[410b]
in his use of gymnastics, if he please, get to
have no need of medicine save when indispensable1?” “I think so.”
“And even the exercises and toils of gymnastics he will undertake
with a view to the spirited part of his nature2
to arouse that rather than for mere strength, unlike ordinary athletes, who
treat3 diet and exercise only as a means
to muscle.” “Nothing could be truer,” he said.
“Then may we not say, Glaucon,” said I, “that
those who established4 an education in
music and gymnastics
1 Cf. 405 C. Plato always allows for the limitation of the ideal by necessity.
2 The welfare of the soul is always the prime object for Plato. (Cf. 591 C) But he cannot always delay to correct ordinary speech in this sense. The correction of 376 E here is of course not a change of opinion, and it is no more a criticism of Isocrates, Antidosis 180-185, than it is of Gorgias 464 B, or Soph. 228 E, or Republic 521 E.
3 μεταχειρίζονται: this reading of Galen is more idiomatic than the MS.μεταχειριεῖται. Where English says “he is not covetous of honor as other men are,” Greek says “he (is) not as other men are covetous of honor.”
4 Plato half seriously attributes his own purposes to the founders. Cf. 405-406 on medicine and Philebus 16 C on dialectics.
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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