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ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας κτλ. Cf. Phaed. 82 A f. οἱ τὴν δημοτικὴν καὶ πολιτικὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπιτετηδευκότες, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι σωφροσύνην τε καὶ δικαιοσύνην, ἐξ ἔθους τε καὶ μελέτης γεγονυῖαν ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ νοῦ, and see also on VI 500 D, 506 C. It is interesting to observe that philosophic virtue is not a sine qua non for admission to the Platonic heaven. Throughout the whole myth, rewards and punishments are distributed for good and bad actions rather than for knowledge and ignorance (cf. 615 B ff.); and correct opinion or ‘Orthodoxy,’ in Plato's sense of the word, provided the lines have fallen to it in pleasant places, may well have been both blameless and beneficent on earth. But in the moment of supremest peril (618 B), when we have to choose another life, it is Knowledge, and not ‘Orthodoxy,’ that prevails. In the Phaedo l.c. Plato says that the ‘orthodox’ probably enter as before εἰς τοιοῦτον—πολιτικόν τε καὶ ἥμερον γένος, ἤ που μελιττῶν ἢ σφηκῶν, ἢ μυρμήκων, ἣ καὶ εἰς ταὐτόν γε πάλιν τὸ ἀνθρώπινον γένος, καὶ γίγνεσθαι ἐξ αὐτῶν ἄνδρας μετρίους.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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