This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
29 f. τούτου μεῖζον μεγίστου ὄντος: notice the comparison of the superlative.
ἀλλά: introduces a more definite and detailed statement of a thought involved in the previous question.
ταύτην εἶναι τὴν αἰσχίστην κτἑ.: a noteworthy instance of the employment of a very common construction, which is as old as Homer (Kr. Di. 55, 3, 8). Logically we should expect ταύτην τὴν βοήθειαν μὴ δύνασθαι βοηθεῖν αἴσχιστον εἶναι. But βοήθειαν, being uppermost in the speaker's mind, is made the subject, instead of cognate accusative, drawing also the predicate after it (see on 449 β, ξ). In this way μὴ δύνασθαι βοηθεῖν is characterized as a species, and the most shameful species, of βοήθεια, which was pretty exactly Plato's opinion of the assistance which the orators were in the habit of rendering to themselves and their friends before a court. This assimilation is extended to the following clauses, δευτέραν etc., for the sake of consistency.
Gonzalez Lodge. Commentary on Plato Gorgias. Ginn & Company. Boston and London. 1891.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.