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.

    561/570 (page 553)
    three years old; and another not yet one year old. All these it will be for myself and friends ^ to give out in mar¬ riage, should I survive them; hut let those, whom I do not survive, ^fare as they may;^ while for those, whose fathers may become richer than myself, I shall not have to provide. At present however my means are greater than theirs. For the marriage of their mothers likewise I have provided with the aid of others and of Dion. One of them is married to Speusippus, of whose sister she is the daughter. For this one there is need of not more than thirty min^e; since the marriage portions given by myself are moderate. Moreover should my mother die, there would be need of not more than ten minae for erecting her tomb. Such are the sums requisite at present for what are almost necessaries. But should any other expense occur, of a private. or public nature, through my coming to you, it will be requisite, as I stated then, for me to labour^ and to make a vigorous effort for the expen¬ diture to be the least possible; but where I am unable (to do aught), for the expense to be yours. What I mean after this touching the expenditure on the other hand^ of your money at Athens, ® is in the first place this; ® that should it be need¬ ful for me to expend any thing on a choregy,'^ or any office of that kind, there is no friend® of yours here, who will advance it for you, as I imagine; since even if it made a great differ¬ ence to you, that a sum would, if expended, be a benefit to you, but an injury, if it were not expended and delayed, until some one should arrive from yourself, such a circum¬ stance would turn out® disgraceful in addition to its being detrimental. For of this I have a proof by having sent Eras- tus to Andromedes of Angina; from whom, as being your ^ Amongst these was probably Dion, who, as we learn from Diogenes Laertius hi. 3, furnished the means to enable Plato to undertake a cho- regy at Athens. ^^ In Greek xaTpt is used in a good sense; but ^aiperw in a bad one; just as in Latin “ vale,” and “ valeas.” ^ I have translated as if the Greek were ttovsXv, not Ttoielv. ^^ The Greek isro Si] fxkra ravra Xeyoj—rrepl riov (tCjv av %j0?7juara»j/— where I cannot understand fierd ravra, and still less av— ®® I have translated as if the Greek were fern tovto TrpSiTOv [xsv, on edv—not bn Trpwrov— ^ On the choregy and all the matters connected with it, see Donaldson’s Theatre of the Greeks. ® Literally “ a friend connected by ties of hospitality.” ° The sense requires tarai, what I have translated, not lari—