Epinomis

Editorial Note

The Greek text. The Greek is John Burnet’s, from the fifth volume of his Oxford Classical Text of Plato (1907), which holds the ninth of Thrasyllus’ tetralogies (the Minos, the Laws, the Epinomis and the Letters), the Definitions and the spurious dialogues. It was issued in two parts; the second, from which this edition is made, begins with Book IX of the Laws and holds the Epinomis, the Letters, the Definitions and the spuria; Burnet’s Preface stands in the first part. The copy reproduced is a later impression of the second part: its title page carries no date; the half-title names Humphrey Milford, Publisher to the University from 1913 to 1945, and its verso the printer, John Johnson, Printer to the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1946; and the publisher’s list bound in at the end is dated October 1936, so that the copy was issued between October 1936 and 1945. 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. In the margin, “St. II p. 973” at the head of the dialogue gives the volume and page of Stephanus’ edition at which it begins; where each later page of Stephanus begins, its number stands in place of the letter a; and within each section every fifth line is numbered. Burnet sets these in the outer margin of his page, this edition in the right-hand margin; his running heads are not reproduced. His accents, breathings, punctuation and paragraphing are kept as he prints them, with his apparent misprints (καθαρώτερόν δὲ, with a second accent, at 980b4); where his type is broken, as in the brackets round ἃς at 978d2, the sign is printed whole, and where it did not print, as the circumflex of δεῖν at 992d6, it is supplied. The signatures at the foot of some pages (“PLATO, VOL. V. 29”, “29*”) are the printer’s marks for gathering the sheets and are not reproduced.

Reading the apparatus. The notes at the foot of each Greek page are Burnet’s, unaltered. 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 that runs from one Stephanus page into the next, “a 1” after “e 6” belongs to the new page (978a1). 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 bracket closes the lemma, and what follows is a reading of other witnesses or a scholar’s proposal (974a2, 975a6). Spaced points . . . after a word mark a gap where words are thought to be lost, as in Baiter’s proposal at 975b1. Round brackets enclose a remark on the entry: what a correcting hand wrote, and where (974a7, 974c1), a scholar’s punctuation (976b3), the witnesses that have a word Burnet deletes (986b2), or another scholar’s deletion of the same words where they recur (988d2, “e 1 secl. Hermann”). Forms are given as the manuscripts have them, not brought into line with the text.

Names and abbreviations. Stephanus is Henri Estienne, whose edition of 1578 supplies the page numbers by which Plato is cited; the Epinomis fills pages 973–992 of his second volume. A scholar’s name standing alone after a reading marks that scholar’s reading or proposal; ci. (coniecit) marks a conjecture, and angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ a word that it adds: Ast would read ⟨εἰ⟩ εἰς at 978c7. Burnet’s own proposals are marked scripsi, “I have written” (986e5, 987b7, 990c4), seclusi, “I have set apart” (986b2), and addidi, “I have added” (987b8). The scholars named are Immanuel Bekker, Friedrich Ast, Gottfried Stallbaum, Johann Georg Baiter and August Wilhelm Winckelmann, editors of the Zurich edition, Karl Friedrich Hermann and Carl Ernst Christoph Schneider; Stephanus himself is named for two conjectures (982d4, 982e3), and Jean-Nicolas Grou, whose French translation of the Laws and the Epinomis appeared in 1769, for one (985e3). Eus. is Eusebius of Caesarea, who quotes passages of the dialogue in the Preparation for the Gospel (977a at 13.18.2, 980c–d at 13.2.1, 984d–e at 13.18.3, 986c at 11.16.1, 986e–987a at 10.4.21, 987d–e at 10.4.22); Theo is Theon of Smyrna, the Platonist writer on mathematics, who quotes passages of the dialogue, with omissions and at times in his own words, in his Mathematics Useful for Reading Plato (ed. Hiller: 977c–978b at pp. 7–8, 989b at p. 8, 990a–e at pp. 9–10, 991e–992a at p. 84, 992a–b at p. 2); Burnet reports his readings at 977e, 990c–d and 992a. libri means the manuscripts; vulg. (vulgata) the text of the early printed editions; scr. recc. the readings of manuscripts written after the revival of learning; cod. Voss. a manuscript once owned by Isaac Vossius, now at Leiden; Vat. 1029 a fourteenth-century manuscript of Plato in the Vatican Library (Vaticanus graecus 1029). om. means that a witness, or an editor, leaves the words out; secl., “set apart”, that a scholar deletes them; in marg. or marg., that a reading is written in the margin; s. v. (supra versum), that it is written above the line; fecit, that a correcting hand made the letters named out of what was written (974a7, 974c4); pr., that O had the reading before it was corrected (974b6, 975a7); sed ν postea additum, “but the ν added later” (977d6); ref. in ras. (refecit in rasura), that a hand remade a letter over an erasure (983c9), and in ras. alone, that a letter stands over an erasure, as in sed ί in ras., “but the ί over an erasure” (984e3); sed ο ex ω, “but ο made from ω” (984b3); re vera, “in fact”, that a manuscript really has the reading named (985d5); dist. post (distinxit post), that a scholar punctuates after the word named (976b3); punct. not. (punctis notavit), that a hand has marked words with dots for deletion (988c2); supra, “above”, as in “ι supra ει”, that ι is written above ει (990c2, 990d3, 990e2; “ε supra η” at 991c1); et, “and”; ut vid. (ut videtur), “as it seems”; prius, “the first” of two like words in the line (975b1); cum, “with” (980a8, 984b3). The small letter a is a later hand in A, that of Constantine, of the fourteenth century (981e6, 984b3, 988c2). Four Greek notes in the manuscripts are reported as they stand: γρ. (graphetai, “it is also read”), introducing a variant; ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως, “from the correction”, marking a reading taken from a corrected copy; ἀλλαχοῦ, “elsewhere”, a variant found in another copy (973c1); and ὠβέλισται, “it is obelized”, a remark in the margin of O that the word named after the article τό is marked as spurious (991c5). The dagger † marks words that Burnet judges corrupt and does not attempt to mend (975b1, 980e1).

