Περὶ ἀντιδόσεως
. [Or. XV.] — ‘On the Antidosis’, or ‘Exchange of Properties’. — In the discourse ‘Against the Sophists’ Isocr. sought to distinguish his own conception of his calling — as a σοφιστής in the higher sense — from those of teachers whose views he deemed false and mischievous. In the present discourse — written 35 years later (353 B.C.) — he explains his own conception more fully, and defends his art (ἡ τῶν λόγων παιδεία) against its assailants generally. Taken together, these two essays express his whole literary and educational creed, both on its negative and on its positive side: they are the prologue and epilogue of his professional life. Isocrates had lately been called upon to undertake the trierarchy, or to make exchange of properties (antidosis) with his challenger. The case had come to a trial; the trierarchy had been imposed upon Isocrates, and he had discharged it (§ 5). Vexed, however, by the general prejudice against his pursuits to which he felt that the verdict had been due, he determined to publish an Apologia — a discourse ‘which should be an image of his mind and life’ (§ 7). This he throws into the form of a speech made in court against one Lysimachus (§ 14), who, by working on popular prejudice, is seeking to cast the burden of the trierarchy upon him. Much of the discourse is not, he allows, in the forensic style (§ 10); yet, by the concluding allusion to a verdict (§ 323), he aims, in some measure, at sustaining the fiction to the end. It is known that, in 355 B.C., Isocrates had really been challenged to an exchange of properties by one Megacleides; and, being unable through illness to appear in court, had been represented by his adopted son Aphareus, whose speech on the occasion is quoted by Dionysius. Now this is probably the trial to which Isocrates refers as having been decided against him. It must have taken place at least a year before the date of this discourse, since it is implied that the public service had now been discharged (§ 5). Lysimachus is a fictitious person who stands for the Megacleides of the real trial. — Attic Orators, II. 134 f. The following passage contains the pith of the whole discourse — his account of his φιλοσοφία, and the general grounds on which he rests its claims.§§ 270 — 302.
περὶ μὲν οὖν τούτων i.e. the practical worth for the State of those studies to which Isocr. has given his life, and the danger to Athens from the συκοφάνται who denounce them: §§ 199 — 269. — τὸ νῦν εἶναι, ‘for the present’: so ἑκὼν εἶναι, τὸ τήμερον εἶναι (Plat. Crat. 396 E), κατὰ τοῦτο εἶναι, (Prot. 317 A), τὸ ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνοις εἶναι (Xen. H. III. 5, 9). Goodwin § 100. 2. σοφίας καὶ φιλοσοφ ‘Wisdom and philosophy’. The term φιλοσοφία, said to have been invented by Pythagoras, prob. did not come into general use at Athens much before the time of Socrates. Cp. Thompson's note on Plat. Phaedr. 278 D. Attic Orators, II. 36. πάσαις ταῖς πραγματείαις ‘for they [these notions, σοφία, φιλοσοφία] have nothing to do with any legal issue’ — and would usually, therefore, be out of place in a forensic speech, such as this purports to be. Cp. Isocr. Ad Nicocl. [or. II] § 18, τὰς μὲν ἐργασίας αὐτοῖς καθίστη κερδαλέας, τὰς δὲ πραγματείας ἐπιζημίους, ‘make their industries profitable to them, and their lawsuits costly’. ἐπειδὴ καὶ κρίνομαι...καὶ...φημί ‘since I am being tried on such issues, and since, too,...’ The καὶ before κρίνομαι = ‘both’ (not ‘actually’), answering to the καὶ before τὴν καλουμένην. — περὶ τῶν τοιούτων = σοφίας καὶ φιλοσοφίας, because the action concerning the ἀντίδοσις had been brought against him on the strength of a general prejudice against his pursuits. The real issue, for him, is to vindicate his past life. τὴν δικαίως ἂν νομιζομένην ‘that which might properly be deemed such’ — the genuine φιλοσοφία: = ἣ ἂν δικαίως νομίζοιτο.ἐπιστήμην Cp. Adv. Sophist. § 3, note, p. 294. Isocr. does not deny ἐπιστήμη in the Platonic sense, a possible knowledge of absolute truth, but merely an ἐπιστήμη of the contingencies which may arise in practical life. His view means no more than that the future is uncertain. See Attic Orators, II. 52. ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν ‘in the next resort’: lit. ‘of the men who remain’, — men gifted with ἐπιστήμη being out of the question.
