Alcibiades I

Note on this Edition

How the volume was made

The Greek was taken from the Perseus Digital Library’s digital transcription of Burnet and cut into Burnet’s lines by reading every line-end from the photographs of his page, in the impression described in the Editorial Note. Accents, breathings and iota subscripts were read on the sharpest image of each page that the scan provides, and a doubtful mark was settled by setting it beside sure examples of each form on the same page. The section letters and line numbers in the margin were computed from the Stephanus divisions rather than copied, and were then compared with Burnet’s: across the 1,698 lines of the dialogue they fall where he prints them, except for one line number at 135b that he misplaces. Burnet’s apparatus was transcribed from the same images. Where the digital text differs from Burnet’s page (six words missing at 104a7, a section division missing at 128b, three breathings and an accent, Burnet’s capitals, a stray character, a repeated speaker’s label, a comma for a full stop, speeches run together or bracketed separately), this edition follows Burnet; the record of the blocks lists each case.

The work was done in seven blocks of eight to ten pages, each finished and checked before the next was begun. Each block was checked by four independent reviewers: two compared the Greek and the apparatus with the page images letter by letter, one compared the English with the Greek clause by clause, and one checked every fact and reference in the notes. Each finding was examined again against the evidence before it was adopted, and not all were adopted. What each block’s check caught is recorded at the end of this Note.

When the last block was done the volume was read through as one text, since a check made page by page cannot see some kinds of error: a word rendered one way in one block and another way in the next, a sentence broken badly at a page turn, a recapitulation that states a step in other words than the step itself. The translator read the whole volume, and four further reviewers read it independently: one for the consistency of terms across the whole book, two for sense, omissions and continuity in its two halves, and one for the Editorial Note against the scan of Burnet’s volume. The Introduction, the Key Words of the Dialogue, the Outline and the Glossary were then written from the finished text, and their claims and references were checked against it by three more reviewers.

What the final reading caught

It found some forty faults that the seven block checks had passed, most of them small and several substantive. They fall into a few classes, and the classes are worth a reader’s knowing, because they are the kinds of error an edition checked page by page is likely to contain.

The most serious was words that Burnet deletes surviving in the English. At 127c3 Burnet brackets the first of two “περὶ τούτων”, “about these things”, which the manuscript T has and B repeats; the English had followed T’s text (“concord … about things that some know about”), translating the bracketed words. It now follows Burnet: concord “among people of whom some know about these things and others do not”.

The largest class was terms rendered two ways, the change usually falling between blocks. The dialogue’s central phrase, “care for oneself”, where it first occurs with “yourself” (120c–d), was “take more care of yourself” and “taking care of yourself”; it is now “care for” there too. “What is one’s own” had become “what is yours”, “what is his” or “what is theirs” (128d, 131a–c, 133d), so that when Socrates at 133d recalls what “we agreed a moment ago”, the English recalled it in other words. In the passage on the eye and the soul, “look into” had become “look at” (133a–c), so that the soul did not look into a soul as the eye looks into an eye. “If god wills” (135d), which Socrates repeats from his own words at 127e, had been “god willing” at 127e; Alcibiades’ “I don’t even know what I’m saying” (116e) had become “what I mean” when he repeats it at 127d; “perceive” had become “notice” at 121b, the word the English keeps for escaping notice; “rivals” (124b) had been “the other side” at 119e, and “surpass” (119d) “get the better of” at 124b. Smaller departures from the edition’s own rulings were corrected at 103a (“talking with you”), 103a, 105a and 123d (three verbs that are not “learn”), 104e (“My good friend”), 105a and 105c (“think”), 105b (“worthy”), 105e and 111e (“good enough”, “useful”), 107c (“seek”), 108a (“I say so”), 110d and 112d (“appear”), 115e (“doings”), 124d (“befitting”), 130c (“suffices”), 131d (“I will be eager”), 134e (“being ignorant”), 135a (“shipmates”, “seemed good to him”) and 135d (“not well said”).

