# Plato, *Epinomis* ## ΕΠΙΝΟΜΙΣ The Greek text of John Burnet (Oxford, 1907; a later impression, printed by John Johnson, issued 1936–1945), with a new English translation and notes. **The complete dialogue · 973a–992e · Greek and English, with Notes** Translation by Diotimos Editions, 2026. --- ## Introduction ### The dialogue The *Epinomis* is a conversation of the three old men of the *Laws*: an Athenian stranger, whom neither work names, Clinias of Crete, and Megillus of Sparta. Megillus is present and does not speak. Clinias opens it by recalling an agreement: they have come together, “in keeping with our agreement”, because the *Laws* has gone through “everything that concerned the setting down of laws” but has not found “by learning what a mortal human being would be wise” (973a–b). There is no narrator and no setting. A reader of the *Laws* will remember that its conversation was held on the road from Cnossus to the cave and shrine of Zeus (1.625a–b), but the *Epinomis* does not say where the three are. After the opening exchange the Athenian speaks almost without interruption; Clinias answers briefly at 974c, at 979d–981b, where he asks the Athenian to pray and to speak, and at 986a. It is short: twenty pages of Stephanus’ edition (973a–992e), twenty-five of Burnet’s. Its name means “appendix to the laws”. The ancient arrangement of Plato’s works by Thrasyllus, which Diogenes Laertius preserves (3.60), puts it third in the ninth and last tetralogy, after the *Minos* and the *Laws* and before the *Letters*, with the subtitle “or The Nocturnal Council, or The Philosopher”, and classes it as “political”; Aristophanes of Byzantium, Diogenes adds, joined the *Laws*, the *Minos* and the *Epinomis* in one of his trilogies (3.61–62). Diogenes also reports that “some say that Philip of Opus transcribed his *Laws*, which were on wax”, and that “they say the *Epinomis* too is his” (3.37). Many modern scholars have followed that report and taken the dialogue for Philip’s work, written after Plato’s death; others have defended it as Plato’s own. This edition does not argue the question. The dialogue presupposes the *Laws* throughout. The Athenian takes up “the account given before … against the impious” (980c–d), the argument of *Laws* 10 that the gods exist, care for men and cannot be bought, with its proof “that all soul is older than all body” (980d); and the dialogue ends with the “nocturnal council” of *Laws* 12 (992e). There the Athenian had said that what the members of that council must learn “is neither easy to discover nor to learn from another who has discovered it”, that it would be idle to set down in writing when each thing is to be taken up, and that none of it, said beforehand, would make anything clear (12.968d–e). The *Epinomis* sets it down. ### The question and the answers The question is Clinias’: what must a mortal learn to be wise (973b)? The Athenian begins with “a strange account, and yet in a way, again, not a strange one”: “it is not possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — so long as we live”, though “there is a fine hope” for one who has died (973b–c). Life is short and full of labors (973d–974a); wisdom, which the soul divines that it has “by some nature”, runs away from those who look for it among the crafts (974b–c). He then sets aside the kinds of knowledge that “do not make wise the one who takes them up and has them” (974d): those that supply the necessities of life, the making of food, farming, building and the crafts of equipment (975a–c); hunting, prophecy and the art of interpretation (975c); the imitative arts, “a kind of play, imitative for the most part but in no way serious” (975d); and the helpers, the general’s craft, medicine, the pilot’s art and the pleading of lawsuits (975e–976b). A quick learner with a good memory is called wise by some, “but none of the intelligent will ever be willing to call anyone really wise for any of these” (976c). The first knowledge he names is the one whose loss would leave man “the most senseless and most unintelligent” (976d): the one “that has given number to the whole mortal race” (976e), and its giver is a god: “Heaven, very nearly” (977a). Without number “we would never become intelligent in anything” (977c); everything that has shared in anything bad “has been left without any number” (978a–b). The Athenian tells how we learned to count: heaven “does not cease rolling round” the days and nights until “even the slowest learner has learned to count well enough”, and the moon, waxing and waning, gives the month (978b–979a). But the rest of virtue is easy to agree on, and “which wisdom” no one agrees about (979b–d). Clinias remarks how reasonably the Athenian said that he was attempting “to declare great things about great things” (979d), and asks him not to grow weary of saying what he says (979e). ### The argument’s main stretch The Athenian begins again. The lawgiver may speak of the gods, “likening the gods more finely and better than what was said of them before” (980a); Clinias bids him “pray, and speak the account of fine things about the gods and the goddesses that comes to you” (980c); and the Athenian undertakes “the generation of gods, then, and of living beings, since those before us likened it badly” (980c), on the ground laid in the *Laws*: “that soul is older than body” (980e). A living being is what comes about “when one combination of soul and body, coming together, brings forth one shape” (981a). There are five solid bodies, fire, water, air, earth and ether (981b–c), and living beings of each. Two kinds can be seen: the earthly, which “moves in disorder”, and the fiery, the stars, which move “in all order” (982a). What moves in order is intelligent: the stars’ regularity, which the many took as a sign that “they have no soul” (982d), is “great evidence” of their intelligence (982b), and the stars’ “dance” is “the finest and most magnificent of all dances” (982e). They are immense, and no nature but a god could carry such bulks round always in the same time (983a–b); so “we must hymn them, most rightly, as gods themselves”, or take them as “images of gods, like statues, the gods themselves having made them” (983e–984a). Between the gods of fire and the earthly race the Athenian sets three middle kinds, of ether, of air and of water (984b–c). After the stars come “the daimons, and the kind of air, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation” (984e); these beings of ether and of air, seen through and never plain to us, “interpret everyone and everything to one another and to the highest gods” (985b); and the kind of water one would liken to a demigod (985b). The traditional gods, “Zeus and Hera and all the others”, he leaves where anyone wishes to set them (984d). The lawgiver, he says, will not innovate in the rites the ancestral law prescribes (985c–d); but “the gods who are really manifest to us”, the stars, are “without rites and do not receive the honors that belong to them” (985d), and one who saw this and did not declare it would justly be called bad (985e–986a). There are “eight powers of the things about the whole heaven” (986a): those of the sun, the moon and the stars, and five others (986b); two of the five keep pace with the sun, the Dawn-bringer and a third, which has no name of its own and is very nearly Hermes’ (986e, 987b); three are slower, the slowest of which some call by the title of Cronus, and the next two must be called Zeus’ and Ares’ (987c); and the eighth, which travels contrary to all the rest, “one might most of all name cosmos” (987b). They were first observed by barbarians in Egypt and Syria, where the summer sky is clear, and that, he says, is why they have no names of their own but have taken the titles of gods (986e–987b); but “whatever Greeks take over from barbarians, they carry it more finely to completion” (987d–e). No Greek need fear that mortals ought