οὕτω...σφόδρα...καὶ πολύ The adverb σφόδρα (the adjective would have been σφοδρά) goes both with παράδοξα and with πολὺ...ἀφεστῶτα. For the combination σφόδρα πολύ, cp. or. IX. § 48, πολὺ λίαν (= λίαν πολύ), note, p. 291. τὴν ἀρχήν adverbial, ‘at the outset’: Andoc. De Pace § 20, ἐξῆν γὰρ αὐτοῖς καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐῶσιν Ὀρχομενίους αὐτονόμους εἰρήνην ἄγειν. In negative sentences, ἀρχήν, without art., = ‘at all’ (omnino).
ὡς ἅῤ ἐγώ, κ.τ.λ. ‘as to suppose (ἄρα) that, standing in peril as I do [of your verdict], I would have resolved to use arguments which contravene your views, did I not consider that they follow from those which I have already urged, and that the proofs by which I can support them are sound and clear’. He means, ‘It will startle you to hear that virtue cannot be taught: but a definition of the intellectual and moral scope which I claim for my φιλοσοφία is a necessary supplement (ἀκόλουθος) to what I have already said on its practical worth’.
οὐ μὴν ἀλλ̓, κ.τ.λ. ‘At the same time, I grant that their characters are likely to be improved and ennobled’: cp. Adv. Sophist. § 15, p. 115, αὐτοὺς δ᾽ ἂν αὑτῶν προαγάγοι καὶ πρὸς πολλὰ φρονιμωτέρως διακεῖσθαι ποιήσειεν. τῆς...τὴν δύναμιν τ. ἐχούσης ‘that which is truly what the term imports’, = τῆς ὀρθῶς ὀνομαζομένης, that πλεονεξία which means πλέον ἔχειν in the highest sense: see below, § 282.
π. τὰς ὑποθέσεις, κ.τ.λ. ‘he is certain not to take his themes from the dishonest or frivolous controversies of private litigation, but from great and noble subjects which concern the welfare of mankind and the interests of the Commonwealth: since, if he does not find such themes, he will utterly fail to achieve his objects’, — viz., will fail to deserve ἔπαινος and τιμή. — ἰδίων συμβολ., ‘private contracts’, i.e. all the transactions between men which give rise to δίκαι: cp. Lys. In Erat. § 98, μικρῶν ἕνεκα συμβολαίων (for small debts), note, p. 259. So in Arist. Rhet. I. 1 § 10 Forensic Rhetoric is ἡ περὶ τὰ συναλλάγματα. μεγάλας καὶ καλάς Earlier in this speech Isocr. has given examples of what he means by μεγάλαι ὑποθέσεις, — viz. the comparative claims of Athens and Sparta to the hegemony (§ 59), treated in his own Panegyricus: and the measures needed for a reform of Athenian policy (§ 65), treated in his De Pace.
τῶν πράξεων ‘Next, he will select the most impressive and the most beneficent of the actions which illustrate his subject’. Thus, in showing that Athens had a better claim than Sparta to lead Greece, Isocr. adduces (in the Panegyricus) the great services of Athens to Greece: these are πράξεις συντείνουσαι πρὸς τὴν ὑπόθεσιν, historical facts bearing on this theme. — ὁ δὲ τὰς τοιαύτας, κ.τ.λ.: i.e. the habitual contemplation of noble actions, as illustrating a noble subject, will educate the intelligence no less than the literary faculty of the student — will give him τὸ εὖ φρονεῖν as well as τὸ εὖ λέγειν.