Next came sense errors in hard constructions, sentences that read plausibly on their own. At 124a–b Burnet prints “know thyself” without quotation marks, so that it is Socrates’ own command as well as the god’s (“know thyself: these are our rivals”); the English had quoted the inscription and added a second “know”. At 121e the four royal tutors had been “chosen from those judged the best”, inventing a larger group; the Greek says that the four are the ones judged best. At 131a “what belongs to the body” made the doctor know the same things as the craftsmen two lines later, against the distinction the argument draws; it is now “something about the body”. At 127e Socrates’ fear that “we may perhaps fail to notice” had been turned into a statement, and its recall at 132b (“we were afraid”) is now in the same words. At 105d–e the parallel of “in the city” and “with you” is restored. Small additions (“never” at 104e, “even” at 131c) were removed, and small omissions (“for” at 127d, “indeed” at 131b) restored; at 105b “the same god” is now “this same god”. At 127c a note now records Burnet’s deletion.

In the notes, the note at 133d now gives the money-maker’s “still further off than what is his own” (131c) in the text’s words, and the note at 135d cites the places where Socrates followed Alcibiades about (104d, 106a). Two notes that spoke of “Plato” as the author (104b, 121d) now speak of the dialogue, since the Introduction leaves the question open.

The Editorial Note had given the printing as between 1925 and 1946; the publisher’s imprint, Humphrey Milford’s, narrows it to between 1925 and 1945, and the title page, which had spoken of a revision in 1910, now describes the impression in the same terms. It said that Burnet keeps in his text words that others reject unless he deletes them himself, which is not so: he brackets one scholar’s deletion (109c6), words that Proclus omits (105e1, 112c4), and once (127c3) words for which he reports no deletion. Its explanations of et mox, cum, add. and om. mox duobus versibus were too narrow or wrong; it did not say that a fort. without a name is Burnet’s own; it described the scholiast as one author; and it did not identify the scholars named in the apparatus. All are now corrected, the chief passages of Stobaeus’ Anthology that Burnet relies on are identified, and Eusebius’ quotation of 133c is located (Preparation for the Gospel 11.27.5).

What remains undone

Three of Burnet’s ancient witnesses are not fully located. Julian, whom Burnet cites at 133c as reading something like the bracketed lines, has not been found quoting them in his surviving works; the place in Priscian cited at 104e2 has not been verified; and the passages of Stobaeus behind Burnet’s citations at 121b–c, 127c and 134c–135a have not been identified; those for 109e–110e are identified from Hense’s edition but have not been checked against it.

At 125e1 and 128a5 Burnet’s page prints τις and ποτε without accents where the sense requires the interrogatives τίς and πότε. The Greek keeps the print and the English takes the questions, with a note. Stobaeus’ text of 128a appears to print πότε; other editions of the dialogue have not been consulted.

A few marks in Burnet’s small apparatus type lie at the limit of what the scan can show, and are printed as read: T’s form οῖοι at 110e9 and the ῶν of B’s first hand at 123a6, with a circumflex and no breathing; B’s οὐ at 115b3; and Olympiodorus’ τι with a small ό above it at 125b6, whose meaning is not settled. They should be checked against another copy of the volume.

The apparatus is Burnet’s alone. It has not been collated against the manuscripts, and readings proposed since 1901, including those of Carlini’s edition (1964), are not reported. The translation follows Burnet’s text even where later scholars would print something else.

The notes are a reader’s aid, not a commentary. They were chosen to explain what the English cannot carry and to mark the dramatic irony, and they label the more doubtful interpretations as such. The question whether Plato wrote the dialogue is set out in the Introduction but not argued; a reader who wants the scholarly debate on it, or on “the self itself”, will need a commentary.

The checks described above were made by independent reviewers working from the same page images. The volume has not been read by a specialist outside the project, and a reader who finds an error is asked to report it.

The record of the blocks

The notes that follow were written as each block was finished, and are kept as a record of what each check found. Where the final reading changed something they report, the text above says so.

