17. ὃ μὴ τυγχάνεις ἐπιστάμενος. τυγχάνοις (suggested by
Bekker) would be the usual periodic structure: but the indicative is looser and more direct: Kroschel compares Gorg. 464D
εἰ δέοι—διαγωνίζεσθαι—πότερος ἐπαίει. Notice the usual Socratic
implication that virtue is knowledge.
18. ἀλλὰ μὴ οὕτως. Cf. Meno, 74D ἀλλὰ μή μοι οὕτως and
below 331C So μὴ γάρ, μὴ σύ γε, μή τοί γε and the like are often
used without a verb expressed. ὥσπερ ἄν belongs to εἴποι ἄν in
ll. 26 and 30: it is answered by οὕτω δή in l. 31. αὐτίκα here does
not mean ‘for example’ but goes with μάλα (which intensifies
it): ‘as if Hippocrates were to change his desire on the spot and
conceive a desire (ἐπιθυμήσειεν) for etc.’ αὐτίκα μάλα is idiomatic,
cf. Gorg. 469D αὐτίκα μάλα δεῖν τεθνάναι, Crat. 384B
αὐτίκα μάλα εἰδέναι.
20. νῦν νεωστί: nunc nuper as in Meno, 90A. The more
general word is followed by the more specific exactly as in
Theaet. 161C βατράχου γυρίνου, where γυρῖνος according to a
scholiast is τὸ ἐκ τοῦ βατράχου παιδίον.
21. Ζευξίππου. An obscure sculptor (not painter) of this
name is mentioned in Corp Inscr. Gr. No. 1229 (quoted by
Overbeck, Die Antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen, p. 300). The Zeuxippus here mentioned is supposed to be the same as the famous painter Zeuxis
of Heraclea (the Greek colony in Italy, most probably) who is
mentioned by Plato in Gorg. 453C, and several times by Xenophon (Mem. I. 4. 3, Oecon. 10. 1, Symp. 4. 63 τὸν Ἡρακλεώτην
ξένον): see Overbeck, pp. 311 ff. Zeuxis began to rise into fame
probably about 424 B.C.: he would therefore be still a young
man about the date when this dialogue is supposed to take
place: see Introduction, p. xxxiii. Brunn would read Ζεύξιδος
for Ζευξίππου here, but according to Fick (quoted by Sauppe)
Ζεῦξις is nothing but a familiar diminutive of Ζεύξιππος: for
other similar examples see Fick, Die Griechischen Personennamen, pp. xxviii ff. -ιππος in proper names was aristocratic
(Ar. Clouds, 62 ff.) and could upon occasion be omitted or added
without prejudice to personal identity: cf. Clouds, 929 οὐχὶ
διδάξεις τοῦτον Κρόνος ὤν with ibid. 1071 σὺ δ᾽ εἶ κρόνιππος,
where -ιππος adds mock dignity to κρόνος.
Plato. Protagoras. J. Adam & A. M. Adam. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.
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.