τῆς ἀρετῆς ‘virtue’. Cp. Adv. Sophist. § 21 (p. 116), πολὺ ἂν θᾶττον πρὸς ἐπιείκειαν ἢ πρὸς ῥητορείαν ὠφελήσειεν (ἡ φιλοσοφία), and note, p. 299. The argument is that the professor of persuasion will cultivate virtue, because virtue is persuasive. τῶν εὖ διακειμένων ‘men of good disposition’ (cp. or. IX. § 49, p. 109, ὠμότατα πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας διακείμενοι), opp. to οἱ διαβεβλημένοι, ‘men of tarnished character’. The fallacy peeps out in the tacit substitution of τῶν εὖ διακειμένων for τῶν δοκούντων εὖ διακεῖσθαι: for, even granting that the surest way to seem anything is to be it, yet for Isocr.'s argument it would suffice that one should seem without being. τὰς ἐκ τοῦ βίου γεγεν ‘the proofs which have been afforded by a man's life’: i.e. apart from the logical value of the speaker's reasonings (πίστεις αἱ ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου πεπορισμέναι), he will be the more persuasive in proportion as his past conduct makes it probable that he is sincere.
τὴν τῆς εὐνοίας δύναμιν ‘the power of good-will’ — the εὔνοια felt by the hearers for a man whom they believe to be good. Arist. Rhet. II. 1 says that ἠθικὴ πίστις — the persuasiveness arising from the speaker's qualities as conceived by the hearer — has three elements, — the intelligence (φρόνησις), the moral worth (ἀρετή), and the good-will (εὔνοια) towards themselves, which the hearers recognise in him. The εὐνοίας δύναμις of which Isocr. speaks here means, the power of the good-will which the hearers feel for the speaker: thus it answers to the whole ἠθικὴ πίστις of Aristotle, and not merely to the third element therein.
τὰ εἰκότα — τὰ τεκμήρια — πᾶν τὸ τῶν πίστεων εἶδος ‘that probabilities (εἰκότα), proofs (τεκμήρια), and the rhetorical instruments of persuasion generally (πᾶν τὸ τῶν πίστεων εἶδος), are valid only for that particular occasion to which they may severally be applied’, — whereas a good reputation creates in every case a presumption that its possessor is acting rightly. — εἰκότα. The topic of εἰκός, general probability, had been prominent in the early τέχναι, as those of Corax and Tisias: see Attic Orators, I. cxxi. Arist. defines the enthymeme, or rhetorical syllogism, as a συλλογισμὸς ἐξ εἰκότων καὶ σημείων — i.e. drawn (1) from (mere) general likelihoods: (2) from particular signs which may, or may not, be conclusive. — τεκμήρια here=merely ‘sure signs’, as opp. to ‘probabilities’: not, in Arist.'s technical sense, the demonstrative as dist. from the fallible σημεῖον: cp. Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 81, note, p. 215. — πᾶν τὸ τῶν πίστεων εἶδος = αἱ πίστεις γενικῶς. Arist. distinguishes πίστις (1) λογική, (2) ἠθική, (3) παθητική: here Isocr. means (1), and perhaps (3), but treats (2) as something of a different and higher order.
ὃ δυσχερέστατον ἦν τῶν ῥηθ ‘the most invidious, as I felt, of the terms which I used’: ἦν, was, as I felt and hinted at the time, referring to § 275, where πλεονεξία is named with an apologetic explanation that it is not employed in its common sense. Plat. Rep. 522 A, ἦν ἡ μουσικὴ ἀντίστροφος τῆς γυμναστικῆς, εἰ μέμνησαι. Goodwin § 11. 6. παραλογιζομένους ‘making a false reckoning’, cheating in bills or accounts (not ‘reasoning falsely’): cp. Dem. Adv. Aphob. I. § 29, ἆρα μικρόν τι καὶ ἐξ ἀφανοῦς ποθεν καὶ παραλογίσασθαι ῥᾴδιον, ἀλλ̓ οὐ φανερῶς οὑτωσὶ μικροῦ δεῖ τρία τάλαντα ταῦτα ἀνηρπάκασιν. μᾶλλον ἐλαττοῦνται ‘are at a greater disadvantage’: cp. ἐλασσωθείς, Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 19, note, p. 212.