Block I (103a–108c)

How it was made. The first eight pages of Burnet’s text (scan pp. 311–318). The line-ends were read from enlarged images of the scan, and the margin numbers computed from the Stephanus divisions and compared with Burnet’s: all 224 lines agree. The digital text omits six words at 104a7 (“πόλει, οὔσῃ μεγίστῃ τῶν Ἑλληνίδων, καὶ”), which Burnet prints and this edition supplies; it carries a stray character at 105d1, removed; it repeats Socrates’ speaker label at 104a, where his speech runs on and Burnet prints none; and it lower-cases the openings of speeches and of quoted speech, where Burnet’s capitals are restored.

What verification caught. Four independent reviewers checked the block: two compared the Greek and the apparatus with the page images letter by letter, one compared the English with the Greek clause by clause, and one checked every fact and reference in the notes and in the Editorial Note. In the Greek, the digital text’s ᾁδοντα at 108a5 is Burnet’s ᾄδοντα, and is corrected. In the apparatus, Burnet prints “φρόνειν” at 104c1, a misprint of his own, and it is kept as printed. Every speech was confirmed as given to the right speaker.

In the English, two sentences had a construction wrong. At 107a10 Socrates asks what the Athenians are deliberating about, not when; and at 105e Alcibiades hopes, once he has shown his worth, to be able to do anything at all, a clause the draft had turned into a second thing he would show. Socrates’ hope at 105e is now for the greatest power “with you”, answering Alcibiades’ power “in the city”. Smaller corrections of mood, particle and reference were made at 103b, 104c, 104d, 104e, 105a, 105c, 106a, 106c and 107b; small omissions were restored at 103a, 104b, 105a, 106a and 106e; and “of men” was removed at 104a. Several echoes are now audible: the “nuisance” Socrates says the other lovers made of themselves (103a) is the word Alcibiades throws back at him (104d), the young man “outdone” his proud lovers “in pride” (103b), and “wonder” runs through Socrates’ opening and Alcibiades’ reply. The renderings “have in mind”, “look into” and “adviser” are now kept wherever their Greek recurs.

In the notes, the dates and sources for Cleinias’ death, the guardianship of Pericles and Ariphron, and the naming of Deinomache were made exact; the account of Socrates’ sign now cites the Apology’s own word for its “opposing”; and two interpretations are labelled as such. The Editorial Note now describes this copy exactly (an undated impression printed between 1925 and 1946, whose 1910 addendum concerns other dialogues), explains every abbreviation the block uses, and records the limits of Proclus’ commentary.

Block II (108c–112e)

How it was made. Burnet pages 9–16 (scan pp. 319–326), made as Block I: the line-ends read from enlarged images of the scan, and the margin numbers computed and compared with Burnet’s, all of which agree. The digital text again has a rough breathing for Burnet’s smooth one in ᾄδειν (108c8), as at 108a5; it prints in lower case the Muses (108c12) and the opening of the question quoted at 108e7, where Burnet has capitals; and it has τις at 108e5, where Burnet prints τὶς. All are corrected to Burnet.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The Greek was confirmed letter by letter against the images, with two marks settled there: a small mark touching the last letter of Ἔμοιγε at 111e3, first taken for an accent, is a blemish of the type and is not reproduced; and in the apparatus at 110e9 the form reported for T is printed with a circumflex and no breathing, οῖοι, and is kept as printed.

In the English, one word at the turn from page 14 to page 15 belonged to the next page and has been moved, and ἐπειδή there is now “since”. At 109d Socrates’ matched pair is restored: either the thing escaped Alcibiades’ own notice, or his lessons escaped Socrates’. The two questions at 109a are now parallel (“what suffering … and what name”), the inference in Socrates’ οὐκοῦν (112d), the grudging “at least” of Alcibiades’ reply (112d) and Socrates’ “you will know” (εἴσῃ, 112e) are kept, and small omissions and additions were mended at 108d, 108e, 109b, 109d, 110c, 111a and 111b. “These things” at 109c6 is now plural, as the Greek is.

