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ἄθλοις. See cr. n. Orelli's emendation has met with considerable favour; but Schneider, Stallbaum, and J. and C. still retain ἄλλοις. With the MS reading we must, I think, translate ‘in the other cases’ i.e. in the πόνοι etc. spoken of just before. (If Plato merely meant ‘in other kinds of effort’ it was not worth his while to insert the clause at all.) But ὥσπερ certainly suggests something more than a mere comparison between flinching at moral, and flinching at intellectual tests; and nothing could be more appropriate, or more in Plato's way, than an allusion to the games: see on V 465 D. That <*>θλοι in this sense is half-poetic, “occurring only in the Timaeus and the Laws” (J. and C.), is scarcely an objection in Plato. ἄθλοις also suits well with γυμνάζειν. In [Axioch.] 365 A occur the words ὡς γὰρ ἀγωνιστὴς δειλός, ἐν τοῖς γυμνασίοις γενναῖος φαινόμενος, ἀπολέλοιπας ἐν τοῖς ἄθλοις. The author of the Axiochus may have been thinking of the present passage, and if so, he certainly read ἄθλοις. See also the fine anecdote in Plut. Them. 11. 3.

504A - 505B Glauco enquires what these ‘greatest studies’ are. You will remember, says Socrates, that we described our earlier or psychological method of arriving at the Virtues as inadequate and incomplete. Our guardians must travel by a longer road, if they would reach their proper goal, i.e. the highest of all studies, which is something above and beyond even the virtues. And these very virtues must no longer be seen merely in outline; they must be studied in all their fulness and perfection. The highest study is the Idea of the Good, as Glauco has often heard before. It is the knowledge of this Idea which alone renders all other knowledge useful and profitable.

διαστησάμενοι. IV 436 A ff.

ξυνεβιβάζομεν: ‘we drew conclusions,’ viz. in IV 441 C ff. The use of συμβιβάζειν as a synonym for συμπεραίνεσθαι, συλλογίζεσθαι, is common in Aristotle: for examples see Bonitz Ind. Ar. s. v.

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