Volume 4

The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato].

  • Plato
Date:
1848-1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    508/570 (page 500)
    and not young to hear; and I will endeavour to relate it to you from the beginning; for the present events offer the opportunity. When I was a young man, I was affected as the many are. I thought, if I became quickly my own master, to be¬ take myself immediately to the public affairs of the state. Now some such circumstances as these fell out relating to state affairs. Of the polity existing at that time, when it was abused by many, a change took place; and over the change one and fifty men presided as governors, eleven in the city, and ten in the Piraeus; and each of these had a jurisdiction about the Agora,^ and whatever else it was necessary to regu¬ late in the cities,^ while thirty of them were invested with supreme authority. Some of these happened ;,to be my rela¬ tives and acquaintances; and they forthwith invited me (to attend) to state-affairs, as being a suitable pursuit. And how I was affected is, on account of my youth, not at all won¬ derful. For I thought that they would, by leading the city from an unjust mode of living to a just one, ^administer it in the way it was meet;^ so that I diligently gave my mind to what they did. But when I saw these men proving in a short time that the previous form of government had been (as it were) gold,'^ ^and that they committed other acts (unjustly),^ and sent my friend Socrates, advanced in years, whom I am not ashamed to say was nearly the most righteous man of those then living, together with certain others,® against one of the citizens, ^ This probably alludes to the office called ’Ayopavofxog, or “ controller of the market,” of which there were five for the Piraeus, as stated by Har- pocration on the authority of Aristotle. 2 By the cities are meant the towns in Attica, that, like cities and bo¬ roughs in England, had previously their own municipal officers. ®^ The Greek is dioiKr]iyeiv dij—But Ficinus has “ debere convertere,” as if he had found in his MS. dwiKticTtiv Ssiv. From the two I have elicited y deov— ^ In lieu of Hemsterhuis on Lucian Necyomant. § 4, would read xpiaroj/: and so two MSS. subsequently collated; for that is the perpetual word in this expression. Boissonade however on Eunapius, p. 483, and Stalbaum here, are content with xP’vf^yv. 5—5 I followed the version of Ficinus—“ et alia multa injuste fecerunt.” The Greek is simply to. re aWa— ® By these “certain others ” are meant the “tipstaff’s,” or “policemen,” as they would be called in England; but whose name at Athens was To^orai, from the bow and arrows they carried, or EicvOai, from their na¬ tive country.