James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ἰατρεῖα were both dispensaries and consulting-rooms etc. See Laws 646 C and other references in Blümner l.c. p. 359. In some ἰατρεῖα patients were also housed and treated by doctors (Häser Lehrbuch d. Gesch. d. Med. etc. I pp. 86 ff.), so that in certain cases they resembled a sort of private hospital. For the remedial conception of punishment prevailing in the whole of this section see II 380 B note

δικανική. Cobet calls for δικαστική, and at first sight δικαστῶν just below seems to favour his view. But Plato deliberately selects the less reputable word, meaning by it the arts by which men try to lead the true δικαστής (cf. Ap. 40 A) astray: see infra B, C. In his own city there is no δικανική, but only δικαστική (409 E, 410 A). It appears from Laws IV 720 C ff. that a doctor's assistants were usually slaves, and that slaves for the most part treated slaves, and freemen freemen, but the rule was not universal (see Blümner l. c. p. 359 note 1). Plato holds that the increase of citizen doctors points to the spread of self-indulgence among the free-born population.

405A - 410A It is a sign of bad education when we require first-rate physicians and judges; still more shameful is it to pride oneself on escaping the punishment of wrong-doing by the aid of legal subterfuges. We should also be ashamed to enlarge the terminology of medicine by our self-indulgence. It was otherwise with medical science in the time of Homer, although Herodicus has now invented a new sort of treatment, whose only result is to prolong the process of dying. Asclepius knew better; for he saw that work was more than life. We recognise this fact in the case of artisans and mechanics; but Asclepius knew that rich men also have a work to do, and in the interests both of his patients and their country, declined to treat incurable diseases. Legends to the contrary effect are false. Yet we cannot dispense with doctors and judges: only they must be good doctors and good judges. The most skilled physicians are those who, besides having learnt their art, have had the largest experience of disease in their own persons; but no one can be a good judge whose soul is not unstained. Our judges must be old, and gain their knowledge of crime by science, not by personal experience. The vicious judge cannot recognise innocence when he sees it. Vice will never know Virtue, but Virtue may be taught to know Vice as well as herself. Our doctors will permit the physically incurable to die; the morally incurable our judges will put to death.