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According also to the sacred
legend of the Greeks, fire was the source and teacher of every art. Cf. Aesch. Prom. 109 ff. ναρθηκοπλήρωτον δὲ θηρῶμαι πυρὸς | πηγὴν κλοπαίαν (and I discover the secret source of fire filling the hollow of the reed), ἣ διδάσκαλος τέχνης | πάσης βροτοῖς πέφηνε καὶ μέγας πόρος. Protagoras places the ἔντεχνος σοφία, which provides for the necessities of the physical life, in contrast with the πολιτική, which is the ground of the social life and of all culture.
ἔσχε, εἶχεν: obtained, had; for the inceptive use of the aor., see G. 200, N. 5 b; H. 841.
Protagoras represents Olympus as resembling a city of the Greek heroic age; the ruler occupies the citadel, the people the lower city.
οὐκέτι: he could no longer go forward, and enter the citadel itself.
φυλακαί: prob. Βία and Κράτος are meant, whom Hesiod Theog. 385 ff. calls the inseparable attendants of Zeus, and whom Aeschylus (Prometheus ad init.) introduces as his evercompliant beadles.
Hermann Sauppe. James A. Towle. Commentary on Plato: Protagoras. Ginn & Company. Boston and London. 1889.
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