In the notes, the note on 109c no longer gives Alcibiades a word that was Socrates’ (“lawful”), and its reading of the passage is offered as one of two; the note on Zeus Philios now says that Socrates elsewhere calls on him but swears by him only here; Plutarch’s story of the boy and the wagon is told as Plutarch tells it; draughts is described as Plato’s stock example of an expert’s craft; and the note on Coronea refers to the note at 103a instead of repeating it.

Block III (112e–117a)

How it was made. Burnet pages 17–24 (scan pp. 327–334), made as before; the margin numbers computed from the Stephanus divisions agree with Burnet’s throughout. Two passages needed new handling. At 115d2 Burnet prints an answer of Alcibiades’, “Yes”, supplied by Dobree, with the angle brackets round the speaker’s name as well; and at 115e5–7 he prints an answer and a sentence of Socrates’ that are missing from the manuscripts and supplied from Stobaeus’ quotation of the passage, with one opening bracket before the first speaker’s name and one closing bracket after the second speech. The digital text runs these supplied speeches on inside the speech before them; this edition sets each as its own paragraph, as Burnet does.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The Greek was confirmed letter by letter; in the apparatus at 114d5 the form reported for B is printed with a rough breathing and a grave, ἓν μελέτησον, and is now so transcribed.

In the English, a question at 114c that expects the answer yes (“isn’t this the only difference …?”) had been turned the other way, so that Alcibiades’ assent agreed to the opposite; it is corrected, with its two speakers in the Greek order. The challenge Socrates sets at 114b and the conclusion he draws at 116e now use the same words (“what is just and what is advantageous”), as the Greek does, and the recapitulation at 116d says “these things”, recalling 113a–c. Alcibiades’ grudging admissions that he himself is the one saying it (“I do appear to be the one”, 113b; “I appear to be, it seems”, 116d) keep their personal form. Smaller corrections: “going to” for μέλλω at 114d, kept apart from “mean to”; “running ahead of the argument” at 114a; “this time” for αὖ at 114a; “without cause” for μάτην at 113c; “as fully as possible” at 114e; “look into” and “see” for the Socratic verbs at 115c and 116b; one rendering, “doing”, for πρᾶξις at 115e; and two Stephanus letters moved to the word where the section begins (113e, 114a).

In the notes, the remark on “Why, you’re a prophet” now gives the Socratic sense of the irony (refutation cures rather than harms, Gorgias 475d); the notes on the supplied speeches say exactly what is missing, from which witnesses, and where Stobaeus quotes the passage; and the note on eu prattein says that the argument trades on both senses rather than passing from one to the other.

Block IV (117a–122a)

How it was made. Burnet pages 25–32 (scan pp. 335–342), made as before; the margin numbers agree with Burnet’s throughout. The digital text has, for the third time, a rough breathing on a form of ᾄσσω or ᾄδω, here ᾄττεις at 118b7, which Burnet prints with a smooth breathing; it is corrected.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The Greek and the apparatus were confirmed letter by letter, including the doubtful marks: the breathings of ὅντιν’ (rough) and ὄντα (smooth) in the apparatus at 118c10, a blemish on the first letter of συνουσίαν at 119a3, and the unaccented forms Burnet reports for B at 118c6 and 121d5.

In the English, the most serious correction is at 118a4. The draft had turned “this ignorance is the cause of bad things, and is the disgraceful stupidity” into a single phrase in apposition, which silently adopted a deletion that Burnet records but does not make; the καί is now translated. At 120b6 “the very ones I mean” replaces a misreading of a relative clause; at 117e1 two small words (πού, τινες) and the pairing “think they know / do not think they know” are restored; and at 119c–e the chain of words built on ἄξιος (“unworthy”, “thought fit”, “worth asking”, “worthy of yourself”, “worthy of you”) is now kept, so that the irony of the last one shows. Alcibiades’ reply at 118c is now a rally rather than a concession, and Socrates’ “Why, ours too” at 121a repeats Alcibiades’ words exactly, as the Greek does. Smaller corrections: three Stephanus letters moved (119c, 120d, and 121c); μόνω, a dual, is “just the two of us”; “cast off” for ἀποβεβληκότες; “the weight of family” for γένους ὄγκῳ; and terms aligned with the register.

