
Achilles fights the river-god Scamander in
Iliad
21.
co
Iliad
23.140-151. Achilles vowed to offer locks of his hair to the river Spercheius if he safely returned to Greece after the war; by the time he prepares Patroclus’ funeral pyre in
Iliad
23, however, he knows that he will die in Troy.
cr
Cheiron was the centaur (half-human, half-horse) who was Achilles’ tutor.
cs
Theseus was a legendary king of Athens and descendant of Poseidon, god of the sea; he and his companion Peirithous ventured to the underworld to steal away Persephone, goddess of the underworld, from her husband, Hades.
ct
Both quotations are from Aeschylus’ tragedy
Niobe.
Ida is the mountain near the city of Troy.
cu
Iliad
1.15-16. Chryses, priest of Apollo in a town near Troy that had been plun dered by the Greeks, seeks to pay ransom for his daughter Chryseis but is rebuffed by Agamemnon, who has taken her as a concubine. The god who becomes angered against the Greeks because of Chryses’ prayer is Apollo.
cv
The Greeks in
Iliad
and
Odyssey
are typically called Achaeans, Danaans, and Argives.
cw
Dithyrambs were narrative poems performed by large choruses (some composed of men, some of boys); they were featured, along with tragedies and comedies, in festal competitions at the Theater of Dionysus in Athens.
cx
Once again,
physis;
see note 9 on 2.367e, page 358.
cy
In Greek,
harmonia
(“harmony,” referring literally to the “attunement” of lyre strings); also translated as “mode.”
cz
Although the word
aulos
is commonly translated as “flute,” the
aulos
is not, properly speaking, flute-like. “Pipe” is a more accurate rendering of
aulos;
it is a different instrument from the rustic Pan’s pipe
(syrinx)
that Socrates deems appropriate for shepherds.
da
The Greek actually reads “the lyre and cithara”; the cithara was the specific type of lyre used by professional musicians (citharists, who played the instrument but did not sing, and citharodes, who played and sang).
db
Anubis; compare 9.592a and
Gorgias
428b. Plato at times represents Socrates swearing unusual oaths—for example, “by the goose.”
dc
Influential theorist on music from Athens (fifth century B.C.E.).
de
Cakes
(pemmata);
compare 2.373a for the juxtaposition of “courtesans” and cakes.
df
The Asclepiadae were a group of physicians with schools in Cyrene, Rhodes, and elsewhere. Asclepius was a legendary healer and son of Apollo.
dg
Greek chieftain at Troy. Socrates plainly refers to
Iliad
11.833, but it was Machaon, not Eurypylus, who was given the wine-barley-cheese drink in
Iliad
11.614. The sons of Asclepius at the Trojan War are Machaon and Podalirius, the two doctors in the Greek army.
dh
Physician (from Megara, fifth century B.C. E.) who was an expert in physical training and diet. He is not to be confused the brother of the Sicilian rhetorician Gorgias, also named Herodicus, who is mentioned in
Gorgias
448b and was also a physician.
di
Poet from Miletus (sixth century B.C.E.). Plato distorts the emphases of Phocylides’ verse.
dj
Adaptation of
Iliad
4.218.
dk
King of Phrygia in northwestern Asia Minor (late eighth to early seventh century B.C.E.) who was proverbially wealthy. Plato perhaps alludes here to a line in a poem by Tyrtaeus (Spartan but possibly of Athenian birth, early seventh century B.C.E.). The story of Midas’ “golden touch” can be found in the Roman poet Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
11.
dl
That is, by representing heroic figures such as Asclepius taking bribes; compare 3.390e-391a.
dm
The conception of the earth (Gaia) as a mother-figure is well established in ancient Greek mythology.
dn
For the concept that different people have different “natures,” see note 9 on 2.367e and note 12 on 2.370b.
do
That is, the hypothetical questioner posited at 4.419a.
dp
An obscure reference. On the divided nature of all other cities, see 8.551d.
dq
Compare
Odyssey
1.351-352.
dr
The Hydra was a mythical monster with multiple heads; when one head was cut off, two more grew back in its place.
ds
Site of an important pan-Hellenic sanctuary dedicated to Apollo. The oracular shrine at Delphi, where Apollo was thought to prophesy through his priestess (the Pythia), was conceived of as resting on the supposed center (“navel”) of the earth.
dt
Daimones
in Greek; that is, guardian spirits.
du
Figures such as Achilles, Heracles, Theseus, and Helen, as well as less well known and locally important figures, were worshiped throughout the Greek world in hero cults.
dv
That is, chthonic deities such as the Furies (Eumenides) and Persephone.
dx
The concept of self-mastery (literally, being “superior” to oneself) was integral to the popular understanding of moderation
(sophrosynê).
dy
The “weaker” class is the “bronze/iron” class of artisans and farmers; the “stronger” is the “gold” class of rulers, and the “middle” is the “silver” class of auxiliaries.
dz
Compare Compare 2.370b; also 2.372a.
ea
In a fragment of a lost comedy, someone named Leotrophidas is said to seem as “comely as a corpse” to a certain Leontius, who is presumably the same individual as the one described in this anecdote.
eb
Odyssey
20.17, quoted with approval above at 3.390d.
ed
Goddess and personification of retribution.
ee
That is, a wrestling school. Spartan women exercised and trained in public. Athenians of the classical period found the Spartan practice distasteful and ridiculous.
ef
That is, the hypothetical critics of Socrates’ proposals concerning the training of female guardians. See also the references to “the adversary’s position” and “our opponents” below in 453a-b.
eg
Arion (seventh century B.C.E.) was a musician from Lesbos; a dolphin supposedly rescued him after he was thrown overboard.
eh
From a lost poem by Pindar.
ei
Literally, in the city of the
eudaimones;
see note 13 on 1.344a.
ej
Some ancient medical writers claimed that children are not born in the eighth month of pregnancy; this perhaps explains Socrates’ choice of wording.
ek
See 4.427b for Socrates’ designation of Apollo as the patron deity of the ideal state and for Apollo’s association with the Pythian oracle at Delphi; compare 7.540b-c.
em
That is, with garlands.
en
Reference to
Iliad
7.321-322.
ep
Works and Days
121-122. The verses describe how members of the primeval golden race became, after their blessed lives and painless deaths, “guardians”
(phylakes)
of the living.