not to busy themselves with divine things: the divine is not envious, and knows that it teaches us number (988a–b). Soul, not body, is the cause of all motion, the best soul of the motion toward the good (988c–e). ### The ending At 988e the Athenian returns to the question. Nothing of virtue is greater for the mortal race than piety (989b); the best natures, good-natured, able to learn, of good memory and lovers of learning, must learn “these things”, though one would not even teach them unless a god led the way (989b–d). The wisdom sought has “a name that one would never expect, through inexperience of the matter: astronomy”; “the true astronomer must be the wisest”, not the one who “does astronomy after Hesiod’s fashion”, but the one who has looked into “the seven circuits of the eight circuits” (990a). Its preparation is a course of studies: numbers themselves (990c); geometry, “a very ridiculous name” (990d); stereometry (990d–e); the proportions of the double and the means that give music its fifth and fourth (990e–991b); then the heavens themselves (991b). To these one must add the bringing of “what is one by one to what is by forms”, “questioning and refuting what has not been said well” (991c); the precision of time must be grasped, so that one may think it “said altogether finely and well enough that all things are full of gods” (991d); and every diagram, system of number, combination of harmony and the agreement of the stars’ revolution must come to light as one, “for one bond of all these, by nature, will come to light to those who think about them” (991e–992a). The one who has taken up all these things is “the most truly wisest” (992b). The Athenian affirms, “in play and in earnest at once”, that after death such a man “will no longer then share, as now, in many perceptions, but, having had a share in one portion only and having become one out of many, will be happy, and at once wisest and blessed” (992b). The opening account is “present now too as really true”: “it is not possible for human beings to become completely blessed and happy, except for a few” (992c). Those who have labored at these studies are to be given “the greatest offices” in old age, the others are to follow them, and “all of us, having come to know it well enough and having scrutinized it, must most rightly summon the nocturnal council to this wisdom” (992d–e). ### What is most exposed A first-time reader is likely to be troubled at five points. The first is the dismissal of the crafts (974d–976c): generalship and medicine are denied the name of wisdom because they are “guessed at by opinions” (976a), a test that the dialogue does not put to its own astronomy, and the pilot’s art because no one could know the wind (976a–b). The second is the argument that order of motion proves intelligence (982a–e). It reverses what “the many” think, and it rests on the assumption that what always acts “in the same respects and in the same way and for the same reasons” (982e) must be intelligent; the argument from the stars’ size (983a–b) adds only that nothing but a god could move them. The third is the theology. The traditional gods are left to custom (984d–985d) while the stars are to be honored as “the visible gods” (984d), and the wisdom that makes men happy turns out to be an astronomy that is also piety (989b, 990a); the reader must decide whether this completes the *Laws* or replaces its gods. The fourth is the course of studies (990c–991b), which is compressed to the point of obscurity; the notes give the usual interpretation of the “making alike” of numbers by geometry and of the solid numbers, marked as interpretation, and work out the means between six and twelve. The fifth is the text. Burnet marks two places as corrupt (975b, 980e), prints his own corrections at 986e, 987b and 990c, and keeps at 988c words that make no clear sense; the notes say where these readings bear on the English. ### The manner The manner is solemn. The Athenian prays before he speaks of the gods (980b–c), and his periods are long, piled with clauses and qualifications, as when he describes the lawgiver who will not dare “to turn his city to a reverence toward the gods that has nothing clear about it” (985c–d), or the man who should see the sun and moon “coming into being and looking down on us all” and not declare it (985e). The English keeps these periods as they stand. Clinias’ replies are short and eager: “Wonderfully so, indeed” (980c); “Of course, stranger; the very worst, indeed” (986a). There is little of Socrates’ irony, but there is some wit. The Athenian reminds Clinias of the *Laws*, “if indeed you remember, Clinias; for you even took notes” (980d); he says of the eight powers that he has “accomplished nothing great, for it is easy for another too” (986a–b); he calls the planet of the morning and evening Aphrodite’s, “a thing quite fitting for a Syrian lawgiver” (987b); he calls the name others give geometry “a very ridiculous name” (990d); and he makes his last affirmation “in play and in earnest at once” (992b). ### On reading this edition Each left-hand page is one page of Burnet’s Greek, line for line, with his margin and apparatus; the right-hand page opposite translates it. The letters in the margins of both pages (a–e) mark the sections of Stephanus’ pages, by which Plato is cited; the numbers 973 to 992 mark where each of his pages begins. The speakers are named at the head of each speech, as Burnet names them. Words in square brackets [ ] are deleted by Burnet and are not translated (977c, 978d, 979c, 986b, 988e); a word in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ is added by him and is translated (987b); a dagger † marks words he judges corrupt (975b, 980e). The notes are numbered afresh on each page. At the back of the volume are an Outline of the argument, an Editorial Note on Burnet’s text, his apparatus and the translation, a Glossary of the key terms with the places where they occur, and a Note on how this edition was made. ### A note on the persons The three persons are those of the *Laws*. Clinias is a Cretan of Cnossus: in the *Laws* he says that the Cretans are founding a colony and have charged Cnossus with it, and Cnossus “me and nine others” (3.702c); the prophet Epimenides, he says, was his kinsman (1.642d). Megillus is a Spartan whose family is the *proxenos* of Athens at Sparta, its official friend and host (1.642b). The Athenian is not named in either work. At the end of the *Laws* Megillus and Clinias resolve that they must not let him go, but must make him a partner in founding their city (12.969c–d); the *Epinomis* opens with the three met again “in keeping with our agreement” (973a). The other persons are named only in passing: Hesiod, whose *Works and Days* times the farmer’s year by the risings and settings of stars (990a); the gods Heaven, Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes, Cronus and Ares, and the Fates (977a, 982c, 984d, 987b–c); and the Muses (991b). The notes say who Heaven, the Fates and Hesiod are, and which planets bear the gods’ names. ## Key Words of the Dialogue Each entry says what the word meant in Athens, what the dialogue does with it, and how it is rendered. The Glossary at the back lists the renderings with the places where they occur. ### Wisdom, wise (sophia, sophos) *Sophia* was skill of a high kind, a craftsman’s, a poet’s or a statesman’s, and, in the schools of Plato’s time, the knowledge of the highest things; *sophos* was “wise”, and could also mean “clever”. Clinias’ question is what a mortal must learn to be wise (973b), and the whole dialogue answers it. The Athenian first denies the name to the crafts: none of them “deserves to be called by the name of wisdom about these things, the human things” (974b), and none of the intelligent will call anyone “really wise” for quickness and memory (976c). Wisdom is “the greatest part of all virtue” (977d); the one who