[600b]
and
transmitted to posterity a certain Homeric way of life1
just as Pythagoras2
was himself especially honored for this, and his successors, even to this
day, denominating a certain way of life the Pythagorean,3 are distinguished
among their contemporaries?” “No, nothing of this sort
either is reported; for Creophylos,4 Socrates, the friend of
Homer, would perhaps be even more ridiculous than his name5 as a representative of Homeric culture and education, if what is
said about Homer is true. For the tradition is that Homer was completely
neglected in his own lifetime by that friend of the flesh.”
1 In the (spurious?) seventh epistle, 328 A, Plato speaks of the life and λόγος advocated by himself. Cf. Novotny, Plato's Epistles, p. 168.
2 Diels i3 pp. 27 f.
3 Cf.ὀρφικοὶ . . . βίοιLaws 782 C.
4 “Of the beef-clan.” The scholiast says he was a Chian and an epic poet. See Callimachus's epigram apudSext. Empir., Bekker, p. 609 (Adv. Math. i. 48), and Suidas s.v.κρεώφυλος
5 Modern Greeks also are often very sensitive to the etymology of proper names. Cf. also on 580 B, p. 369, note d.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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