In the notes, Damon, Anaxagoras and Pythocleides are all cited from Plutarch’s Pericles; the note on Callias says that his identification with the general killed at Potidaea is the usual one, and compares Zeno’s fee with Evenus’ five minae in the Apology; the note on Meidias quotes Aristophanes exactly and gives the source for the game; the note on the royal genealogies adds Herodotus’ tracing of the Spartan kings to Perseus; the note on Socrates’ Daedalus no longer presents the step to Hephaestus as his invention; and the note on the comic poet no longer claims more than is known.

Block V (122a–126d)

How it was made. Burnet pages 33–40 (scan pp. 343–350), made as before; the margin numbers agree with Burnet’s throughout. The digital text needed no correction in this block.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The Greek text was confirmed letter by letter, including the breathings of αὑτῷ, αὐτῷ and αὑτοῦ at 122a6, 123d7–8 and 126c–d. In the apparatus two forms are now transcribed exactly as printed: at 123a6 the reading of B’s first hand has a circumflex and no breathing (ῶν), and at 124b2 B’s δε has no accent, with μή set small above it. Also confirmed as printed: the asterisk at 123d3, the small ό over τι at 125b6, the unaccented forms reported for B at 124e6 and 126d9, and the pair ἥπερ (vel ἤπερ) at 126d9. At 125e1 Burnet’s page prints τις without an accent; the Greek keeps it, and the English takes it as the question “what knowledge”, which Alcibiades answers, with a note.

In the English, two errors are corrected. At 123c5 the message to Amestris keeps the second person of the Greek (“against your son”); the draft’s “her son” had also blurred whose land lay at Erchia. At 124a Lampido would wonder that Alcibiades means to contend with her son, not whether he does. ἐθέλω is no longer “if you care to”, which put the dialogue’s key word on a verb of wishing a page before care becomes the argument, and μέλει at 122b is now “no one cares about”, keeping that family of words together. Socrates’ question at 125e (μῶν) now expects the answer no; the second of the paired questions at 125c–d is “the virtue of chorus-training”, as the first is “the virtue of piloting”; the inscription is “Know thyself”, as in the Charmides; and Socrates’ “let us deliberate together” at 124b now hands back Alcibiades’ own words at 119b. Smaller corrections: set phrases as in the Charmides (“is in fact”, “certainly”); two Stephanus letters moved (122d, 126d); small words restored (ἄλλῳ at 124b, ποτε at 123e, μᾶλλον at 124d, γε at 125c and 126a); and new terms recorded, among them “concord” for ὁμόνοια, “tend” for θεραπεύεσθαι and “order” for διοικεῖν.

In the notes, the Magi are a Median tribe in Herodotus, and mageia could already mean magic in the bad sense (Gorgias, Helen 10); Herodotus’ Anthylla went to the wife of whoever ruled Egypt, not to the Persian queen; Agis became king only after the dialogue’s dramatic date; Socrates first calls his sign “the god” at 105d; and the note on Bekker’s conjecture at 126d10 now says how each witness differs from it.

Block VI (126d–130d)

How it was made. Burnet pages 41–48 (scan pp. 351–358), made as before; the margin numbers agree with Burnet’s throughout. The digital text lacks the division at 128b, which was supplied, and brackets the two supplied speeches at 128a13–b1 separately, where Burnet prints one pair of brackets round both; the Greek follows Burnet.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The most serious correction is in the Greek. At 128a2 and a5 and at 129e3 and e7 the draft had changed the digital text’s ἅνθρωπος, “the man”, to ἄνθρωπος, misreading both the page and the apparatus; set beside sure examples of each breathing, the page shows the rough breathing of Schanz’s and Bekker’s crasis, with the manuscripts’ ἄνθρωπος in the apparatus. The text and the apparatus entries are now as printed. Also as printed: the misprint ἱματία in the apparatus at 128a13, B’s αὐ τι at 130d4, and Stallbaum’s καθ’ αὑτό. Damaged letters (127c4, 129b9, 129d11, 130a7, and three in the apparatus) are given in their intended forms.

