Old Scholia on Plato by Plato Commentary

Contents

1. Εἰς τὸν Εὐθύφρονα Euthyphro

   Athenian law and cult frame these notes on Plato's Euthyphro. They separate a private suit from a public indictment, place Meletus' deme of Pitthus in the tribe Aegeis, and explain the exegete who interprets the laws and the allotment of cases. The proverb 'from the hearth' brings a myth of Hestia asking Zeus for virginity and first offerings, and 'where there is fear there is shame' is traced to Stasinus' Cypria.

2. Εἰς τὴν Σωκράτους Ἀπολογίαν Apology of Socrates

   Court procedure dominates the notes on Plato's Apology of Socrates. They define a case lost by default, the sworn statements of accuser and accused, and the counter-charge, and explain Socrates' oath 'by the dog' as an oath of Rhadamanthys, citing Cratinus' Cheirones. A longer entry on the address ō tan weighs its Attic accent and rejects Didymus' account of its origin.

3. Εἰς τὸν Κρίτωνα Crito

   A handful of notes is all that the Crito receives in this collection. They read the Homeric line in Socrates' dream as an oracle, explain Plato's use of 'fairly' to mean 'sufficiently' and a formula of wishing, and define the members of a clan as those who share hereditary rites, whom others equate with phratry members and kin.

4. Εἰς τὸν Φαίδωνα Phaedo

   An epigram heads the notes on the Phaedo, in which the dialogue protests that Panaetius, who denied immortality, also declared it spurious. The notes go on to the sacred embassy to Delos, the flight of Philolaus from Italy after the burning of the Pythagoreans, and Duris' story behind 'not even Heracles against two'. They close on the art of Glaucus and the four tuned bronze discs of Hippasus, citing Aristoxenus.

5. Εἰς τὸν Κρατύλον Cratylus

   Didymus traces 'fine things are hard', the first proverb in the notes on Plato's Cratylus, to Solon's reply when Pittacus asked to lay down his rule. The custom of sacrificing first to Hestia is explained with her myth. 'A contest admits no excuses' is set beside the Laws, Aeschylus' Glaucus of Potniae and Aristophanes, among glosses on rare words such as arraton.

6. Εἰς τὸν Θεαίτητον Theaetetus

   Notes on the Theaetetus remark on Socrates' looks, the running tracks inside and outside the city, the proverb of the losing player who sits as the ass, and the first argument offered for Protagoras' doctrine, with frequent variant readings. In the digression on the philosopher they explain banausic craftsmen and 'pitchers of the sea'; the last notes quote Hesiod's hundred-timbered wagon and the proverbs 'last of the Mysians' and 'turning the pestle'.

7. Εἰς τὸν Σοφιστήν Sophist

   Following Iamblichus, a Neoplatonic preface to the Sophist notes makes the dialogue's real subject the sublunary craftsman, at once image-maker, purifier and many-headed, with the Eleatic stranger as a figure of the father of the craftsmen. Later the division that hunts down the angler is set out as a table, atta is discussed with citations from Demosthenes and comedy, and the ventriloquist seer Eurycles explains a proverb.

8. Εἰς τὸν Πολιτικόν Statesman

   Theaetetus and the young Socrates are identified at the start of the Statesman notes, with a remark that a part is wider than a form. Proverbs on haste that ends slower and the 'second voyage', with its echoes in the Phaedo, Aristotle and Menander, sit beside notes on the priestly kings of Egypt, the triangular tablets of sacred and civic law against the square boards of private law, and the refining of gold.

9. Εἰς τὸν Παρμενίδην Parmenides

   Setting and argument share the notes on the Parmenides. Clazomenae, the deme of Melite and the Ceramicus are placed, and the Panathenaea is traced to Erichthonius and to Theseus' union of the demes. Zeno's first argument is set out as a syllogism against plurality, and Parmenides' comparison of himself to the horse of Ibycus is illustrated by quoting Ibycus' lines on Eros and the ageing racehorse.

10. Εἰς τὸν Φίληβον Philebus

    A run of proverbs and their stories marks the notes on the Philebus: 'the tale has perished', 'do not stir an evil well laid', tied to the fallen Colossus of Rhodes, the 'second voyage', and 'know yourself', given to Chilon or to a temple servant named Labys. An account of clans, phratries and the thirds of tribes accompanies a note on kinship, and the close explains 'the third to the Saviour' from the three mixing bowls of a drinking party.

11. Εἰς τὸ Συμπόσιον Symposium

    Opening with the demes of Apollodorus and Aristodemus, the notes on the Symposium explain 'the good go uninvited to feasts', the story of Alcestis behind Phaedrus' speech, and Codrus, whose descent from Deucalion and his father Melanthus' single combat in a Boeotian border war are told at length. Near the end Alcibiades' 'like a child, learning by suffering' brings a cluster of proverbs, among them the fisherman stung by a scorpion and Timon's refusal of flatterers.