lacks it will never “become completely good, and so happy” (977d). At last it is named: “the true astronomer must be the wisest” (990a), and the one who has taken up all the studies “in this way” is “the most truly wisest” (992b); all must “summon the nocturnal council to this wisdom” (992e). The English renders *sophia* “wisdom” and *sophos* “wise” every time, as in the series and as settled with the publisher; the plural *sophiai* is “kinds of wisdom” (979d). It is kept apart from *phronēsis*, “intelligence” (see *Intelligence*). ### Intelligence, intelligent (phronēsis; phronimos, emphrōn; aphrōn) *Phronēsis* was good sense, the understanding that guides action; *phronimos* the man who has it. The dialogue opens with it: the three have come “to look into the matter of intelligence”, and into what makes the human state be “in the finest condition with regard to intelligence” (973a). It is the gift of number: “if we were to take number out of human nature, we would never become intelligent in anything” (977c), and Heaven is the cause of “by far the greatest” of our goods, “intelligence” (977a). The argument about the stars turns on it. “What moves in disorder we must hold to be unintelligent”, but ordered motion is “great evidence of its being intelligent” (982a–b); the many reversed this, so far as “to take the human as intelligent and alive because it moves, and the divine as unintelligent” (982d). The two middle kinds, of ether and of air, share in “a wonderful intelligence” (985a), and the god “has a share in being intelligent and in knowing in every respect” (985a). The English renders the family “intelligence”, “intelligent”, “unintelligent”, as in the series (*Alcibiades I*, *Alcibiades II*); *phronimos* and *emphrōn* are both “intelligent”. It is kept apart from *sophia*, “wisdom”, and from *nous*, “sense” (see *Sense*). ### Sense (nous) *Nous* was the ordinary word for mind or sense, as in *noun echein*, “have sense”, the common idiom for being sensible; Anaxagoras, as Socrates tells in the *Phaedo*, had made it the cause that orders all things (97b–c). The *Epinomis* uses it of the soul that rules: “the necessity of a soul that has acquired sense would be by far the greatest of all necessities” (982b). Men “ought” to have taken the stars’ regularity as evidence “that the stars and all this passage have sense” (982c). The lawgiver “who has acquired sense, even the least” will not innovate in worship (985c), and “the one that has sense good enough must lead” the three motions of equal speed, the sun’s and the two that keep pace with it (986e). The English renders *nous* “sense”, as in the series, so that the idiom stays audible; “senseless” is *anoētos* (976d, 984a). In the idioms *kata noun*, “to the liking of” (988c), and *prosechein ton noun*, “pay attention” (976b), the English follows the idiom. It is kept apart from *phronēsis*, “intelligence”. ### Number, count, reckoning (arithmos, arithmein; logismos) *Arithmos* was number in the Greek sense, a definite plurality counted. The first answer to the question of wisdom is number. Of all knowledge, the one “that has given number to the whole mortal race” would do most to make man intelligent, and its loss would leave him “the most senseless and most unintelligent” (976d–e); its giver is Heaven (977a–b). “A living being that did not know two and three, nor odd nor even, and was altogether ignorant of number, could never give an account” of what it perceives (977c); the bad is what “has been left without any number” (978a–b). The Athenian tells how we learned “to count”, from the days and nights and from the moon (978b–979a). Number returns as the first of the subjects of learning, “that of numbers themselves, but not of numbers that have bodies” (990c), and among the things that must come to light as one, “system of number” (991e). The English renders *arithmos* “number”, *arithmein* “count”, *diarithmeisthai* “count out” (978a–b), *arithmētikos* “able to count” (979a), *logismos* “reckoning” and *logizesthai* “reckon” (974a, 979a). ### Heaven, cosmos (ouranos, Ouranos; kosmos) *Ouranos* was the sky and, in Hesiod’s *Theogony*, the god Heaven, first ruler of the gods. The Athenian names the god who gave number: “Heaven, very nearly” (977a), and lets the reader call him “cosmos or olympus or heaven” as he pleases (977b). *Kosmos* meant “order” and “adornment”, and the philosophers had made it the word for the ordered world. In what follows “the heaven” is the region of the stars (981e, 982b), which soul filled with living beings (984c, 985b); without a soul in each, earth and heaven and the stars could not travel so precisely, “and for all the things that come about to come about as goods for us all” (983c). The eighth power, which travels contrary to all the others, “one might most of all name cosmos” (987b), and reason set the cosmos in order “to be visible” (986c). The English writes “Heaven” with a capital where the god is named (977a) and “heaven” elsewhere, keeping Burnet’s small letters at 977b; *kosmos* is “cosmos” and *olympos* “olympus”, as Burnet prints them. ### Living being (zōion) *Zōion* meant a living creature, most often an animal, man or beast, as against plants, and in painting a figure. The Athenian defines it, in a question that Clinias accepts: “this, at least, is most truly called by nature a living being, when one combination of soul and body, coming together, brings forth one shape” (981a). It then counts the kinds by the five bodies: the earthly, “all human beings, and all that are many-footed and footless, and all that move about and all that stay in place, held fast by roots” (981d), plants included, as in the *Timaeus* (77b); the fiery, the divine kind of the stars (981e); and the three middle kinds of ether, air and water (984b–985c). That the stars are living beings, ensouled and intelligent, is the dialogue’s central claim (982e–983c). The English renders *zōion* “living being” every time, so that the stars are called by the same word as men; *zōntes*, “living things”, is kept apart from it (982e). ### Soul, body; older (psychē, sōma; presbyteros) *Psychē* was life and the seat of life; *sōma*, the body. The Athenian takes over from *Laws* 10 the conclusion “that all soul is older than all body” (980d), and argues for it from the word *presbyteros*, which means both “older” and “more honored”: “what is better and more ancient and more godlike is, it is plausible, older than what is † young and younger and less honored” (980d–e). Soul is, “very nearly, the only one to which it belongs to mold and to craft”, while body is molded (981b–c); it is “the cause of all things”, body “the cause of no affection at all” (983d); and it is “the cause of the whole” and of “all motion and movement” (988d–e). The recapitulation at 991d recalls “that soul is at once older and more divine than body”. The English keeps “older” for *presbyteros* in each place, “oldest” for the superlative (988c), and “more ancient” for *palaioteros* (980d), so that the claim can be followed. ### Gods, daimons, the daimonic (theos; daimōn; to daimonion) *Theos* was a god; *daimōn* a divine power, sometimes a god, sometimes a lesser being between gods and men, as in Diotima’s speech in the *Symposium* (202e). The Athenian bids men honor Heaven “as do all the other daimons and gods alike” (977a). In his ordering of living beings, next after the visible gods and below them come “the daimons, and the kind of air, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation”, which “we must very much honor with prayers for the sake of the auspicious passage” (984e); the two middle kinds, of ether and of air, know our thought, welcome the good, hate the very bad, and “interpret everyone and everything to one another and to the highest gods” (985a–b). The gods of the cults, “Zeus and Hera and all the others”, are left where “anyone” wishes to set them (984d). At the end, to