The witnesses. Burnet’s apparatus to the Epinomis rests on three manuscripts. A is the Paris manuscript of Plato (Parisinus graecus 1807), written in the ninth century, which his Preface calls by far the soundest witness for this tetralogy; A² is A as corrected in its revision, by the same hand, as it seems. L is a manuscript at Florence (Laurentianus lxxx. 17), and O a manuscript in the Vatican (Vaticanus graecus 1); in L, and in the margins of O, Burnet, following Immisch, saw traces of a tradition different from A’s. L² and O² are correcting hands in L and O; Burnet does not date them. When he wrote his Preface, O, collated by Bekker and Bast, could not be found; an addendum of November 1913 records that it had been found as Vaticanus graecus 1 (formerly misnumbered 796), not yet collated afresh. Letters written together share a reading, so that “A L O” is all three.

The English. The translation is new. It aims to be exact, with every clause answering to a clause of the Greek, and to keep the Athenian’s manner: his long, involved periods, his solemnity about the gods, and his care to say what is strange and what, in a way, is not. Nothing is added to make it smoother where the Greek is hard; where Burnet marks a word as corrupt, the English keeps his dagger (975b, 980e), and where the sense of a clause is doubtful, a note says so. The speakers are named in small capitals, as Burnet names them, at the head of each speech. The reading Burnet prints is translated, with the word he adds at 987b; words he brackets are not (977c, 978d, 979c, 986b, 988e).

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 on which the argument turns have one rendering each throughout. Sophia is “wisdom” and sophos “wise”, the dialogue’s subject; the plural sophiai is “kinds of wisdom” (979d). Phronēsis is “intelligence” and phronimos “intelligent”, as in the series, kept apart from wisdom; epistēmē is “knowledge” and its plural “kinds of knowledge”; technē is “craft”. Arithmos is “number”, arithmein “count” and diarithmeisthai “count out”, logismos “reckoning”. Ouranos is “heaven”, and “Heaven” where it is named as a god (977a). Zōion is “living being”. Doxa is “opinion”, and “reputation” where it is what others think of a man (976b); doxazesthai is “be reputed”. Nous is “sense”, as in the series; genesis is “coming into being”; daimōn is “daimon”; moira is “portion”, and the Moirai are the “Fates” (982c).

The notes. The notes identify persons and places, explain what the English cannot carry, and mark the chief places where Burnet’s choice of reading makes a real difference to the sense. Interpretations are labelled as such. They are numbered afresh on each page.