12. Εἰς τὸν Φαῖδρον Phaedrus

    Olympiodorus is quoted at the head of the Phaedrus notes for the view that this was Plato's first dialogue. The notes identify Lysias, the physician Acumenus, the glutton Morychus and Herodicus of Selymbria, and mark the start of Socrates' palinode and its three arguments that madness is better than wisdom. An entry on the ten Sibyls connects the first with Noah's household, and the close traces 'friends hold all in common' to Pythagoras through Timaeus.

13. Εἰς τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην Alcibiades I

    Alongside the Alcibiades I, the notes chart the dialogue's structure from the end of the proem through the first chapter to the late syllogisms that a man ignorant of himself is no statesman. They explain Socrates' divine sign, place Alcibiades just short of twenty with an account of Athenian enrolment from Polydeuces' Onomasticon, and draw out the descents of Alcibiades from Zeus through Ajax and of Socrates from Hephaestus through Daedalus.

14. Εἰς τὸν Δεύτερον Ἀλκιβιάδην Alcibiades II

    The few notes on the Alcibiades II are word studies. One sets out four opposed senses of phaulos with examples from Demosthenes and Euripides and observes that the sense of baseness has won out; others separate the envious man from the slanderer, and show from Demosthenes that the word for bribe-taker could also mean one who gives bribes.

15. Εἰς τὸν Ἵππαρχον Hipparchus

    An article on teōs is the centre of the Hipparchus notes, illustrated from Demosthenes, Aristophanes and Zoilus' encomium of Polyphemus and ending with Pherecydes' story that Athamas named Teos from his daughter's words. The demes of Philaidae and Steiria are placed before it, and a last note explains 'taking back a move' from the players of a board game.

16. Εἰς τοὺς Ἐραστάς Lovers (Erastai)

    Solon's elegies are named as the source of 'I grow old ever learning many things' in the notes on the Lovers, which also define irony as glib, ingratiating speech. A verse lists the five contests of the pentathlon, and the javelin and the peltasts' shield, rimless or square, are described, with Herodotus cited for an all-iron spear.

17. Εἰς τὸν Θεάγη Theages

    For the Theages the notes explain the two meanings of atta by its breathing and discuss the proverb 'counsel is a sacred thing', read either as a demand for honest advice or as praise of counsel itself, citing Aristophanes' Amphiaraus. Further entries treat a verb meaning 'had someone taught', the adverb embrachy with parallels from Hyperides, Aristophanes and Cratinus, and the deme of Anagyrus.

18. Εἰς τὸν Χαρμίδην Charmides

    Arithmetic has a substantial note in the Charmides set, which separates practical calculation from the theory of number and names Archimedes' cattle problem. Earlier notes place Potidaea, a Corinthian foundation in Thrace, give a long article on antikry from Homer, Thucydides and Demosthenes, explain the proverb of the white line on white stone and draw out the Delphic maxim 'give a pledge and ruin is near'; 'the third to the Saviour' comes near the end.

19. Εἰς τὸν Λάχητα Laches

    The proverb 'the risk on the Carian' has the longest of the Laches notes, explained from the Carians' early service as mercenaries and cited from Archilochus, Ephorus, Philemon, Euripides' Cyclops and Cratinus. Around it stand Delium and the spike of a spear-butt, 'learning pottery on the great jar', Solon's line on learning in old age, the gerrophoroi and their hide shields, and the slanderous reputation of the people of Aexone.

20. Εἰς τὸν Λύσιν Lysis

    Two proverbs traced to their sources carry the Lysis notes: 'friends hold all in common' to Pythagoras, and 'god ever brings like to like' to Homer. Earlier come the grove of the Academy, named from the hero Academus, and the game of odds and evens, explained with Aristophanes' Wealth; Hesiod's lines on potter envying potter are quoted for Socrates' argument that like is hostile to like.

21. Εἰς τὸν Εὐθύδημον Euthydemus

    Proverbs and Attic cult run through the Euthydemus notes. After two words for those who look older or younger than their years come the risk on the Carian, Medea's advice to the daughters of Pelias and the larks of the dialogue; the story of 'Corinthus son of Zeus' tells of Corinthian envoys stoned and pursued by the Megarians, and Apollo is explained as ancestral god of the Athenians through Ion, with Zeus of the courtyard and Athena of the phratry.

22. Εἰς τὸν Πρωταγόραν Protagoras

    Variant readings and glosses accompany the Protagoras: long-distance runners and Arcadian courier-runners, the prytaneum, the theatre's rod-bearers, and a scheme of Prodicus' distinctions between disputing and quarrelling, esteem and praise, enjoyment and pleasure. Hesiod's lines on the long, steep road to aretē are quoted, and an epigram gives the seven sages with their cities and sayings, before a note that no one errs willingly.