the wise “alone have all the things of the daimonic fallen as their lot” (992d). The English keeps *daimōn* as “daimon”, since “demon” has another sense in English, and renders *to daimonion* “the daimonic”, as in the *Theages*. ### Manifest, visible (phaneros; horatos) The dialogue’s gods are the gods that can be seen. *Phaneros* was “manifest”, what is in plain view; *horatos* “visible”, what can be seen at all. The second kind of living being “comes into being and at the same time can be seen” (981d); the two visible living beings are the earthly and the fiery (982a, 984b); the second to the fifth kinds begin their coming into being “from the manifest gods” (984d); “as the visible gods … we must speak of the nature of the stars” (984d); and the lawgiver must honor “the gods who are really manifest to us” and “make it manifest that they are other gods” (985d). The English renders *phaneros* “manifest” and *horatos* “visible” every time, from the opening wish “to make things manifest” (973b); *dēlos* and *saphēs* are “clear”, *kataphanēs* “plain” and *diaphanēs* “evident”. ### Motion and the heavens (phora, kinēsis; periodos, kyklos, polos, diexodos) The Greek had many words for the movements of the heavens, and the dialogue uses most of them; each has one English word. *Phora* is “motion” (978a, 982d, 986e, 987b, 988c–e) and *kinēsis* “movement” (978a, 988e); *periodos* is “circuit” (977b, 978e, 990a–b), *kyklos* “cycle” (978e, 990a), with *metakykleisthai* “change their cycles” (982d), *polos* “orbit” (986c), *diexodos* “course” (977b, 986e), *poreia* “procession” (982e), *diaporeia* “passage” (982c, 984e), *poros* “path” (982b), and *periphora* “revolution” (991e); the verbs are *pheresthai*, “be carried along”, *peripherein*, “carry round”, and *poreuesthai*, “travel”. The point of keeping them apart is the argument’s: the stars’ motions are always “in the same respects and in the same way” (982b, 982e), and the many took that sameness for a sign that they “have no soul” (982d). The English is sometimes more literal than idiom would choose, as with the stars’ “procession and dance” (982e), so that each word can be recognized when it returns. ### Reverence toward the gods, piety (theosebeia; eusebeia; asebeis) *Theosebeia* was reverence toward the gods; *eusebeia* piety, the right relation to gods and to parents; the *asebeis* were the impious, against whom *Laws* 10 is written (980d). In “the divine in coming into being and the mortal”, “reverence toward the gods will also be recognized” (977e); the lawgiver will not turn his city “to a reverence toward the gods that has nothing clear about it” (985c–d); and the studies of the wise are “what things of reverence toward the gods” one will learn (990a). Nothing of virtue is greater: “let no one ever persuade us that anything of virtue is greater, for the mortal race, than piety” (989b), and it has not come about in the best natures “through the greatest stupidity” (989b). The English renders *theosebeia* “reverence toward the gods”, *eusebeia* “piety”, *asebeis* “the impious” and *anosioi* “the unholy” (988e). ### Astronomy and the subjects of learning (astronomia; mathēmata) *Astronomia* was the study of the stars. Glaucon in the *Republic* values it for knowing the seasons, months and years, as farming, sailing and generalship need (7.527d), and Hesiod’s farmer times his year by the risings and settings of stars; but the *Laws* reports that the many think those who take up astronomy become godless, since they see things come about by necessity (12.967a). The Athenian gives it to the wise man by name, “a name that one would never expect, through inexperience of the matter: astronomy”, and denies it to the one who “does astronomy after Hesiod’s fashion” (990a). The true astronomer studies “the seven circuits of the eight” (990a), and is prepared by *mathēmata*, “subjects of learning”: numbers themselves (990c), geometry, “a very ridiculous name” (990d), stereometry (990d–e), the proportions and means (990e–991b). “This is the way, this the nourishment, these the subjects of learning” (992a). The English renders *mathēmata* “subjects of learning”, as in the *Lovers*, *astronomia* “astronomy”, *geōmetria* “geometry” and *stereometria* “stereometry”. ### Play and earnest (paidia, prospaizein; spoudazein, spoudaios) *Paidia* was play, a child’s or a festival’s; *spoudē* and *spoudazein* earnest. The imitative arts are “a kind of play, imitative for the most part but in no way serious” (975d). Yet the lawgiver who likens the gods well “makes use of a fine play” (980a), Clinias wishes that the Athenian, “having celebrated the gods in play”, should meet with the best and finest end (980b), the proportions of music are given men “for the sake of the play of rhythm and harmony” (991b), and the Athenian makes his last affirmation “in play and in earnest at once” (992b). The English renders *paidia* “play”, *prospaizein* “celebrate in play” (980b), *spoudaios* “serious” and *spoudazein* “be in earnest”; at 980a it translates Burnet’s *paidia*, “play”, from the margins of L and O, where the text of all three manuscripts has *paideia*, “education”. *In this reading text each Burnet page is given as Greek (line for line, with Burnet’s margin numbers in bold at the line ends; italic marks his letterspaced quotation), his apparatus, then the English and its notes.* --- ## 973a–973d ### Greek (Burnet, page 1) **ΕΠΙΝΟΜΙΣ** · ΚΛΕΙΝΙΑΣ ΚΡΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣ ΞΕΝΟΣ ΜΕΓΙΛΛΟΣ ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΣ · *St. II p. 973*  ΚΛ. Πρὸς μὲν τὸ τῆς ὁμολογίας ἥκομεν ἅπαντες ὀρθῶς, **a**\ ὦ ξένε, τρεῖς ὄντες, ἐγὼ καὶ σὺ καὶ Μέγιλλος ὅδε, τὸ τῆς\ φρονήσεως ἐπισκεψόμενοι τίνι ποτὲ χρὴ λόγῳ διεξελθεῖν, ὃ\ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἕξιν φαμέν, ὅταν διανοηθῇ, κάλλιστ’ ἔχειν\ ποιεῖν πρὸς φρόνησιν ὅσην δυνατὸν ἀνθρώπῳ σχεῖν. τὰ μὲν **5**\ γὰρ ἄλλα, ὥς φαμεν, ἅπαντα διεξήλθομεν ὅσα ἦν περὶ νόμων **b**\ θέσιν· ὃ δὲ μέγιστον εὑρεῖν τε καὶ εἰπεῖν, τί ποτε μαθὼν\ θνητὸς ἄνθρωπος σοφὸς ἂν εἴη, τοῦτο οὔτε εἴπομεν οὔτε\ ηὕρομεν, νῦν τε πειρώμεθα τοῦτο μὴ καταλιπεῖν· σχεδὸν γὰρ\ ἀτελὲς ἂν πράξαιμεν οὗ χάριν ἅπαντες ὡρμήσαμεν, ὡς φανερὰ **5**\ ποιήσοντες ἐξ ἀρχῆς μέχρι τέλους.\  ΑΘ. Ὦ φίλε Κλεινία, καλῶς μὲν λέγεις, ἄτοπον μὴν\ ἀκούσεσθαί σε λόγον οἶμαι, καί τινα τρόπον οὐκ ἄτοπον αὖ.\ πολλοὶ γὰρ δὴ προστυχεῖς τῷ βίῳ γιγνόμενοι τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον **c**\ φέρουσιν, ὡς οὐκ ἔσται μακάριον τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος οὐδ’\ εὔδαιμον. ἕπου δὴ καὶ σύνιδε ἄν σοι δοκῶ κἀγὼ μετ’ αὐτῶν\ καλῶς τοῦ τοιούτου πέρι λέγειν. οὔ φημι εἶναι δυνατὸν ἀν-\ θρώποις μακαρίοις τε καὶ εὐδαίμοσιν γενέσθαι πλὴν ὀλίγων— **5**\ μέχριπερ ἂν ζῶμεν τοῦτο διορίζομαι· καλὴ δὲ ἐλπὶς τελευτή-\ σαντι τυχεῖν ἁπάντων ὧν ἕνεκά τις προθυμοῖτ’ ἂν ζῶν τε\ ὡς κάλλιστ’ ἂν ζῆν κατὰ δύναμιν καὶ τελευτήσας τελευτῆς\ τοιαύτης τυχεῖν—λέγω δ’ οὐδὲν σοφόν, ἀλλ’ ὅπερ ἅπαντες **d**\ Ἕλληνές τε καὶ βάρβαροι γιγνώσκομέν τινα τρόπον, ὡς ἐξ > *Apparatus:* **b** 4 τε A L O: δὲ cod. Voss.   **b** 7 γρ. φίλε ξένε O   **c** 1 ἀλλαχοῦ ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως· τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν λόγον φέρουσιν in marg. O   **c** 3 δοκῶ A L O: δόξω L² O² (ξ s. v.) ### English **Clin.** **[973]** In keeping with our agreement, stranger, we have all come here rightly, the three of us, I and you and Megillus here,[^1] to look into the matter of intelligence: by what account we ought to go through that which, we say, once it has been thought out, makes the human state be in the finest condition with regard to intelligence, as much of it as it is possible for a human being to have.