καὶ νῦν πλέον ἔχειν ‘are not only more fortunate now [in this mortal life], but will receive the better portion from the gods’.
καὶ ταῖς ἀληθείαις = τοῖς ἔργοις, ‘not only are the realities of the case thus’. Philemon frag. 40, ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν. The tendency to use the plurals of abstract nouns, common in later Greek, is marked in Isocr. Cp. § 284, ταῖς κακοηθείαις: § 288, ταῖς ἀκμαῖς: § 292, τὰς ἐπιμελείας: § 300, τὰς πικρότητας: see also Areop. § 44, p. 154. οὐδὲ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ‘some people do not even employ the names of things in their natural sense’ (much less distinguish between the things themselves). Thuc. III. 82 (of the moral confusion arising from the passions of party strife), τὴν εἰωθυῖαν ἀξίωσιν τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐς τὰ ἔργα ἀντήλλαξαν τῇ δικαιώσει.
βωμολοχ. — εὐφυεῖς ‘buffoons, who can mock and mimic, are said to have ‘wit’, — a description which should be reserved for those whose wit is most happily bent towards virtue’. By some such turn as this we may express the paronomasia in εὐφυεῖς — ἄριστα πεφυκότας. Cp. Adv. Sophist. § 14, p. 114, where the intellectual sense of εὐφυής is uppermost. ταῖς κακοηθείαις, κ.τ.λ. ‘who practise malignity and villainy in all their forms’ [the plur. as in § 283], ‘who make petty gains, but acquire an evil repute’ [if nothing else]: cp. Adv. Sophist. § 4, p. 111, μικροῦ κέρδους, § 9, p. 112, τῇ μικρότητι τῶν μισθῶν.
τερατολογίας ‘who give the name of philosophers to those who neglect necessary things and affect the marvellous lore of the old sophists’: a reference, probably to the Socratics, and especially to the Platonic dialogues. τερατολογία, κ.τ.λ., possibly alludes more particularly to the traces of Pythagoreanism and to the cosmogonic speculations in Plato. τοὺς νεωτέρους Cp. Panath. § 29, τοὺς διαλόγους τοὺς ἐριστικοὺς καλουμένους, οἷς οἱ μὲν νεώτεροι μᾶλλον χαίρουσι τοῦ δέοντος, τῶν δὲ πρεσβυτέρων οὐδείς ἐστιν ὅστις ἂν ἀνεκτοὺς αὐτοὺς εἶναι φήσειεν, and note on Adv. Soph. § 1, p. 293.
