9. εἴτε ὁπόθεν καὶ ὅπως—ὀνομάζων. This mode of
address insinuates that Prodicus was a θεῖος ἀνήρ, since a god
was addressed in a similar way. See Crat. 400E ὥσπερ ἐν ταῖς
εὐχαῖς νόμος ἐστὶν ἡμῖν εὔχεσθαι, οἵτινές τε καὶ ὁρόθεν χαίπουσιν
ὀνομαζόμενοι and cf. Euthyd. 288A θαυμάσιά γε λέγετ᾽, ὦ ἄνδρες
Θούριοι, εἴτε Χῖοι εἴθ᾽ ὁπόθεν καὶ ὅπῃ χαίρετον ὀνομαζόμενοι and
Symp. 212C ὅ τι καὶ ὅπῃ χαίρεις ὀνομάζων, τοῦτο ὀνόμαζε. A
similar effect is produced in Symp. 176C by the words Σωκράτη
δ᾽ ἐξαιρῶ λόγου, since there was a proverb τὸ θεῖον ἐξαιρῶ λόγου:
cf. Rep. VI. 492E θεῖον μέντοι κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν ἐξαιρῶμεν λόγου.
The multitude of epithets given to gods is best illustrated by
such a hymn as the Homeric Hymn to Ares, ll. 1 ff. Ἆρες
ὑρεπμενέτα, βπισάπματε, χπυσεορήληξ, ὀβπιμόθυμε, φέπασρι.
πολισσόε, χαλκοκορυστὰ κτλ. In the multitude of names the
suppliant hopes to include the acceptable one.
11. πρὸς ὃ βούλομαι: emphatic, ‘with a view to my meaning’
)( πρὸς ὃ ὀνομάζω.
13. ἐπὶ τούτου. This usage can only be on the analogy of ἡ
ἐπὶ Σάρδεων ὁδός and the like: actions are looked on as ways
leading to a goal or destination or τέλος: cf. above 354Cand D.
To take the words (with Sauppe) as ‘in the case of this’, ‘in this
domain’, would give a wrong meaning; the moral character of
an act being determined by its end, it is καλόν only if its end is
καλόν. The expression is however very curious, and perhaps
unique. I once thought that ἅπασαι might conceal some present
participle such as ἄγουσαι—agreeing with πράξεις: but the
occurrence of ἁπάσας below in 359Eshows ἅπασαι to be
probably genuine here. The reasoning is this. Pleasure, the end,
is good, pain evil; consequently all actions aiming at the end are
καλαί, and therefore good (as usual ὠφέλιμος is but a synonym
for ‘good’); therefore— as no one willingly selects evil rather
than good—no one willingly does the worse (i.e. selects evil
actions) when he might act better. As it is with πράξεις that
bravery and cowardice are concerned, it is necessary for Plato to
establish that ‘no one willingly seeks the worse’ is true of
individual acts as well as of ultimate ends.
14. ἆρ᾽ οὐ καλαί. The words καὶ ὠφέλιμοι which follow οὐ
καλαί in the MSS. are rightly rejected because they anticipate
the identification in the next line.
17. ἢ ἃ ποιεῖ, καὶ δυνατά is Heindorf's emendation of the
corrupt ἢ ἃ ἐποίει καὶ δύναται of the MSS.
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.