In the English, two errors are corrected. At 127e Socrates’ parenthesis means “perhaps we fail to notice”, not “we may often fail”: πολλάκις after μή is “perhaps”. At 130d the draft’s “instead of the self itself” had silently adopted a conjecture that Burnet records but does not print; the English now follows his text, “instead of the self, … what each thing itself is”, and the note says what the apparatus offers. At 128a5 Burnet’s page prints ποτε without an accent; the English takes it as the question “when”, and a note says so, as at 125e1. Smaller corrections: four Stephanus letters moved (126e, 127e, 128d, 130d); “well ordered” for εὖ οἰκεῖσθαι, answering “ordering” at 126a; “what is just” for τὰ δίκαια; “Answer what you are asked”, as at 106b; “discover” for εὑρίσκειν and “seek” for ζητεῖν; “for Zeus’ sake”, an appeal rather than an oath; and several small words restored.

In the notes, the note on “the self itself” now says that tauto and to auto are the same words, and names the main readings of the phrase without choosing among them; the note on “doing one’s own business” says who uses the formula when; and the note at 130d says exactly what Burnet prints.

Block VII (130d–135e)

How it was made. Burnet pages 49–58 (scan pp. 359–368), the end of the dialogue, made as before. The margin numbers agree with Burnet’s except at 135b, where his “10” is misplaced and the count is kept. The digital text brackets the four supplied speeches at 133c8–17 separately, where Burnet prints one pair of brackets round all of them, and has a comma after ἀνδρί at 135c13 where Burnet has a full stop; the Greek follows Burnet.

What verification caught. Four reviewers checked the block as before. The Greek text was confirmed letter by letter, every breathing of the αὑτ- and αὐτ- forms set beside sure examples; in the apparatus the draft had ἂν for Burnet’s ἄν at 134e8 and 135a8. Kept as printed: the apparatus spellings that differ from the text (ἑαυτὸν at 131b11, ξυνίεμεν at 132c10, ξυμβαίη at 135a7), the unaccented το at 133c2, and ὅθ’ at 133c8. Damaged letters (132c1, 134e4, 135c12) are given in their intended forms.

In the English, one error of sense is corrected: at 131c10 Alcibiades’ answer had become “He must love you”, which in his mouth points at Socrates; the Greek says only that it follows from the argument. At 133c13 the god is the finest mirror that we would use (“using him as the finest mirror”), not “that finest mirror”. The phrase τυγχάνει … ὄν is now “is in fact” (133a–c), so that the god is not purer “by chance”; the sentence about the pupil at 133a is one question again; the plural “you” of 134d is set up where it begins, and at 135b the impersonal “one must … for oneself” is kept; 133e5 is a potential “would”; and an added clause at 135c13 is gone. Smaller corrections bring the block into line with the earlier ones (“make mistakes”, “recommend”, “a private person”, “manage the city’s affairs”, “best of men”, “tended”, “intelligence” for φρόνησις), keep the repeated words of the Greek (“look into”, “guarantor”), and make the last warning “I dread”. One Stephanus letter was moved (133e).

In the notes, the line of Homer quoted at 132a calls Athens, not the Athenians, “the dēmos of Erechtheus”, where dēmos means the land; Schleiermacher’s deletion at 133a2 is only “the thing we also call the pupil”; the money-maker at 131c tends what lies further off, rather than knowing it; and the last note no longer says that Alcibiades was exiled a second time in 406, when he lost his command and withdrew to the Chersonese, or that the charge about him was made at Socrates’ trial: Xenophon gives it as “the accuser’s”.