23. Εἰς τὸν Γοργίαν Gorgias

    The Gorgias notes, among the largest in the collection, begin with the latecomer's proverbs 'of war and battle' and 'after the feast', Telephus healed by the one who wounded him, and the move into Callicles' house. In the debate with Callicles they explain the touchstone, the windfall named from offerings left on the roads, the knowledge, goodwill and frankness Socrates credits to him, and they close on the ranking of goods inner, bodily and external and the proverb of like to like.

24. Εἰς τὸν Μένωνα Meno

    Geometry takes several of the Meno notes, which work through the slave-boy's square with figures in feet and the problem of inscribing a triangle in a circle. Before them come Thessaly, Larisa and the Aleuadae, the definition of figure and the numbing torpedo fish; after them Daedalus' statues, bound lest they run off, explain the image of true opinions, and Homer's Tiresias in the Odyssey is quoted for the wise among the shades.

25. Εἰς τὸν Μείζονα Ἱππίαν Greater Hippias

    The Greater Hippias notes begin with geography, placing Elis near Olympia and naming Leontini and Ceos, then turn to Anaxagoras, Hippias' powers of memory and the proverb that the event itself shows the truth, with Cratinus and Sophocles' Lemnian Women. Macaria, daughter of Heracles, explains a curse, the uses of a are classified, and the close tells how Pittacus, alarmed by Periander's turn to tyranny, prompted Solon's 'fine things are hard'.

26. Εἰς τὸν Ἐλάττονα Ἱππίαν Lesser Hippias

    Objects and rare words make up most of the notes on the Lesser Hippias. Hippias' strigil and oil-flask bring a long note citing Aristophanes' Old Age and Banqueters, on the flask that carried perfume to the dead and the word for the destitute derived from it. The adverb embrachy and a word for an attack or allotted portion, cited from Euripides' Temenus and Daughters of Pelias, complete the set.

27. Εἰς τὸν Ἴωνα Ion

    Rhapsodes, the Ion notes explain, were reciters of Homer who carried staves of laurel; Pramnian wine and the grated cheese of the Homeric passage Ion recites are glossed after them. The magnet of Socrates' image prompts the longest note: Ptolemy's account of islands beyond the Ganges where iron-nailed ships are held fast, and Diogenianus' distinction between the Magnesian stone and the Heraclean.

28. Εἰς τὸν Μενέξενον Menexenus

    Aspasia is the subject of the first long note on the Menexenus: her Milesian birth, her later marriage to Lysicles, and the comic poets who called her Omphale, Helen and Hera. The funeral speech's history is then glossed place by place, from Marathon, Plataea, the Eurymedon and Tanagra to Sicily, with Alexis' verses on the seven largest islands, and the Hellespont, named from Helle's fall from the ram-prowed ship.

29. Εἰς τὸν Κλειτοφῶντα Clitophon

    The god from the machine of tragedy has the longest note on the Clitophon, with the proverb drawn from it for sudden rescue and its use by Menander. The other notes explain the senses of the word for philosophical discussions and gloss a handful of words from Clitophon's complaint.

30. Εἰς τὴν Πολιτείαν Republic

    The notes on the Republic run from the descent to the Piraeus to the myth of Er; with those on the Laws they are the two largest sets of the work. They identify the festival as the Lesser Panathenaea, which followed the Thracian Bendideia and whose robe showed the Athenians defeating the Atlantines. Later come mandrake from Theophrastus, Socrates' retort to Eubulus, and the corruption of philosophic physeis; they end with Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos and Plato's tale that 'was saved'.

31. Εἰς τὸν Τίμαιον Timaeus

    Socrates' talk in the Piraeus at the Bendideia, retold next day to Timaeus, Critias, Hermocrates and an unnamed fourth guest, is summarised in the argument to the Timaeus; Proclus, after Atticus, discusses the fourth guest's absence. The scholia explain the Nile's summer flood from Aristotle and Theophrastus and Hephaestus' part in Athena's birth from the head of Zeus, and close on the shoals left by Atlantis, the Demiurge's address to the gods and the senses of sphakelos among physicians.

32. Εἰς τὸν Κριτίαν Critias

    Cithaeron and Parnes, Oropus and the Asopus, the Eridanus and Ilissus, the Pnyx and Lycabettus: the notes on the Critias place the mountains, rivers and sites of Attica and its Boeotian border, and name Cecrops and the others as kings of Athens. The scholiast sets out the Atlantid line from Evenor and Leucippe through Cleito and Poseidon to Atlas and his brothers, glosses the Spartan common meals, converts the plethron and the stadion, and cites Eupolis' Autolycus.

