Alcibiades I

Editorial Note

The Greek text. The Greek is John Burnet’s, from the second volume of his Oxford Classical Text of Plato (1901), still the most widely cited text of the Alcibiades; Antonio Carlini published a separate critical edition in 1964. The copy reproduced is a later impression, undated, printed at Oxford by John Johnson as Printer to the University and published by Humphrey Milford, and so made between 1925 and 1945. It carries Burnet’s preface of March 1901 and a short addendum dated at St Andrews in April 1910, in which he records that he had added the readings of the Oxyrhynchus papyri in the Symposium and Phaedrus and used Hermann Schoene’s collation of W in the Symposium. The text is reproduced page for page and line for line: each left-hand page of this edition is one page of Burnet, with his line-ends, his marginal section letters and line numbers, and his apparatus criticus at the foot. The line numbers were counted afresh and agree with his, except at 135b, where his “10” stands one line early; this edition sets it on the tenth line. The words were taken from the Perseus Digital Library’s digital transcription of Burnet, and every line was then checked against the photographs of this copy; where the two differ, this edition prints what Burnet printed. Burnet’s paragraphing (a new, indented paragraph at each change of speaker), his abbreviations of the speakers’ names (ΣΩ. for Socrates, ΑΛ. for Alcibiades), his capitals at the openings of speeches and of quoted speech, his quotation marks and his letterspacing of the line of Homer at 132a are kept. Angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ enclose words that are not in the principal manuscripts and have been supplied, by conjecture (Burnet’s own at 107e9, Dobree’s at 115d2, Schneider’s at 122d3, F. A. Wolf’s at 132e5) or from another witness (Stobaeus at 115e and 128a13–b1, Eusebius at 133c8–17, a later manuscript at 134e8); inside an apparatus entry they mark words a scholar would add (117b2, 120e4, 126e2). Square brackets [ ] enclose words Burnet believed spurious: his own deletion at 105d1 (seclusi), a scholar’s that he accepts at 109c6, words that Proclus leaves out at 105e1 and 112c4, and the first of two “περὶ τούτων” at 127c3.

Reading the apparatus. The notes at the foot of each Greek page are Burnet’s, unaltered, including his occasional misprints (φρόνειν for φρονεῖν at 104c1, ἱματία for ἱμάτια at 128a13). Entries are keyed by section letter and line as numbered in the margin, so that “a 4” is the fourth line of section a. The section letters begin again with each Stephanus page, so that on a page running from 103a to 104b, “a 3” after “b 1” belongs to 104a. A further entry on the same line follows after a wider space without repeating the key. Usually the reading printed in the text comes first, followed by the witnesses that have it; a colon separates it from the alternatives, each followed by its witnesses. Where the text’s reading is followed by a square bracket, the witnesses for the text are not listed and only the alternatives are given. An entry with no colon reports a single proposal or witness without listing the witnesses for the text: an alternative (“παυσοίμην Cobet”, 104e2), a deletion, omission or addition (109c6, 105e1, 115d2), or, with re vera, a confirmation of the text’s own reading (121b3). Three spaced points between two words cover the whole passage from the first to the last. The apparatus reports each witness’s own spelling, which may differ from the text’s without being a different reading: ἑαυτόν at 131b11 against the text’s αὑτόν, ξυνίεμεν at 132c10 against συνίεμεν, ξυμβαίη at 135a7 against συμβαίη.

The witnesses. The three principal manuscripts are B, the Bodleian Plato (MS. E. D. Clarke 39, written in 895); T, the Venice manuscript (Marcianus, Append. Class. 4, cod. 1); and W, the Vienna manuscript (Vindobonensis 54, suppl. phil. Gr. 7). B² is an early corrector of B; later hands in B, T and W are marked b, t and w; pr. is a manuscript’s first hand, before correction. Letters written together share a reading, so that “BT” is B and T, and “Bt” B together with a later hand in T. Burnet also cites D (Venetus 185) at 123a6, and three later manuscripts by name: the Coislinianus 155 in Paris (Coisl.), whose corrected readings his preface regards as conjectures rather than tradition; Venetus 184 (Ven. 184); and a manuscript in the Laurentian Library at Florence (Laur. lxxxv. 9), at 134e8. recc. are later manuscripts in general, and vulg. the reading of the older printed editions. Of the ancient authors who quote the dialogue, he cites the Neoplatonist commentators Proclus (fifth century AD), whose commentary survives only as far as 116b (Burnet cites him once later, at 124c6), and Olympiodorus (sixth century), whose commentary covers the whole dialogue; he warns that their manuscripts have themselves been corrected from copies of Plato. He cites the anthologist Stobaeus (fifth century), whose Anthology quotes long stretches of the dialogue, among them 109e and 110d–e (3.1.191–192), 114e–116d (3.1.193), and a passage beginning at 127e (3.21.23) that includes 128a13–b1 and the mirror at 133c; the Latin grammarian Priscian (about AD 500), at 104e2; Athenaeus, author of the Learned Banqueters (about AD 200), and the ancient scholia, the anonymous notes in the margins of the manuscripts, at 120a9; Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (early fourth century), whose Preparation for the Gospel (11.27.5) quotes 133c1–17; and the emperor Julian (reigned 361–363), at 133c. Iulianus, Priscianus and Ficinus are the Latin forms of the names. Ficinus is Marsilio Ficino, whose Latin translation of Plato (Florence, 1484) is cited where it implies a reading (113e9, 119e7).