Ἐννεακρούνου Thuc. II. 15, καὶ τῇ κρήνῃ τῇ νῦν μὲν τῶν τυράννων [Peisistratus, Paus. I. 14. 1] οὕτω σκευασάντων Ἐννεακρούνῳ καλουμένῃ, τὸ δὲ πάλαι φανερῶν τῶν πηγῶν οὐσῶν [when the natural springs, πηγαί opp. to κρήνη, sprang directly from the rock] Καλλιρρόῃ ὠνομασμένῃ, ἐκεῖνοί τε [the old Athenians] ἐγγὺς οὔσῃ τὰ πλείστου ἄξια ἐχρῶντο, καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀρχαίου πρό τε γαμικῶν καὶ ἐς ἄλλα τῶν ἱερῶν νομίζεται τῷ ὕδατι χρῆσθαι. σκιραφείοις ‘gambling-houses’. Stephanus Byz. p. 607, τὸ σκιράφειον...δηλοῖ τὸν τόπον εἰς ὃν οἱ κυβευταὶ συνίασι: καὶ ὁ σκιράφρουρος σημαίνει τὸν ἀκόλαστον κυβευτήν. Pollux VII. 203 quotes σκιράφια and τὸν σκιραφευτήν from the Κυβευταί of Amphis. The Etym. Magn., p. 717. 28, has σκειράφια, τὰ κυβεῖα: and notices three derivations, — from σκείραφος, an ὄργανον κυβευτικόν (dice-box?) — Σκίραφος, a gambler — and Σκιρὰς Ἀθηνᾶ, in whose temple (at Σκίρον, near Athens) ἐκυβεύοντο. Harpocrat. Σκιράφια...ἔλεγον τὰ κυβευτήρια, ἐπειδὴ διέτριβον ἐν Σκίρῳ οἱ κυβεύοντες, ὡς Θεόπομπος (the historian) ἐν τῇ πεντηκοστῇ ὑποσημαίνει. Meineke Frag. Com. 484, Müller Frag. Hist. I. 322. — Cp. Lys. Pro Mantith. § 11, ὅσοι περὶ κύβους ἢ πότους, κ.τ.λ., note, p. 245. τῆς ἡλικίας ταύτης ‘those who profess to care for persons of this age’ — i.e. τῶν νέων — alluding, not to official παιδονόμοι, but to those who dissuade young men from following the φιλοσοφία of Isocr. οἷς ἄξιον ἦν...χάριν ἔχειν ‘who might well have been grateful’: ἦν like χρῆν, ἔδει, Goodwin § 49. 3.
δυσμενὲς...αὐτῶν ‘The tribe of informers are so distinctly the public enemies’ [i.e. so hostile to public morality] ‘that, so far from being disposed to censure those who pay a ransom of 20 or 30 minas for the paramours who are to help them in squandering the rest of their substance, they positively rejoice in the dissolute acts of such men’. — λυομένοις: i.e. they ransom δοῦλαι from those into whose hands they had come as prisoners of war. Cp. Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 20, p. 14, τά τε ἀνδράποδα ἃ ἔδει αὐτὸν ἀπολῦσαι, καὶ οἱ Θρᾷκες οἱ λυσόμενοι.
τ. ταῖς ἀκμαῖς ‘that youthful prime’: for plur., cp. § 283, ταῖς ἀληθείαις, note. ἐκ παίδων ‘from boyhood’. Dem. In Mid. § 154, κἀγὼ μὲν κατ᾽ ἐκείνους τοὺς χρόνους ἐτριηράρχουν εὐθὺς ἐκ παίδων ἐξελθών. Properly said of one who is ἔφηβος (aet. 17 — 20) but not yet technically ἀνήρ.
προεστῶτα ‘who duly and meetly watches over his own youth’. Contrast Helen. Enc. § 58, p. 108, κακῶς βουλευσαμένους περὶ τῆς αὑτῶν ἡλικίας. Cp. Eur. Androm. 220, χείρον᾽ ἀρσένων νόσον | ταύτην νοσοῦμεν, ἀλλὰ προὔστημεν καλῶς: ‘we have this weakness more than men, but ever rule it well’: lit. ‘administer’, i.e. control it. ἢ τῶν αὑτοῦ neut., ‘his property’: but ἑτέρων masc., ‘other men’. For the thought that self-government (ἐγκράτεια, perfected in σωφροσύνη) should precede the attempt to rule others, cp. Plat. Gorg. p. 491.
ὡς...συμβεβηκότος ‘on the ground that they have been endowed with a good and noble gift’: συμβ., as an ‘accident’ of genius, opp. to the skill gained by μελέτη and φιλοπονία.
συμφέρει, κ.τ.λ. ‘It is expedient in all cases, and especially in the case of oratory, that credit should be won by the efforts of study rather than by the gifts of fortune’. ὅπως ἂν τύχωσιν, κ.τ.λ. sc. χρώμενοι: ‘use their eloquence at random: while those who have acquired this faculty by study and reflection say nothing without consideration, and so commit fewer errors in practical affairs’: i.e. the discretion trained by study will be carried into πράξεις, real life. Cp. § 277.
κάλλ. πολιτεύεσθε, κ.τ.λ. ‘nor because you have the best constitution, and are most conservative of the laws bequeathed to you by your ancestors’: — implying that all this is true of Athens, though not its distinctive glory. Isocr. thought, however, that the Athens of his day had departed too much from the lines of the old Democracy: see Areopagiticus, §§ 36 — 55, p. 151, with notes, pp. 340 f.
τὴν φρόνησιν...τοὺς λόγους ‘by unequalled excellence of training in the twofold province of thought and of expression’. φρόνησις, as dist. from military and political ability, means here the general cultivation of the intelligence by literature and art. τῇ παιδείᾳ ταύτῃ = τὴν τῶν λόγων παιδείαν (§ 168), ‘this discipline’ of thought and expression. — συμφορᾷ, in the forensic sense, of an adverse verdict. Cp. Andoc. De Myst. § 86, ἑωρῶμεν ὅτι πολλοῖς τῶν πολιτῶν εἶεν συμφοραί (penal disabilities), τοῖς μὲν κατὰ νόμους, τοῖς δὲ κατὰ ψηφίσματα. Dem. In Mid. § 17, ἀστρατείας ἑάλω καὶ κέχρηται συμφορᾷ.
γεγενῆσθαι ‘to be established’ as the teacher: emphatic perf. Cp. Thuc. II. 41, λέγω τὴν πᾶσαν πόλιν Ἑλλάδος παίδευσιν εἶναι. ἆθλα...γυμνάσια...ἐμπειρίαν Athens offers to the students of oratory (1) the greatest prizes, — i.e. political power or literary fame: (2) ‘the most numerous and most various fields of exercise’, γυμνάσια — viz. the law-courts, the ecclesia, the public recitations: (3) experience, ἐμπειρία, — the result of using these opportunities.
καὶ τὴν τῆς φωνῆς, κ.τ.λ. ‘Further, men deem that the wide currency (κοινότητα) and standard character (μετριότητα) of the Attic idiom, no less than a general flexibility of mind and love of literature, contribute not a little to the formation of an orator; and hence they conceive, not without reason, that all masters of eloquence are pupils of Athens’. μετριότητα: because the Attic dialect — afterwards the basis of the κοινὴ διάλεκτος — represents a temperate compromise between the Ionic and the Doric, — elastic without too much softness, precise and vigorous without harshness. In Thuc. 7. 63 Nicias reminds the μέτοικοι serving in the Athenian army that their familiarity with the Attic dialect had been a recommendation for them to all Greeks: τῆς... φωνῆς...τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ...ἐθαυμάζεσθε κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα. — εὐτραπελίαν: cp. Thuc. II. 41 (of the typical Athenian), ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν εἴδη καὶ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστ᾽ ἂν εὐτραπέλως τὸ σῶμα αὔταρκες παρέχεσθαι. Here, εὐτραπελία=‘flexibility of intelligence’: not exactly ‘versatility’, as with Thuc., nor yet ‘liveliness’, ‘wit’, as with Aristotle (Eth. N. II. 7. § 13).
οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀλλ̓ ἤ...ἀξιοῖεν ‘for you will have virtually pronounced yourselves as unjust as the Lacedaemonians would be, and will have acted as they would act, if they were to think of fining those who practised warlike exercises, or the Thessalians, if they proposed to punish those who cultivated skill in horsemanship’. — τὴν τοιαύτην and ὅμοιον are both to be connected with ὥσπερ ἂν (sc. ἑαυτῶν κατεψηφισμένοι εἴησαν). — Λακεδαιμ.: cp. Arist. Polit. v [VIII] 4. § 4, ἔτι δ᾽ αὐτοὺς τοὺς Λάκωνας ἴσμεν, ἕως μὲν αὐτοὶ προσήδρευον ταῖς φιλοπονίαις, ὑπερέχοντας τῶν ἄλλων, νῦν δὲ καὶ τοῖς γυμνασίοις καὶ τοῖς πολεμικοῖς ἀγῶσι λειπομένους τῶν ἄλλων: οὐ γὰρ τῷ τοὺς νέους γυμνάζειν τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον διέφερον, ἀλλὰ τῷ μόνον μὴ πρὸς ἀσκοῦντας ἀσκεῖν [i.e. because they studied these things, while their competitors did not]. — Θετταλοί: ‘Breeding the finest horses in Greece, they were distinguished for their excellence as cavalry; but their infantry is little noticed’ (Grote, II. 370). ὑπὲρ ὧν=περὶ ὧν: cp. ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν, Adv. Sophist. § 2, note, p. 293.
πόλιν — ἄστυ Cp. § 296, τῆς πόλεως, κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν for Athens: Lys. In Agor. § 46, ὥστε μηδὲν διαφέρειν τῆς ἐλαχίστης πόλεως τὴν πόλιν. — ἄστυ: Athenians spoke of Athens as ἄστυ (without the art.), ‘town’: cp. Philochorus frag. 4 (Frag. Hist. I. 384), ἄστυ δὲ προσηγόρευσαν τὴν πόλιν, where he derives it from στῆναι, as the place where wanderers (νομάδες) ‘fixed their abode’. ἄστυ, for ϝἄστυ, is the Sanscr. vâstu, place, house (Curt. Gr. Et. § 206), the local habitation of the πόλις or civic society. πόλις is akin to Sanscr. pur (Cawnpore), from root par (πελ, πλε), denoting fulness (whence also πολύς): hence (1) a throng: (2) a town.
διὰ τῆς ἑτ. ὠμότ.] ‘than receive benefits through the rude hands of others’. The meaning is not that the mercies of others are cruel, but that their way of doing good is harsh. The flatterers of Athens alluded, of course, to Spartan manners. οἱ δὲ ταυ_τα...κατηγορ.] ‘Others [=οἱ δυσκόλως πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔχοντες, § 299, opp. to οἱ μέν, ib.] disparage these merits, and, recounting the malignities and disasters of the slander mongers, denounce Athens at large as unsocial and cruel’: i.e. they quote the bitter things which the συκοφάνται say of Athenian life, and then point to the penalties which these calumniators sometimes incur, — inferring that Athens is savage because such men are punished.
περιποιοῦντας ‘surrounding the name of Athens with infamy’ (not περιποιούμενοι, ‘winning’ disgrace for her). Cp. Plat. Apol. 35 A, αἰσχύνην τῇ πόλει περιάπτειν. στεφανίταις A wreath of wild olive at Olympia; of laurel at Delphi; of pine at Nemea; of parsley at the Isthmus. Cp. Plut. Praec. Ger. Reip. XXVII. 820 C (simple rewards, of an honorary, not a substantial kind, ought to suffice in a Republic), ὥσπερ οὐκ ἀργυρίτην οὐδὲ δωρίτην ἀγῶνα πολιτείας ἀγωνιζομένοις, ἀλλὰ ἱερὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς καὶ στεφανίτην, ‘seeing that the competition of political life is not for money or gifts, but in truth a sacred contest, of which the prize is a wreath’ (as in the great national ἀγῶνες of Greece).
πρωτεύειν προκρίν ‘would place us in the first rank’. For the pleonasm, cp. Xen. Cyr. II. 3. 8, τοῦτο προκέκριται εἶναι βέλτιστον.
