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5. ὅπως βέλτιστος: so BT: there is no reason for inserting
ὡς after ὅπως with Kroschel and Turner: βέλτιστος does not
mean better than all others, but very good.
παρ᾽ ἕκαστον κτλ. ‘Est eo ipso tempore quo quidque vel
fit vel dicitur’ (Heindorf).
7. τὸ μὲν δίκαιον κτλ. Sauppe well quotes Ter. Ad. 417-18
where a father νουθετεῖ his son ‘Hoc facito—Hoc fugito—Hoc
laudi est—Hoc vitio datur’. Cf. Hor. Sat. I. 4. 105 ff.
9. τὰ μὲν ποίει, τὰ δὲ μὴ ποίει: τὰ μὲν is not δίκαιον, καλόν,
ὅσιον, but quite general: ‘this do, that do not’. The τάδε μὲν—
τάδε δέ of T is unnecessary; cf. τὸ μὲν—τὸ δέ in l. 7. The
symmetry of the sentence is worth noting (a, b, b, a): first τὸ
μὲν—τὸ δέ, next τόδε μὲν—τόδε δέ twice, last τὰ μὲν—τὰ δέ, the
end recalling the beginning. Cf. note on καὶ κακὸν καὶ αἰσχρόν in
Crito, 49B.
ἐὰν μὲν ἑκὼν πείθηται: without apodosis: see Goodwin,
Moods and Tenses (1889), p. 179. This idiom occurs more
than once in Homer: it is perhaps a remnant of the days
when the conditional particles introduced a main sentence:
certainly the Greeks were not conscious of any such ellipse as
εὖ ἕξει.
10. ὥσπερ ξύλον διαστρεφόμενον. ξύλον is ‘a piece of
wood’, not necessarily a dead log, as appears from Hdt. III. 47
εἰρίοισι ἀπὸ ξύλου (of the cotton tree) and other exx. in L. and S.
The growing child is compared to a tree growing up and
becoming crooked (note the present διαστρεφόμενον—καμπτόμενον). Plato frequently applies the metaphors ‘crooked’,
‘warped’ and the like to victims of vice and vicious education:
cf. Gorg. 525A πάντα σκολιὰ ὑπὸ ψεύδους καὶ ἀλαζονείας; Theaet.
173A σμικροὶ δὲ καὶ οὐκ ὀρθοὶ τὰς ψυχάς.
11. εὐθύνουσιν—πληγαῖς. Cf. Arist. Ἀθην. πολιτ. ch. 8
τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας ηὔθυνεν κυρία οὖσα τοῦ ζημιοῦν καὶ κολάζειν (of
the Areopagitic council). For εὐθύνειν (here passing into the
meaning of ‘chastise’) see note on 324Aοὐδεὶς γὰρ κολάζει. To
illustrate πληγαῖς Sauppe quotes the well-known line of
Menander ὁ μὴ δαρεὶς ἄνθρωπος οὐ παιδεύεται.
12. εἰς διδασκάλων πέμποντες. It appears from 326Cthat
there was no regular age for going to school; the parents decided
in each case. Plato ordains (Laws, VII. 809E) that children shall
learn γράμματα (i.e. reading and writing, ibid. 810B) from 10 to
13, and the lyre from 13 to 16.
πολὺ μᾶλλον—εὐκοσμίας. Protagoras' description of the
aim of Athenian education agrees with the account of the
Δίκαιος λόγος in the Clouds, 961 ff.
Plato. Protagoras. J. Adam & A. M. Adam. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.
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