[^2] **[b]** For all the rest, we say, we have gone through, everything that concerned the setting down of laws; but what is greatest to find and to say, by learning what a mortal human being would be wise, this we have neither said nor found; and now let us try not to leave it behind. For we would very nearly leave unfinished what we all set out for, intending to make things manifest from beginning to end.[^3] **Ath.** My dear Clinias, you speak well; but I think you will hear a strange account, and yet in a way, again, not a strange one. **[c]** For indeed many, once they have met with life, put forward the same account: that the human race will not be blessed or happy. Follow me, then, and see whether I too, along with them, seem to you to speak well about such a thing. I say that it is not possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — so long as we live, I set this limit; but there is a fine hope that one who has died will obtain all the things for the sake of which a man would be eager, while living, to live as finely as he can, and, having died, **[d]** to meet with an end of that kind — and I am saying nothing wise, but what all of us, Greeks and barbarians, know in a way: that from [^1]: *The three of us*: the speakers of the *Laws*: an Athenian stranger, Clinias of Crete and Megillus of Sparta, who in the *Laws* talk on the road from Cnossus to the cave and shrine of Zeus (1.625a–b). Megillus is present here but does not speak. The title, *Epinomis*, means “appendix to the laws”. [^2]: *Intelligence*: *phronēsis*, as in the series (*Alcibiades I*, *Alcibiades II*); kept apart from *sophia*, “wisdom”, the dialogue’s subject, and from *epistēmē*, “knowledge” (both 974b). [^3]: *Wise*: *sophos*; *sophia*, “wisdom”, the dialogue’s key word, is rendered so throughout, as in the series. --- ## 973d–974d ### Greek (Burnet, page 2) ἀρχῆς τὸ γενέσθαι χαλεπὸν ἅπαντι ζῴῳ· πρῶτον μὲν τὸ\ μετασχεῖν τῆς τῶν κυουμένων ἕξεως, ἔπειτ’ αὖ τὸ γίγνεσθαι,\ καὶ ἔτι τὸ τρέφεσθαι καὶ παιδεύεσθαι, διὰ πόνων μυρίων **5**\ ταῦτα γίγνεσθαι σύμπαντα, ὥς φαμεν ἅπαντες. καὶ χρόνος **974**\ βραχὺς ἄν τις εἴη πρὸς λογισμὸν μή τοι τῶν μοχθηρῶν, ἀλλ’\ ὃ πᾶς ἂν ὑπολάβοι μέτριον. οὗτος δὲ σχεδὸν ἀναπνοὴν\ δοκεῖ ποιεῖν τινα κατὰ μέσον πῃ βίον τὸν ἀνθρώπινον· ταχύ\ γε μὴν ἐπιλαβὸν γῆρας ὁντινοῦν ποιήσει’ ἂν μήποτ’ ἐθελῆσαι **5**\ πάλιν ἀναβιῶναι, λογισάμενον τὸν βεβιωμένον ἑαυτῷ βίον,\ ὅστις μὴ τυγχάνει παιδικῆς δόξης μεστὸς ὤν. τούτων δὴ τί\ ποτέ μοι τεκμήριον; ὅτι πέφυκεν ταύτῃ τὸ νῦν ζητούμενον\ τῷ λόγῳ. ζητοῦμεν δὲ δὴ τίνα τρόπον σοφοὶ γενησόμεθα, **b**\ ὡς οὔσης τινὸς ἑκάστοις ταύτης τῆς δυνάμεως· ἡ δὲ φυγῇ\ φεύγει τότε ὅταν τις πρός τινα φρόνησιν ἴῃ τῶν λεγομένων\ τεχνῶν ἢ φρονήσεων ἤ τινων ἄλλων τοιούτων ὡς οἰόμεθα\ ἐπιστημῶν, ὡς ἀξίας τούτων οὐδεμιᾶς οὔσης ἐπίκλησιν **5**\ ῥηθῆναι τῆς περὶ ταῦτα σοφίας τἀνθρώπινα, τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς\ σφόδρα πεποιθυίας καὶ μαντευομένης ὡς οὔσης αὐτῇ κατά\ τινα φύσιν ταύτης, τίς δέ ἐστιν καὶ πότε καὶ πῶς, οὐ πάνυ **c**\ δυναμένης ἐξευρίσκειν. ἆρ’ οὐ τούτῳ σφόδρα προσέοιχ’\ ἡμῶν ἡ περὶ σοφίαν ἀπορία καὶ ζήτησις, πλείων τῆς ἐλπίδος\ ἑκάστῳ γιγνομένη τῶν ὅσοι ἐν ἡμῖν δυνατοὶ γίγνονται φρο-\ νίμως αὑτοὺς ἄλλους τε ἐξετάσαι συμφώνως διὰ λόγων **5**\ πάντων καὶ πάντῃ λεγομένων; ταῦτα οὐχ οὕτως ἢ ταύτῃ\ συμφήσομεν ἔχειν;\  ΚΛ. Συμφήσομεν ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι σοι ἴσως ταῦτ’, ὦ ξένε, τῇ\ μετὰ σοῦ κατὰ χρόνον ἂν γενομένῃ, δοξάσαι περὶ αὐτῶν εἰς **d**\ αὖθις τὸ ἀληθέστατον. > *Apparatus:* **a** 2 τοι] τι cod. Voss.   **a** 5 ποιήσει’ ἂν] ποιήσειαν A: ποιήσοι ἂν L: ποιήσει ἂν O   **a** 7 τυγχάνῃ A (ει fecit A²) O (ει s. v. O²)   **b** 3 τότε O² (τ s. v.): ποτὲ A O   **b** 6 τἀνθρώπινα secl. Hermann   δὲ A et pr. O: δὲ αὖ vulg.   **c** 1 δέ L O² (έ s. v.): δή A O   καὶ πῶς O²: ὅπως A O   **c** 2 οὐ] οὖν A L O   προσέοιχ’ scr. recc.: προσέχοι A O   **c** 4 γίγνωνται A (ο fecit A²) O   **c** 8 γρ. ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι σοι ἴσως in marg. O: ἐπ’ ἐλπίδ’ ἴσως A O   **d** 1 χρόνον A O: χρόνον ἱκανὸν L et in marg. γρ. O ### English the beginning, coming into being is hard for every living being: first, to share in the state of those carried in the womb, then again to be born, and further to be nourished and educated; through countless labors **[974]** all these things come about, as we all say. And the time would be short, in the reckoning — not, certainly, the worthless part of it, but what anyone would take as moderate. This seems to make very nearly a kind of breathing space somewhere about the middle of human life; but old age, quickly overtaking anyone, would make him never willing to come back to life again, once he has reckoned up the life he has lived, whoever is not in fact full of a childish opinion. And what, then, is all this evidence of, for me? That what is now being sought **[b]** in the argument is by nature of this sort. We are seeking in what way we shall become wise, supposing that this power exists for each of us; but it runs away in flight at those times when someone goes toward some intelligence among the so-called crafts, or intelligences, or any other such kinds of knowledge,[^4] as we think them, since none of these deserves to be called by the name of wisdom about these things, the human things; while the soul is very confident, and divines, that it has **[c]** this power by some nature, but what it is, and when, and how, it is not at all able to discover. Does not our perplexity and search about wisdom very much resemble this, turning out greater than the hope of each of those among us who prove able to examine themselves and others intelligently and concordantly, through arguments of every kind, spoken in every way? Shall we not concur that these things are so, or thereabouts? **Clin.** We shall concur with you on them, stranger, perhaps, in the hope (one that **[d]** may come to pass with you in time) of forming about them, hereafter, the truest opinion. [^4]: *Kinds of knowledge*: the plural of *epistēmē*, “knowledge”, as in the *Charmides*. --- ## 974d–975c ### Greek (Burnet, page 3)  ΑΘ. Τὰς ἄλλας τοίνυν ὅσαι ἐπιστῆμαι μέν εἰσιν λε-\ γόμεναι, σοφὸν δὲ οὐκ ἀποτελοῦσιν τὸν λαμβάνοντά τε\ αὐτὰς καὶ ἔχοντα, πρῶτον διεξιτέον, ὅπως ταύτας ἐκποδὼν **5**\ θέμενοι, πειρώμεθα ἐκείνας ὧν δεόμεθα παραθέσθαι τε καὶ\ παραθέμενοι μανθάνειν.\  Πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν ὧν πρῶτον δεῖ θνητῷ γένει, ἴδωμεν\ ὡς εἰσὶ μὲν ἀναγκαιόταται σχεδὸν ἀληθῶς τε πρῶται, ὁ δὲ **e**\ ἐπιστήμων αὐτῶν γιγνόμενος, εἰ καὶ κατ’ ἀρχὰς ἔδοξέν τις\ εἶναί ποτε σοφός, οὔκουν νῦν γε οὔτε σοφὸς εἶναι δοξάζεται\ ὀνείδη τε ἴσχει μᾶλλον ἀπὸ τῆς τοιαύτης ἐπιστήμης. ἐροῦ- **975**\ μεν δὴ αἵ τ’ εἰσὶν καὶ ὅτι πᾶς ἀνὴρ αὐτάς, σχεδὸν ὅσοις\ ἀγὼν πρόκειται τοῦ δοκεῖν ὡς ἄριστον ἄνδρα συμβῆναι\ γενόμενον ἄν, φεύγει διὰ τὰς κτήσεις τῆς φρονήσεώς τε καὶ\ ἐπιτηδεύσεως. ἔστω δὴ πρῶτον μὲν ἡ τῆς ἀλληλοφαγίας **5**\ τῶν ζῴων ἡμᾶς τῶν μέν, ὡς ὁ μῦθός ἐστιν, τὸ παράπαν\ ἀποστήσασα, τῶν δὲ εἰς τὴν νόμιμον ἐδωδὴν καταστήσασα.\ ἵλεῳ δ’ ἡμῖν οἱ πρόσθεν εἴησάν τε καὶ εἰσίν—οἵτινες μὲν\ γὰρ οὖν† ἐλέγομεν, πρῶτοι χαιρέτωσαν—ἡ δ’ οὖν ἀλφίτων **b**\ τε καὶ ἀλεύρων ποίησις ἅμα καὶ τροφὴ καλὴ μὲν καὶ ἀγαθή,\ σοφὸν δὲ ἄνδρα τελέως οὐκ ἐθελήσει ποτὲ ἀπεργάσασθαι·\ τοῦτο γὰρ αὐτό, ἡ τῆς ποιήσεως ἐπίκλησις, τῶν ποιουμένων\ αὐτῶν δυσχέρειαν ἀπεργάζοιτ’ ἄν. σχεδὸν δ’ οὐδὲ χώρας **5**\ συμπάσης γεωργία· οὐ γὰρ τέχνῃ ἀλλὰ φύσει κατὰ θεὸν\ πάντες φαινόμεθα γῆν μετακεχειρίσθαι. καὶ μὴν οὐδ’ ἡ\ τῶν οἰκήσεών γε συνυφὴ καὶ σύμπασα οἰκοδομία καὶ σκευῶν\ πάντων ἀπεργαστική, χαλκεία τε καὶ ἡ τῶν τεκτονικῶν καὶ **c**\ πλαστικῶν καὶ πλεκτικῶν καὶ ἔτι συμπάντων ὀργάνων\ παρασκευή, δήμῳ τὸ πρόσφορον ἔχουσα, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐπ’ ἀρετῇ\ λεγομένη. καὶ μὴν οὐδ’ ἡ σύμπασα θηρευτική, πολλή περ > *Apparatus:* **d** 8 ἴδωμεν A²: εἰδῶμεν A L O   **a** 4 φεύγει A: φεύγῃ A² L O   **a** 5 δὴ O²: om. A O   **a** 6 τὸ] ὁ A O   **a** 7 καταστήσασα] καταστήσας A et pr. O   **a** 8 οἵτινες A O² (οἵ s. v.): εἴ τινες L O   **b** 1 prius οὖν] οὖν οὓς Winckelmann: ὧν Stallbaum: οὖν . . . Baiter   **b** 5 οὐδὲ A L O: οὐδὲ ἡ O²   **c** 2 ἔτι scr. recc.: ἐπὶ A L O ### English **Ath.