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.

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    regards pleasures, and subsequently by destroying those, who possess property, and, calling them enemies, scatters the wealth of such persons, and exhorts his fellow-doers and friends (so to act),^ that no one shall, by saying that he is poor, bring a charge against him. After the same manner, he who benefits his city, will be honoured by it, in consequence of distributing by voting^ the property of a few among the many ; or when any one being the president of a great city, and one ruling over many lesser cities, unjustly distributes to his own city the pro¬ perty of the lesser. For in this way, neither Dion, nor any other person, will ever voluntarily proceed to power, pernicious to himself and family for all time, but to a form of govern¬ ment and the establishment of laws, the most just and best, and effected through the fewest deaths and banishments. This conduct did Dion lately adopt, by choosing to suffer rather than to do unholy deeds, yet taking care lest he should suffer; still, however, did he stumble, after he had arrived at the very point of being superior to his foes. Nor did he suf¬ fer any thing to be wondered at. For a man holy, temperate, and prudent, will never be deceived entirely ^respecting un¬ holy things, respecting the soul of such.^ But it would per¬ haps be not wonderful, should he suffer the suffering of a good pilot, ^ from whom a storm about to be has not entirely lain hid; but from whom the violence unusually great and unex¬ pected of tempests may have lain hid, and, having lain hid, have by their force overwhelmed him. The same thing upon a small scale ^ caused Dion to stumble. For they, who tripped ^ BetAveen TrapaKsXsvrjTai and orrcjg there seems to have dropt out ravTo TToiijcrai, a fact that appears to have escaped Ficinus ; who has con¬ sequently given here a translation not answering to the Greek. 2 As this V7rb \pr](})i(TfidT(t)v is at variance with the subsequent Kard bifzrjv, and the preceding mention of acts of violence done by the victori¬ ous party during a revolution, one would prefer vtt’ ov ■iljr}(pL(TixdT(ov, “ by not—voting,” i. e. by power. 3—3 Greek is bcTLog yap dvdpojTrog dvoa'Kjjv irepi, and at the end of the sentence rrjg xf/vxfjg rwv toiovtojv irkpi: which I cannot under¬ stand. The version of Ficinus is, “ Pium enim virum temperatumque et prudentem omnino quidem in rebus ejusmodi impii nunquam fallunt.” From which it is easy to see that he found in his MS. not dvoaiiov 'rrspi, but Trap’ dvoaiitiv, i. e. “ by unholy persons,” to whose unholy doings is to be referred the expression toiovtu)v Tctpi. So I have translated bi oXiytarwv, which Bekker has rejected, with one MS., although acknowledged by “ aliquantum ” in Ficinus.