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, D The question ‘What is Justice?’ is for the first time raised. Is it simply to speak the truth and pay what you owe? Polemarchus succeeds to Cephalus' part in the conversation. τὴν ἀλήθειαν κτλ. This theory of justice or righteousness is deduced from the words of Cephalus: τὸ γὰρ μηδὲ ἄκοντά τινα ἐξαπατῆσαι ἢ ψεύσασθαι being generalised into ἀλήθειαν (truthfulness, cf. τἀληθῆ λέγειν below), and μηδ᾽ αὖ ὀφείλοντα ἢ θεῷ θυσίας τινὰς ἢ ἀνθρώπῳ χρήματα into ἀποδιδόναι ἄν τίς τι παρά του λάβῃ. Cf. (with Wohlrab) Mimn. Fr. 8 ἀληθείη δὲ παρέστω | σοὶ καὶ ἐμοί, πάντων χρῆμα δικαιότατον. It is simply Truth and Honesty, the two chief ingredients in the popular conception of morality. ἁπλῶς οὕτως: ‘quite without qualification.’ For this idiomatic οὕτως cf. ῥᾳδιως οὕτω II 377 B note οἷον τοιόνδε λέγω. Similar points of casuistry are raised in Socrates' conversation with Euthydemus ap. Xen. Mem. IV 2 12 ff. οὐδ᾽ αὖ κτλ. I have removed the comma before οὐδέ, because the ὁ in ὁ ἀποδιδούς covers both participles, the person in both cases being the same.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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