Abbreviations. add., added: of a witness, words it has in addition (114e8), of a scholar, words he supplied (115d2, 122d3, 132e5); with post, the word after which they stand (112c4). addidi, I have added (107e9). al., other manuscripts (108e9, 120b6). ante, before (113b8). cf., compare: Euripides’ Hippolytus (Eur. Hipp.) at 113c3. ci., conjectured (109c6). corr., corrected; “corr. Coisl.” is the corrected text of the Coislinianus, and so “corr. Ven. 184” (124d7). cum, with: a scholar following a manuscript (119e7) or another scholar (135a1). et, and. et mox, and shortly after: a further reading by the same witness or scholar a little further on, of the same word (128a2) or another (118e4, 135a1). extra versum, outside the line (124d5). fort., perhaps: a tentative proposal, Burnet’s own where no name is given (126e2). in marg., in the margin (120e9, 124d7). om., leaves out. om. mox duobus versibus, leaves out two lines just after (116c13, of Stobaeus). post, after: with transp., a proposed change of order (107b8); with add. or a scholar’s name, where a word is to be inserted (107e9). pr., first hand (120e9, 123a6). prius, the first of two identical words in a line (130c2). puncto notatum, marked with a dot, the scribes’ sign for deletion (109a1). re vera, really, and sic, so: the manuscript has the odd form reported (121b3, 121e1). s.v. (supra versum), above the line (119e1, 130b11); supra, above (105d2, where W has εν above μάχ, turning Δεινομάχης into Δεινομένης); suprascr., written above (121c3). scripsi, I have written: Burnet’s own correction, printed in the text (119e7, 124b3). secl., rejected as spurious (109c6); seclusi, I have bracketed (105d1). sed, but (109a1, 124d5). sed talia fere legerunt, but … read something of the kind (133c8–17, of Julian and Stobaeus). transp., transposed (107b8). ut videtur, as it seems (129c7). vel, or (126d9). An asterisk stands for a letter erased in a manuscript, one asterisk to each letter (123d3). Letters printed small above a word are written above it in the witness (124b2, 125b6). Words in italic Latin inside an entry, as qua ratione at 119e7, are quoted from Ficino’s translation.

Names. Stephanus is Henri Estienne, whose edition of 1578 supplies the page numbers by which Plato is cited. The other names are of modern scholars, cited for the reading of their editions or for a conjecture: among the editors of Plato, Bekker, Ast, Stallbaum, K. F. Hermann and Schanz; Nürnberger, who edited the two Alcibiades (1796); Friedrich Schleiermacher, Plato’s German translator; and, among the critics, Heindorf, Buttmann, F. A. Wolf, Dobree, Heusde, Hirschig, Schneider, Struve, Cobet, Madvig and Apelt.

The English. The translation is new. It aims to be exact, with every clause answering to a clause of the Greek, and to keep Socrates’ humor: his deadpan, his mock-solemnity, his teasing of a proud young man, and the quick timing of the short exchanges; and it lets Alcibiades be proud, quick and impatient. Nothing is added to make it funnier; where a joke depends on the Greek, a note explains it. Each speech opens with the speaker’s name in small capitals. Burnet’s text is translated as printed, including his conjectures and the words he prints in angle brackets; words he brackets as spurious are not translated. At two places Burnet’s page prints a word without the accent the sense requires (τις at 125e1, ποτε at 128a5); the Greek keeps the print, the English takes the words as questions, and a note says so.

Each right-hand page translates the Greek page opposite. When a sentence runs over the turn of Burnet’s page, the English breaks at the nearest point English word order allows. The Stephanus section letters in the margin of the English mark where each section begins.

Key terms. The words the argument leans on are each rendered one way throughout. Two were settled at the start: epimeleisthai heautou, the dialogue’s central demand, is “to care for oneself”, and sōphrosynē is “temperance”, as in the Charmides of this series. The Key Words of the Dialogue explain these and the others, and the Glossary lists them.

The notes. The translator’s notes at the foot of the English page identify people, places and quotations; explain the jokes the English cannot carry; flag the places where Burnet’s choice of reading changes the sense; and mark the dramatic irony that every ancient reader would have felt, since Alcibiades’ later career was known to them. Where a note offers a doubtful interpretation, it says so. The notes are numbered afresh on each page.

This edition. The volume contains the whole dialogue, 103a–135e, in Burnet’s fifty-eight pages. It was made in seven blocks, each checked before the next was begun, and then read through and checked again as a whole; the Introduction, the Key Words of the Dialogue, the Outline and the Glossary were written last, from the finished text. The Note on this Edition, at the end, says how the volume was made, what the checks found, and what remains undone.