** Then we must first go through the others, all those that are called kinds of knowledge but do not make wise the one who takes them up and has them, so that, having put these out of the way, we may try to set out those we need and, having set them out, to learn them. First, then, among the things the mortal race needs first, let us see **[e]** how they are very nearly the most necessary, and in truth the first, and yet the one who comes to have knowledge of them, even if at the beginning someone once seemed to be wise, is certainly not now reputed wise, **[975]** and rather has disgrace from such knowledge. We shall say, then, both what they are and that every man flees them, nearly all of those before whom a contest is set, of seeming one who would turn out to have become the best man possible, because of the acquisition of intelligence and of practice. Let the first, then, be the one that, as the story has it, drew us away altogether from the eating of one another among living beings, from some of them, and, as to others, set us on lawful eating.[^5] May those before us be gracious to us, as indeed they are — **[b]** for whoever they were † that we were speaking of, let the first ones fare well[^6] — the making, at any rate, of barley-meal and wheat-flour, and with it nourishment, is fine and good, but it will never be willing to produce a man completely wise; for this very thing, the name of “making”, would produce distaste for the very things made.[^7] And hardly, either, the farming of all land: for it is not by craft but by nature, under the god, that we all appear to have taken the earth in hand. Nor indeed the weaving together of dwellings, and all building, and **[c]** the art that produces all equipment, smithing, and the furnishing of the instruments of carpentry and modeling and plaiting, and further of all instruments: it has what suits the people, but it is not spoken of for virtue. And indeed not even the whole art of hunting, great though [^5]: *As the story has it*: the same story is told in the *Laws*: before the vine, the olive and the gifts of Demeter and Kore appeared, living beings turned to eating one another, as they do now (6.782b); some men still sacrifice one another, while others once abstained from all meat (782c–d). [^6]: † The dagger is Burnet’s: the words are corrupt. In his apparatus Winckelmann and Stallbaum supply a relative, and Baiter marks a gap; the English supplies “that … of”. The sense seems to be that the first men, whoever they were, are dismissed with a blessing (interpretation). [^7]: *Making*: *poiēsis*. The clause is obscure; perhaps the very name of a “making”, a trade, brings its products into disrepute (interpretation). --- ## 975c–976b ### Greek (Burnet, page 4) καὶ τεχνικὴ γεγονυῖα, τό γε μεγαλοπρεπὲς σὺν τῷ σοφῷ οὐκ **5**\ ἀποδίδωσιν. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ μαντική γε οὐδ’ ἑρμηνευτικὴ τὸ\ παράπαν· τὸ λεγόμενον γὰρ οἶδεν μόνον, εἰ δ’ ἀληθές, οὐκ\ ἔμαθεν.\  Ὅτε δὴ τὴν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ὁρῶμεν κτῆσιν διὰ τέχνης μὲν\ ἀπεργαζομένην, τούτων δὲ οὐδεμίαν οὐδένα σοφὸν ποιοῦσαν, **d**\ τό γε μετὰ τοῦτο παιδιά τις ἂν λείποιτο, μιμητικὴ μὲν τὸ\ πλεῖστον ἀλλ’ οὐδαμῇ σπουδαία. πολλοῖς μὲν γὰρ ὀργάνοις\ μιμοῦνται, πολλοῖς δ’ αὐτῶν τῶν σωμάτων οὐ πάντως\ εὐσχήμοσι μιμήμασιν, τά τε κατὰ λόγους καὶ μοῦσαν πᾶσαν, **5**\ καὶ ὅσων γραφικὴ μήτηρ, πολλῶν καὶ παντοίων ποικιλμάτων\ ἀποτελουμένων ἐν πολλοῖς ὑγροῖς καὶ ξηροῖς γένεσιν· ὧν\ σοφὸν οὐδένα εἰς οὐδὲν σπουδῇ τῇ μεγίστῃ δημιουργοῦντα ἡ\ μιμητικὴ παρέχεται.\  Πάντων δ’ ἐξειργασμένων τὸ λοιπὸν βοήθεια γίγνοιτ’ ἂν **e**\ μυρία μυρίοις, ἡ μὲν μεγίστη τε καὶ εἰς πλεῖστα πολεμικὴ\ κληθεῖσα, στρατηγικὴ τέχνη, εὐδοκιμωτάτη πρὸς χρείαν, εὐ-\ τυχίας πλείστης δεομένη, μᾶλλον δὲ ἀνδρείᾳ κατὰ φύσιν ἢ\ σοφίᾳ δεδομένη. ἣν δὲ καλοῦσι μὲν ἰατρικήν, βοήθεια δέ **976**\ που καὶ αὕτη σχεδὸν ὅσων ὧραι ψύχει καὶ καύματι ἀκαίρῳ\ καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις ληίζονται τὴν τῶν ζῴων φύσιν.\ εὐδόκιμον δὲ οὐδὲν τούτων εἰς σοφίαν τὴν ἀληθεστάτην·\ ἄμετρα γὰρ δόξαις φορεῖται τοπαζόμενα. βοηθοὺς δέ που **5**\ καὶ τοὺς κυβερνήτας ἅμα καὶ τοὺς ναύτας ἐροῦμεν, καὶ τού-\ των ἄνδρα σοφὸν μηδένα τις ἡμᾶς παραμυθούμενος ἐξ\ ἁπάντων διαγγελλέτω· οὐ γὰρ ἂν εἰδείη τις πνεύματος ὀργὴν\ οὐδὲ φιλίαν, ὃ προσφιλὲς ἁπάσῃ κυβερνητικῇ. καὶ μὴν **b**\ οὐδ’ ὁπόσοι βοηθοὶ δίκαις ἐν τῇ τοῦ λέγειν ῥώμῃ φασὶ\ γίγνεσθαι, μνήμῃ καὶ τριβῇ δόξης ἤθεσιν προσέχοντες τὸν\ νοῦν, ἀληθείας δὲ τῶν ὄντως δικαίων ἐκτὸς παρεσφαλμένοι. > *Apparatus:* **d** 7 ἀποτελουμένων] ἀποτυπουμένων O² (υπ s. v.)   **d** 8 γρ. ἡμῖν ἡ μιμητική· ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως marg. O   **a** 1 δεδομένη] γενομένη Hermann   **a** 8 οὐ A L: οὐδὲ vulg.   **b** 3 μνήμη καὶ τριβὴ A et pr. O   δόξης] δόξαις Winckelmann (dist. post τριβῇ)   ἤθεσιν] ἢ ἔθεσιν Winckelmann ### English it has become and full of craft, renders magnificence along with what is wise. Nor indeed prophecy at all, nor the art of interpretation:[^8] for it knows only what is said, but whether it is true it has not learned. Since, then, we see the acquisition of necessities **[d]** produced by craft, but none of these crafts making anyone wise, what comes after this would be left: a kind of play, imitative for the most part but in no way serious. For they imitate with many instruments, and with many imitations made by the bodies themselves, not altogether seemly ones, both in what is done in words and in all music, and in all the things of which painting is mother, many intricate designs of every kind being produced in many kinds of moist and dry stuff; and of these the imitative art presents no one who crafts them with the greatest seriousness as wise in anything. **[e]** When all things have been achieved, what remains would be help, of countless kinds for countless people: the greatest of them, and for the most things, the one called the art of war, the general’s craft, most esteemed for its use, needing the greatest good fortune, and **[976]** given by nature to courage rather than to wisdom. And what they call medicine, it too, I suppose, is help, against nearly everything with which the seasons, by untimely cold and heat and all such things, plunder the nature of living beings. But none of these is esteemed for the truest wisdom; for they are carried along without measure, guessed at by opinions. Helpers too, I suppose, we shall call pilots and sailors together; and let no one soothe us by proclaiming any man among them all wise; for no one could know the wind’s anger **[b]** or its friendliness, a thing dear to the whole pilot’s art. Nor, indeed, all those who claim to become helpers in lawsuits by the strength of their speaking, paying attention to characters with memory and the routine of opinion,[^9] but who have slipped aside, outside the truth of what is really just. [^8]: *Interpretation*: the art of interpreting signs and oracles. In the *Statesman* (290c) those concerned with prophecy are held to be “interpreters from gods to men”; compare 984e–985b, where the daimons interpret between men and gods. [^9]: *Routine*: *tribē*. In the *Gorgias* Socrates says that cookery “is not a craft but experience and routine”, and makes rhetoric a part of the same practice, flattery (463b); later he says that cookery keeps “only a memory” of what usually happens, by routine and experience (501a), the pairing of memory and routine found here. --- ## 976b–977a ### Greek (Burnet, page 5)  Λοιπὴ δ’ ἔτι πρὸς δόξαν σοφίας ἐστίν τις ἄτοπος δύναμις, **5**\ ἣν φύσιν ἂν οἱ πολλοὶ μᾶλλον ἢ σοφίαν ὀνομάσειαν, τότε\ ὅταν τινά τις συννοῇ ῥᾳδίως μὲν ὅτιπερ ἂν μανθάνῃ μαν-\ θάνοντα, μάλα δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ἀσφαλῶς μνημονεύοντα, ὅταν **c**\ τε τὸ πρόσφορον ἑκάστῳ διαμνημονεύῃ τις, ὅτι γιγνόμενον\ ἂν πρέποι, τοῦτο δὲ ταχὺ δρᾷ· ταῦτα γὰρ ἅπαντα οἱ μὲν\ φύσιν, οἱ δὲ σοφίαν, οἱ δὲ ἀγχίνοιαν θήσουσιν φύσεως,\ σοφὸν δὲ ὄντως οὐδενὶ τούτων οὐδεὶς τῶν ἐμφρόνων ἐθελήσει **5**\ ποτὲ καλεῖν.