previous next

ὀνομάζοι κτλ.: ‘employs all these terms in accordance with’ (literally ‘in dependence on’) ‘the opinions of the mighty Beast.’ This interpretation is better than to suppose with Stallbaum that Plato means ‘applies all these names to the opinions’ etc., though ὀνομάζειν τι ἐπί τινι is idiomatically used in that way.

τἀναγκαῖα -- καλοῖ . τἀναγκαῖα does not mean “the physical necessities and exigencies of the great beast's nature” (J. and C.), but simply ‘the inevitable.’ Whatever happens, a public teacher or Sophist must conform to the opinions of the Beast (492 D). In what follows there is a hint of the profound philosophical view that the Works of Necessity are evil (cf. Tim. 29 E, 47 E ff.), and that Moral Freedom consists in following what is good. See on X 617 E.

δοκεῖ. Ast would read δοκοῖ, but ἄν of course goes with εἶναι: cf. IV 422 B. See for this idiom my note on Prot. 351 B and Blaydes on Ar. Wasps 1405.

τὴν τῶν πολλῶν κτλ. Jackson thinks of Isocrates again (Proceedings of the Camb. Philol. Soc. II 1882 p. 13). See above on 493 A.

Creative Commons License
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.

hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
    • Aristophanes, Wasps, 1405
    • Plato, Protagoras, 351b
    • Plato, Timaeus, 29e
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: