CHAPTER XVI
Protagoras at last comes to the difficulty raised by Socrates in
319E Virtue having been proved to be teachable, it is only from
a lack of natural aptitude that good men's sons sometimes turn
out badly: compared with men who have never been taught
virtue, even they are good. Protagoras concludes with a manifest
bid for pupils.
3.
ἔμπροσθεν: viz. at
324E
5.
οὐδένα δεῖ ἰδιωτεύειν: equivalent to
πάντας δεῖ εἶναι
δημιουργούς: no one must be a layman in
ἀρετή.
10.
ἐδίδασκε καὶ ἐπέπληττε τὸν μὴ καλῶς αὐλοῦντα. As
ἐδίδασκε is the important word,
ἐπέπληττε has no effect on the
construction, but is in effect enclitic: see on
317Cἐνδείξασθαι
καὶ καλλωπίσασθαι.
17.
εἰ οὖν οὕτω. οὖν marks the reversion to the original
protasis, viz.
εἰ μὴ οἶόν τ᾽ ὴν—καὶ τοῦτο κτλ., from
λυσιτελεῖ to
νόμιμα being parenthetical: it therefore seems better to print a
colon rather than a full stop after
νόμιμα.
22.
ἐλλόγιμος ηὐξήθη. Proleptic adjectives with
αὐξάνω are
common: Heindorf cites (
inter alia)
Rep. VIII. 565C τοῦτον
τρέφειν τε καὶ αὔξειν μέγαν.
25.
ἀλλ᾽ οὖν αὐληταί γ᾽ ἄν: ἄν for
γοῦν was Shilleto's
conjecture, which can hardly fail to be right.
ἀλλ᾽ οὖν—γε is
an emphatic ‘but at all events’; cf. Gorg. 496D
μανθάνω: ἀλλ᾽
οὖν τό γε πεινῆν αὐτὸ ἀνιαρόν.
27.
οὕτως οἴου καὶ νῦν. Sauppe's
ᾤου κἂν νῦν seems to be
quite needless: the conclusion is naturally put as a command—
‘so in the present case, you are to think’.
28.
τῶν ἐν νόμοις καὶ ἀνθρώποις. So BT.
ἀνθρώποις in this
emphatic sense is a little awkward with
ἀνθρώπους two lines
below and
ἀνθρώποις said seven lines below of savages (though
the word is qualified in both cases), but the text is probably
right: cf.
323Cἀναγκαῖον οὐδένα ὅντιν᾽ οὐχὶ ἁμῶς γέ πως μετέχειν
αὐτῆς (sc.
τῆς δικαιοσύνης),
ἢ μὴ εἶναι ἐν ἀνθρώποις. Of the
suggested emendations the most reasonable is perhaps Sauppe's
ἐν νόμοις καὶ ἐννόμοις ἀνθρώποις—which he has now given up in
favour of the MSS. reading.
29.
αὐτόν is not emphatic: to be
δίκαιος is to be a
δημιουργὸς
δικαιοσύνης, cf.
326Eτῆς ἀρετῆς—οὐδένα δεῖ ἰδιωτεύειν.
31.
μήτε—μήτε—μήτε—μηδέ. μηδέ introduces the climax:
see note on
οὔτε—οὐδέ γε in
Apol. 19D and Cope on Ar.
Rhet. A,
4. 4. Presently
ἀλλ᾽ εἶεν is used rather than
ἀλλ᾽ εἰσί (in spite of
ἐστίν in l. 31) because the hypothetical nature of the case is
becoming more prominent. For the passage of a relative clause
into a main clause (
οἵ is not to be repeated after
ἀλλά) see on
313A
33.
ἀλλ᾽ εἶεν ἄγριοί τινες. It appears not only from Athenaeus (v. 218D), but from Suidas and others, that the play in
question was called
Ἄγριοι. The few fragments of it which
remain (see Kock's
Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, I, 146-50)
give us no indication of the plot or treatment. The probability is
that the
Ἄγριοι formed the chorus (cf. the names
Νεφέλαι,
Βάτραχοι etc.), ‘ad quos’—as we should infer from the words of
Plato— ‘Athenienses quidam, pauci sine dubio, vitae civilis in
sua urbe pertaesi (
μισάνθρωποι) sicut Pithetaerus et Euelpides,
accedebant imprudenter sperantes se inter homines immanes
meliorem iustioremque quam in civitate sua vitam inventuros
esse’ (Kock). Plato was perhaps thinking of the same play
again in
Rep. VI. 496D ὥσπερ εἰς θηρία ἄνθρωπος ἐμπεσών, οὔτε
ξυναδικεῖν ἐθέλων οὔτε ἱκανὸς ὢν εἶς πᾶσιν ἀγρίοις ἀντέχειν.
οἷοί περ οὓς πέρυσιν: so BT, and there is no sufficient
reason for altering the text to
οἵους πέρυσιν (with Sauppe, after
Athenaeus V. 218D) or
οἵους περ πέρυσιν with Schanz. Plato does
not always avail himself of the liberty of attraction: a parallel is
quoted from
Crat. 432E ἵνα κομιδῇ ᾖ τοιοῦτον οἷόν περ οὗ ὄνομά
ἐστιν.
34.
πέρυσιν. Athenaeus, V. 218D
ἐδιδάχθησαν δὲ οἱ Ἄγριοι
ἐπ᾽ Ἀριστίωνος ἄρχοντος, i.e. Ol. 89 4 = 421/420 B.C. For the
bearing of the date of the
Ἄγριοι on the question when the
dialogue of the
Protagoras is assumed to have taken place see
Introduction, p. xxxiii.
Φερεκράτης. The fragments of Pherecrates—a poet of the
old comedy who gained his first victory in 438 B.C.—are given
in Kock's
Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, I, 145-209.
ἐδίδαξεν ἐπὶ Ληναίῳ. The
Λήναιον (also called
λίμναι and
τέμενος τοῦ Διονύσου) was an enclosure sacred to Dionysus on
the south-east slope of the Acropolis. Cf. Photius s.v.
Λήναιον:
περίβολος μέγας Ἀθήνησιν, ἐν ᾧ τοὺς ἀγῶνας ἦγον, πρὸ τοῦ τὸ
θέατρον οἰκοδομηθῆναι, ὀνομάζοντες ἐπὶ Ληναίῳ. The phrase ‘at
Lenaeum’ seems to have survived even after all plays were given
in the Dionysiac theatre, as by this time they were, and to have
been understood as equivalent to ‘at the Lenaean festival’ (cf.
Ar. Ach. 504 οὑπὶ Ληναίῳ τ᾽ ἀγών), for which the expressions
ἐν
Ληναίοις and (
ἐδιδάχθη)
εἰς Λήναια are more usual in the
didascaliae (see Müller's
Bühnenalterthümer, p. 316, n. 3). The
Lenaea took place in the month Gamelion.
36.
ὥσπερ οἱ ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ χορῷ, sc.
γενόμενοι. γίγνεσθαι
ἐν is ‘to come to be in or among’, ‘to fall among’.
ἐν τῷ
προθύρῳ ἐγενόμεθα of
314Cis the same idiom.
μισάνθρωποι. So the MSS. The various suggested emendations (
ἡμιάνθρωποι Heinrich,
μιξάνθρωποι Jacobs,
μεσάνθρωποι
Lehrs) proceed on the supposition that the word is an epithet of
the
ἄγριοι, which is most improbable: ‘alii sunt
ἄγριοι, alii
μισάνθρωποι, neque in illa sermonis iunctura’ (sc. if we regard
the
ὥσπερ clause as explaining
τοῖς τοιούτοις) ‘scribendum
ὥσπερ sed
οἷοί περ fuit’ (Heindorf).
37.
Εὐρυβάτῳ καὶ Φρυνώνδᾳ. Two proverbial scoundrels
of real life: see Suidas s.vv.
Εὐρύβατος πονηρός, ἀπὸ τοῦ
ρεμφθέντος ὑρὸ Κποίσου ἐρὶ ξενολογίαν μετὰ χπημάτων, ὥς φησιν
Ἔφοπος, εἶτα μεταβαλομένου ρπὸς Κῦπον: ἦν δὲ Ἐφέσιος κτλ.
Φπυνώνδας τῶν ἐρὶ ρονηπίᾳ διαβεβοημένων, ὃς ξένος ὢν κατὰ τὰ
Ρελοροννησιακὰ διέτπιβεν Ἀθήνησιν:—ἐκ τούτου τοὺς ρονηποὺς
Φρυνώνδας καλοῦσι. They are frequently mentioned in Greek
literature: see Blaydes on
Ar. Thesm. 861. Blaydes remarks that
-ώνδας is a Boeotian termination: cf.
Ἐπαμεινώνδας, Χαρώνδας
and the like.
40.
οὐδείς σοι φαίνεται εἶναι. εἶναι is Heindorf's emendation for
ἐ̂θ᾽ of the Bodleian. For the asyndeton with
ὥσπερ see
above on
311E
41.
τίς διδάσκαλος τοῦ ἑλληνίζειν. The same illustration
occurs in
Alc. I. 111A.
46.
τούτους ἔτι τίς ἂν διδάξειεν repeats
τίς ἂν—διδάξειεν
τοὺς τῶν χειροτεχνῶν υἱεῖς: and
οὐ ῥᾴδιον οἶμαι εἶναι—τούτων
διδάσκαλον φανῆναι is a variety on
οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς φανείη, which the
οὐδέ γ᾽ ἄν of l. 42 might lead us to expect would be repeated—
but the sentence is a slight anacoluthon. This is better than to
take
ἄν of
οὐδέ γ᾽ ἄν in l.
42 with
εἶναι of l.
47.
49.
οὕτω δὲ ἀρετῆς. On
οὕτω δέ see above, note on
318C
50.
κἂν εἰ: this idiom is somewhat rare in Plato, e.g.
Meno,
72C
κἂν εἰ πολλαὶ καὶ παντοδαπαί εἰσιν, ἕν γέ τι εἶδος ἄπασαι
ἔχουσιν: it is extremely common in Aristotle. The
ἄν shows that
the idiom must have arisen from cases where the apodosis contained a verb with which
ἄν could go, e.g.
κἂν εἰ ἀποθνῄσκοι, εὖ
ἔχοι. Such cases as
Symp. 185A κἂν εἴ τις—ἐξαπατηθείη, καλὴ
ἡ ἀπάτη, where the verb after
εἰ is in the optative, preserve
traces of the origin of the construction.
53.
ὀνῆσαί τινα πρός. ὀνῆσαι is Dobree's correction for
νοῆσαι: cf.
Rep. X. 601D εἴπερ οἶός τ᾽ ἦν πρὸς ἀρετὴν ὀνῆσαι
ἀνθρώπους.
56.
τὸν τρόπον τῆς πράξεως τοῦ μισθοῦ. Ar.
Eth. Nic.
IX.
2. 1164
a.
24 ὅπερ φασὶ καὶ Πρωταγόραν ποιεῖν: ὅτε γὰρ
διδάξειεν ἁδήροτε, τιμῆσαι τὸν μαθόντα ἐκέλευεν ὅσου δοκεῖ ἄξια
ἐπίστασθαι καὶ ἐλάμβανε τοσοῦτον. This is more than Plato says:
see next note.
58.
ἀποδέδωκεν: but
κατέθηκεν (gnomic aorist) two lines
lower down. It is not necessary to reject
ἀποδέδωκεν (with
Sauppe and Schanz) or to read
ἀπέδωκεν (with Kroschel and
Kral).
ἀποδέδωκεν is hardly to be explained as a gnomic perfect
(Goodwin), certain examples of which are rare, if not unknown,
but is to be taken in its natural sense: ‘if he prefers, he has
already paid . . . if not etc.’: this is also Heindorf's view. Unless
the pupil had
paid in advance, Protagoras left the fee to his own
conscience and (according to his own account,
ὥστε καὶ αὐτῷ
δοκεῖν τῷ μαθόντι) generally fared better, even though (if Diog.
Laert. IX. 52 may be trusted) his fee was 100 minae. If Protagoras made no bad debts, he escapes the censure of Plato in
Gorg. 519C, where it is said that, if teachers of
δικαιοσύνη do
not receive their fees, it only shows that they have failed to
teach their subject and deserve no fees.
59.
ἐλθὼν εἰς ἱερόν. ‘Tactis sacris aramve tenentes veteres
iurare satis est notum’ Heindorf, quoting Aeschin.
in Timarch.
§ 114
λαβὼν εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ χεῖρα τὰ ἱερὰ καὶ ὀμόσας μὴ λαβεῖν
δῶρα—εἰληφὼς ἠλέγχθη.
67.
τῶνδε. Protagoras is more encouraging than Socrates in
319E