\  Ἀλλὰ μὴν δεῖ φανῆναί γέ τινα ἐπιστήμην ἣν ἔχων\ σοφὸς γίγνοιτ’ ἂν ὁ σοφὸς ὄντως ὢν καὶ μὴ μόνον δοξα-\ ζόμενος. ἴδωμεν δή. χαλεπῷ μὲν γὰρ λόγῳ παντάπασιν\ ἐπιχειροῦμεν, ἑτέραν πάρεξ τῶν εἰρημένων εὑρεῖν, ἣ σοφία **d**\ μὲν λέγοιτ’ ἂν ὄντως τε καὶ εἰκότως, ὁ δὲ λαβὼν οὔτε\ βάναυσος οὔτ’ ἠλίθιος ἔσται, σοφὸς δὲ καὶ ἀγαθὸς δι’ αὐτὴν\ πολίτης τε καὶ ἄρχων καὶ ἀρχόμενος ἐνδίκως ἔσται πόλεως\ ἅμα καὶ ἐμμελής. κατίδωμεν δὴ ταύτην πρώτην, τίς ποτ’ **5**\ ἐκ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως ἐπιστήμη μία διεξελθοῦσα ἢ μὴ\ παραγενομένη τῶν νῦν παρουσῶν ἀνοητότατον ἂν καὶ ἀφρο-\ νέστατον παράσχοιτο ζῷον τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. οὐ δὴ\ τοῦτό γε πάνυ χαλεπὸν τὸ κατιδεῖν. μία γὰρ ὡς εἰπεῖν **e**\ πρὸς μίαν ἡ τὸν ἀριθμὸν δοῦσα παντὶ τῷ θνητῷ γένει τοῦτ’\ ἂν δράσειεν· θεὸν δ’ αὐτὸν μᾶλλον ἤ τινα τύχην ἡγοῦμαι\ δόντα ἡμῖν σῴζειν ἡμᾶς. ὃν δὲ θεὸν ἡγοῦμαι, φράζειν χρή,\ καίπερ ἄτοπον ὄντα, καί πως οὐκ ἄτοπον αὖ· πῶς γὰρ τὸ **5**\ ἀγαθῶν αἴτιον ἡμῖν συμπάντων οὐ καὶ τοῦ πολὺ μεγίστου, **977**\ τῆς φρονήσεως, αἴτιον ἡγεῖσθαι δεῖ γεγονέναι; τίνα δὴ καὶ\ σεμνύνων ποτὲ λέγω θεόν, ὦ Μέγιλλέ τε καὶ Κλεινία;\ σχεδὸν Οὐρανόν, ὃν καὶ δικαιότατον, ὡς σύμπαντες ἄλλοι > *Apparatus:* **b** 7 ὅτιπερ ἂν L (ut vid.) O²: ὅτι πᾶσαν A O   **c** 2 τε O² (τ s. v.): δὲ A O   **c** 3 πρέποι O²: πρέπον A O   **c** 5 οὐδενὶ A O: οὐδένα O²   **d** 4 τε et ἔσται secl. Stallbaum   **d** 6 μί’ ἂν ἐξελθοῦσα Hermann   ἢ om. A et pr. O   **d** 8 παράσχοιτο Hermann: παράσχοι τὸ A O: παράσχοιτο τὸ L et γρ. O   **e** 5 τὸ A O: τὸν O² (ν s. v.)   **a** 3 λέγω L (ut vid.) Eus.: λέγων A O ### English There remains still, for a reputation for wisdom, a strange power, which the many would name nature rather than wisdom: at those times when one notices someone learning easily whatever he learns, **[c]** and remembering very many things, and securely; and when someone keeps in mind what suits each case, what would be fitting if it were done, and does it quickly. For all these things some will set down as nature, others as wisdom, others as quick-wittedness of nature; but none of the intelligent will ever be willing to call anyone really wise for any of these. And yet some knowledge, at least, must appear, having which the one who is really wise, and not only reputed so, would become wise. Let us see, then. For **[d]** we are attempting an argument that is altogether hard: to find another knowledge, apart from those we have spoken of, which would really and reasonably be called wisdom, while the one who takes it up will be neither menial nor an idiot, but through it will be a wise and good citizen and ruler and ruled of a city, justly, and in tune as well. Let us observe this first: which one knowledge, of those now present, if it departed from human nature or had not come to it, would render the human living being the most senseless and most unintelligent. **[e]** This, at least, is not very hard to observe. For, one set against one, so to speak, the one that has given number to the whole mortal race would do this. And I think that a god, rather than some fortune, having given it to us, preserves us. Which god I think it to be, I must declare, though he is strange, and again in a way not strange. For how **[977]** should we not think that what is the cause of all good things for us has been the cause also of by far the greatest of them, intelligence? And which god is it, then, that I speak of so solemnly, Megillus and Clinias? Heaven, very nearly:[^10] whom it is also most just — as do all the other [^10]: *Heaven*: *Ouranos*, the visible heaven, named here as a god and the giver of number; the “heaven” of 977b and 978d is the same word. --- ## 977a–977e ### Greek (Burnet, page 6) δαίμονες ἅμα καὶ θεοί, τιμᾶν τε καὶ εὔχεσθαι διαφερόντως **5**\ αὐτῷ. τὸ δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων αἴτιον ἀγαθῶν πάντων ἡμῖν\ αὐτὸν γεγονέναι πάντες ἂν ὁμολογοῖμεν· δοῦναι δὲ ἅμα καὶ\ ἀριθμὸν ἡμεῖς γε ὄντως αὐτόν φαμεν, ἔτι δὲ καὶ δώσειν, ἐάν\ τις θέλῃ συνακολουθεῖν. ἐὰν γὰρ ἴῃ τις ἐπὶ θεωρίαν ὀρθὴν **b**\ τὴν τοῦδε, εἴτε κόσμον εἴτε ὄλυμπον εἴτε οὐρανὸν ἐν ἡδονῇ\ τῳ λέγειν, λεγέτω μέν, ἀκολουθείτω δὲ ὅπῃ ποικίλλων αὑτὸν\ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὑτῷ στρέφων ἄστρα πάσας διεξόδους ὥρας τε καὶ\ τροφὴν πᾶσιν παρέχεται. καὶ τὴν ἄλλην δὲ οὖν φρόνησιν, **5**\ ὡς φαῖμεν ἄν, σὺν ἀριθμῷ παντί, καὶ τἆλλ’ ἀγαθά· τοῦτο\ δὲ μέγιστον, ἐάν τις τὴν ἀριθμῶν αὐτοῦ δόσιν δεξάμενος\ ἐπεξέλθῃ πᾶσαν τὴν περίοδον.\  Ἔτι δὲ σμικρὸν ἐπανελθόντες πως τοῖς λόγοις ἀναμνη-\ σθῶμεν ὅτι καὶ μάλ’ ὀρθῶς ἐνοήσαμεν ὡς, εἴπερ ἀριθμὸν ἐκ **c**\ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως ἐξέλοιμεν, οὐκ ἄν ποτέ τι φρόνιμοι\ γενοίμεθα. οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἔτι ποτὲ ψυχὴ τούτου τοῦ ζῴου πᾶσαν\ ἀρετὴν λάβοι σχεδόν, ὅτου λόγος ἀπείη· ζῷον δὲ ὅτι μὴ\ γιγνώσκοι δύο καὶ τρία μηδὲ περιττὸν μηδὲ ἄρτιον, ἀγνοοῖ **5**\ δὲ τὸ παράπαν ἀριθμόν, οὐκ ἄν ποτε διδόναι λόγον ἔχοι περὶ\ ὧν αἰσθήσεις καὶ μνήμας \[ἔχοι\] μόνον εἴη κεκτημένον, τὴν\ δὲ ἄλλην ἀρετήν, ἀνδρείαν καὶ σωφροσύνην, οὐδὲν ἀποκωλύει. **d**\ στερόμενος δὲ ἀληθοῦς λόγου σοφὸς οὐκ ἄν ποτε γένοιτο,\ ὅτῳ δὲ σοφία μὴ προσείη, πάσης ἀρετῆς τὸ μέγιστον μέρος,\ οὐκ ἂν ἔτι τελέως ἀγαθὸς γενόμενος εὐδαίμων ποτὲ γένοιτο.\ οὕτως ἀριθμὸν μὲν ἀνάγκη πᾶσα ὑποτίθεσθαι· διότι δὲ τοῦτο **5**\ ἀνάγκη, λόγος ἔτι πλείων πάντων γίγνοιτ’ ἂν τῶν εἰρημένων.\ ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ νῦν ὀρθῶς ῥηθήσεται, ὅτι καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων\ τεχνῶν λεγόμενα, ἃ νυνδὴ διήλθομεν ἐῶντες εἶναι πάσας τὰς\ τέχνας, οὐδὲ τούτων ἓν οὐδὲν μένει, πάντα δ’ ἀπολείπεται **e**\ τὸ παράπαν, ὅταν ἀριθμητικήν τις ἀνέλῃ. > *Apparatus:* **a** 7 ἂν ὁμολογοῖμεν] ἀνομολογοῖμεν A   **b** 3 ὅπῃ] ὁ A: ὅποι O (πηι s. v. O²)   **c** 7 ἔχοι A L O: om. vulg.   **d** 4 ἔτι τελέως] ἐπιτελέως A L O   **d** 6 πλείων A (sed ν postea additum): πλείω O   **e** 1 ἀπολείπεται A L O: ἀπολεῖται vulg. ### English daimons and gods alike[^11] — to honor and to pray to above all. That he has been the cause for us of all the other good things as well, we would all agree; and that he also gave number, we, at least, say is really so, and moreover that he will also give it, if **[b]** one is willing to follow along. For if one comes to a right contemplation of him — whether it pleases someone to call him cosmos or olympus or heaven,[^12] let him call him so, but let him follow where, adorning himself with variety and turning the stars within himself through all their courses, he provides seasons and nourishment for all. And the rest of intelligence too, as we would say, along with all number, and the other good things; but this is the greatest, if one receives his gift of numbers and goes through the whole circuit. And again, going back a little, somehow, in our arguments, let us recall **[c]** that we thought quite rightly that if we were to take number out of human nature, we would never become intelligent in anything. For the soul of that living being, whichever one lacked reason, would hardly ever any longer take on all virtue; and a living being that did not know two and three, nor odd nor even, and was altogether ignorant of number, could never give an account of the things of which it had acquired only perceptions and memories; **[d]** but as for the rest of virtue, courage and temperance, nothing prevents it. But one deprived of true reason would never become wise;[^13] and one to whom wisdom did not belong, the greatest part of all virtue, would no longer ever become completely good, and so happy. Thus there is every necessity to lay down number as a foundation; but why this is necessary, the account of it would be still longer than all that has been said. But the present account too will be rightly said: that of what are called