33. Εἰς τὸν Μίνωα Minos

    Athamas, driven from Boeotia, settles where the oracle sent him, among the wolves he found sharing out a flock, in the first of the myths glossed on the Minos. Marsyas loses his contest with Apollo and is flayed, and the death of Androgeos leads to the Athenian tribute of seven boys and seven girls to the Minotaur, ended by Theseus. Shorter glosses explain the women who pour libations to the dead, a word for a favourite and Zeus as guardian of friendship.

34. Εἰς τοὺς Νόμους Laws

    The Athenian Stranger, says the argument to the Laws, is Plato himself, met outside Cnossus on the road to the cave of Zeus by Cleinias of Crete and Megillus of Sparta. Through the twelve books most notes record readings, many from the patriarch's copy; others list incestuous unions from Thyestes to Oedipus and stadium runners such as Iccus of Taras. The proverb of three sixes or three dice is traced to Pherecrates near the end.

35. Εἰς Ἐπινομίδα Epinomis

    Variant readings make up nearly all the notes on the Epinomis, most of them from the patriarch's copy and marked as taken from its correction, with others from different copies. Between them a numbered outline follows the dialogue's kinds of living beings in the heavens, of fire, ether, air and water, and its eight heavenly powers, among them the morning star and Ares. A word obelised in the patriarch's copy is noted near the close.

36. Εἰς τὰς Ἐπιστολάς Letters

    The patriarch's copy, its corrections and other manuscripts are weighed against one another in the notes on Plato's Letters, sometimes with a verdict on which reading is better. The passages they touch include the riddling account of what is first, the quarries, and Dion's pressing Plato to sail to Dionysius. Near the end one letter is marked as disputed, and glosses explain myrtle, Leptines, the amorgina garments named in the gift for the women of Cebes' house, and the Persian king.

37. Εἰς τοὺς Ὅρους Definitions

    Lemmas taken from the Definitions transmitted with Plato's works, a few with readings from the patriarch's copy or other books, run from the star seen by day, called the greatest ensouled living thing, to what moves itself, law-abidingness, endurance, gratitude and nobility. Later entries touch knowledge of what always is, the prize of aretē, and education defined as the handing on of education.

38. Εἰς Διάλογον Περὶ Δικαίου On Justice

    A single proverb occupies almost all of the notes on On Justice: that poets tell many lies. The scholiast explains that poets once told the truth but turned to invention once prizes were set in the contests, and records that Philochorus mentioned the saying in the first book of his Atthis, and Solon in his elegies, before a last gloss on a reply of assent.

39. Εἰς Διάλογον Περὶ Ἀρετῆς On Aretē

    A numbered table of four Athenian fathers and their sons makes up the notes on the dialogue On Aretē: Themistocles and Cleophantus, Aristides and Lysimachus, Pericles with Paralus and Xanthippus, and Thucydides with Melesias and Stephanus. The dialogue cites them as good men who could not make their sons good. The word for teachable stands as a lemma, and an adverb of place is glossed.

40. Εἰς τὸν Δημόδοκον Demodocus

    Numbered headings divide the argument of the Demodocus, marking the steps of its case on counsel given to an assembly and on the vote that follows. The remaining notes are readings on the later sections, which ask whether one adviser suffices for the inexperienced, how judges can judge without knowledge, and whether chance speakers are to be believed.

41. Εἰς τὸν Σίσυφον Sisyphus

    The Sisyphus draws glosses on want of leisure, on Pharsalus in Thessaly, named as the birthplace of Achilles, on several particles and on leisure itself. The longest note distinguishes things in the heavens, such as the sun and the ether, from those in the air below, listing winds, clouds, comets, haloes and shooting stars. The proverb of letting out every rope, taken from sailors, is explained as said of those who try with all their zeal.

42. Εἰς τὸν Ἐρυξίαν Eryxias

    Zeus the Liberator opens the notes on the Eryxias: the Athenians set up his cult after escaping the Persians, and he is honoured also at Syracuse, Taras, Plataea and in Caria. The scholiast places the deme of Steiria in Pandionis, separates Megara on the Isthmus from its namesake in Sicily, and takes the Cean for a man of Cius in Mysia. Eratosthenes is cited on the goatskin cover, and boiling a stone is explained as a proverb for attempting the impossible.

43. Εἰς τὸν Ἀξίοχον Axiochus

    Cynosarges, where the illegitimate were enrolled because Heracles too was a bastard honoured as a god, begins these notes on the Axiochus, with the Ilissus and Callirrhoe. Later notes explain the Athenian vote by show of hands, with the herald calling for hands against Meidias and then for him, and grade kinds of lightning and the whirlwind. Aristotle's division of the Athenians into tribes, phratries and clans defines the clansmen, and a note near the end refers to the rites of Eleusis.