the other crafts as well, which we went through just now, allowing them all to be **[e]** crafts, not even one remains, but all of them are abandoned altogether, when someone does away with arithmetic. [^11]: *Daimons*: *daimones*, divine beings; the *Theages* renders *daimonion* “daimonic” (128d). At 984d–985b the Athenian places the daimons among the living beings that are seen through and do not become plain to us, between the visible gods and men, as interpreters between them. [^12]: *Cosmos*: *kosmos*, “order, adornment”, the word for the ordered world; *olympus*, the gods’ mountain, here a name for the sky. Burnet prints all three names without capitals. [^13]: *Reason* … *account* … *reason*: all *logos*. --- ## 977e–978d ### Greek (Burnet, page 7)  Δόξειε δ’ ἂν ἴσως τις βραχέων ἕνεκα ἀριθμοῦ δεῖσθαι τὸ\ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος, εἰς τὰς τέχνας ἀποβλέψας—καίτοι μέγα\ μὲν καὶ τοῦτο—εἰ δέ τις ἴδοι τὸ θεῖον τῆς γενέσεως καὶ τὸ **5**\ θνητόν, ἐν ᾧ καὶ τὸ θεοσεβὲς γνωρισθήσεται καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς\ ὄντως, οὐκ ἂν ἔτι πᾶς ἄν τις γνοίη σύμπαντα ἀριθμὸν ὅσης **978**\ ἡμῖν δυνάμεως αἴτιος ἂν εἴη συγγιγνόμενος—ἐπεὶ καὶ τὰ κατὰ\ μουσικὴν πᾶσαν διαριθμουμένων κινήσεώς τε καὶ φθόγγων\ δῆλον ὅτι δεῖ—καὶ τὸ μέγιστον, ἀγαθῶν ὡς πάντων αἴτιον,\ ὅτι δὲ κακῶν οὐδενός, εὖ τοῦτο γνωστέον, ὃ καὶ τάχα γένοιτ’ **5**\ ἄν. ἀλλ’ ἡ σχεδὸν ἀλόγιστός τε καὶ ἄτακτος ἀσχήμων τε\ καὶ ἄρρυθμος ἀνάρμοστός τε φορά, καὶ πάνθ’ ὁπόσα κακοῦ\ κεκοινώνηκέν τινος, ἐπιλέλειπται παντὸς ἀριθμοῦ, καὶ δεῖ **b**\ τοῦθ’ οὕτω διανοεῖσθαι τὸν μέλλοντα εὐδαίμονα τελευτήσειν·\ καὶ τό γε δὴ δίκαιόν τε καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ καλὸν καὶ πάντα\ τὰ τοιαῦτα οὐδείς ποτε μὴ γιγνώσκων, ἀληθοῦς δόξης ἐπιλα-\ βόμενος, διαριθμήσεται πρὸς τὸ ἑαυτόν τε καὶ ἕτερον πεῖσαι **5**\ τὸ παράπαν.\  Ἴωμεν δὴ σκεψόμενοι πρὸς τοῦτ’ αὐτό, πῶς ἐμάθομεν\ ἀριθμεῖν. φέρε· τὸ γὰρ ἓν δὴ καὶ δύο γέγονε πόθεν ἡμῖν\ ὥστ’ ἐννοῆσαι, φύσιν ταύτην ἔχουσιν ἐκ τοῦ παντὸς πρὸς **c**\ τὸ δυνατοὺς ἐννοεῖν εἶναι; πολλοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις αὖ τῶν ζῴων\ οὐδ’ εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦθ’ ἡ φύσις παραγέγονεν, ὥστε μαθεῖν δυνα-\ τοῖς εἶναι παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀριθμεῖν, παρὰ δ’ ἡμῖν τοῦτ’\ αὐτὸ πρῶτον ἐνῴκισεν ὁ θεός, ὥστε ἱκανοῖς εἶναι δεικνύ- **5**\ μενον συννοεῖν, ἔπειτ’ ἔδειξεν καὶ δείκνυσιν· ὧν τί κάλλιον\ ἓν ἑνὸς ἄν τις θεάσαιτο πλὴν τὸ τῆς ἡμέρας γένος, εἶτα εἰς\ τὸ τῆς νυκτὸς ἔλθοι μέρος ἔχων ὄψιν, ὅθεν ἕτερον πᾶν αὐτῷ\ φαίνοιτ’ ἄν; καὶ ἑλίττων δὴ ταῦτα αὐτὰ ὅταν μὴ παύηται **d**\ πολλὰς μὲν νύκτας, πολλὰς δὲ ἡμέρας \[ἃς\] οὐρανός, οὐδέποτε > *Apparatus:* **e** 3 ἴσως Theo: ἱκανῶς libri   τις A L O: τισι O² (σι s. v.)   **e** 4 ἀποβλέψας A L O: ἀποβλέψασι O² (σι s. v.)   **e** 6 ὁ Theo: om. libri   **a** 1 ἄν τις· ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως L² O²: μάντις A L O   **a** 5 ὃ A L O: ὅτι vulg.   **b** 3 τό γε A O: τότε L O² (τ s. v.)   **c** 1 ἔχουσιν A O: ἴσχουσιν L O²   **c** 7 ⟨εἰ⟩ εἰς ci. Ast   **d** 1 ὅταν· ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως marg. L O: ὄντα A L O   ὄντα μὴ παύηται et d2 ἃς secl. Ast ### English Someone, looking at the crafts, might perhaps think that the human race needs number for small things — and yet even this is a great thing; but if one were to see the divine in coming into being and the mortal, in which reverence toward the gods will also be recognized, and number **[978]** really, then no longer would just anyone know[^14] how great a power all number would be the cause of for us when it comes to be with us — since it is clear that the things of all music, too, need movement and sounds counted out — and, the greatest thing, that it is the cause of all good things; but that it is the cause of nothing bad, this must be well known, as perhaps it may be. But the motion that is, very nearly, without reckoning and without order, unseemly and without rhythm and out of harmony, and everything that **[b]** has shared in anything bad, has been left without any number; and whoever is to end his life happy must think about this so. And as for the just and good and fine and all such things, no one who does not know, having laid hold of true opinion, will ever count them out so as to persuade himself and another at all. Let us go, then, to look into just this: how we learned to count. Come: one and two, from where did it come to us **[c]** to think of them, we who have from the universe this nature, so as to be able to think of them? But for many other living beings nature has not come even as far as this, that they should be able to learn to count from the father;[^15] but in us the god first settled this very thing, so that we should be good enough to understand what is shown us, and then he showed it, and shows it. And of these, what one thing finer than another could anyone behold except the kind that is the day, and then come to the part that belongs to night, having his sight, from where everything **[d]** would appear different to him? And indeed, when heaven does not cease rolling round these very things, many nights and many days, it never[^16] [^14]: *No longer would just anyone*: Burnet prints *an tis*, written by correcting hands in L and O as from a corrected copy; A, L and O have *mantis*, which would give “no longer would every prophet know”. [^15]: *The father*: perhaps the god, as in the *Timaeus* (28c, “maker and father of this universe”), perhaps a creature’s own parent (interpretation). [^16]: *When … does not cease*: Burnet prints *hotan*, “when”, written in the margins of L and O as from a corrected copy, for *onta*, “being”, in the manuscripts. Ast deleted the manuscripts’ *onta mē pauētai* and the relative *has*, “which”; Burnet follows him only in bracketing *has*, which the English leaves out. --- ## 978d–979c ### Greek (Burnet, page 8) παύεται διδάσκων ἀνθρώπους ἕν τε καὶ δύο, πρὶν ἂν καὶ ὁ\ δυσμαθέστατος ἱκανῶς μάθῃ ἀριθμεῖν· ὡς γὰρ καὶ τρία καὶ\ τέτταρα καὶ πολλά, ἕκαστος ἡμῶν ἐπινοήσειεν ἂν ὁρῶν ταῦτα. **5**\ καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἓν ἐποίησεν τὴν σελήνην ὁ θεὸς ἀπεργασά-\ μενος, ἣ τοτὲ μὲν μείζων φαινομένη, τοτὲ δ’ ἐλάττων, διεξῆλθεν\ ἄλλην ἀεὶ φαίνουσα ἡμέραν, μέχρι πεντεκαίδεκα ἡμερῶν καὶ **e**\ νυκτῶν· αὕτη δ’ ἔστιν περίοδος, εἰ βούλεταί τις τὸν κύκλον\ ἕνα ὅλον εἰς ἓν τιθέναι, ὥστε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν καὶ τὸ δυσμα-\ θέστατον ἂν μαθεῖν ζῷον, οἷς παρέδωκεν φύσιν ὁ θεὸς τοῦ\ δυνατοῖς εἶναι μανθάνειν. καὶ μέχρι μὲν τούτων τε καὶ ἐν **5**\ τούτοις σύμπαν τὸ δυνατὸν τῶν ζῴων μάλα ἀριθμητικὸν\ γέγονε, τὸ καθ’ ἓν αὐτὸ σκοποῦν· τὸ δὲ πρὸς ἄλληλα **979**\ πάντα ἀριθμὸν ἀεὶ λογίζεσθαι, δοκῶ μὲν μείζονος ἕνεκα, καὶ\ τούτου δὲ σελήνην, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, αὐξανομένην καὶ\ φθίνουσαν ἐμποιήσας, μῆνας πρὸς τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν συνεστήσατο,\ καὶ πάντα ἀριθμὸν πρὸς ἀριθμὸν ἤρξατο συνορᾶν εὐδαίμονι **5**\ τύχῃ. διὰ δὲ ταῦθ’ ἡμῖν καρποί τε καὶ ἐγκύμων ἡ γῆ γέ-\ γονεν, ὥστ’ εἶναι τροφὴν πᾶσι τοῖς ζῴοις, ἀνέμων τε καὶ\ ὑετῶν γιγνομένων οὐκ ἐξαισίων οὐδὲ ἀμέτρων· ἀλλ’ εἴ τι\ παρὰ ταῦτα γίγνεται πρὸς τὸ φλαῦρον, οὐ τὴν θείαν ἀλλὰ **b**\ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην αἰτιᾶσθαι χρὴ φύσιν, οὐκ ἐν δίκῃ διανέ-\ μουσαν τὸν αὑτῶν βίον. ἡμῖν δ’ οὖν ζητοῦσιν περὶ νόμων\ σχεδὸν ἔδοξεν τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ῥᾴδιά τ’ εἶναι γνῶναι τὰ βέλ-\ τιστα ἀνθρώποις, καὶ πᾶς ἂν ἱκανὸς γίγνεσθαι καὶ συνεῖναι **5**\ τὰ λεγόμενα καὶ ποιεῖν, εἰ γνοίη τί ποτ’ ἔστιν ὃ συμφέρειν\ εἰκὸς καὶ τί τὸ μὴ συμφέρον· ἔδοξε δὴ καὶ νῦν ἔτι δοκεῖ τὰ\ μὲν ἄλλα ἐπιτηδεύματα πάντα οὐ σφόδρα χαλεπὰ εἶναι, τὸ **c**\ δὲ τίνα τρόπον χρὴ γίγνεσθαι χρηστοὺς ἀνθρώπους παγχά-\ λεπον. καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα αὖ πάντα κτᾶσθαι χρηστά, τὸ λε-\ γόμενόν \[τε\], καὶ δυνατὸν καὶ οὐ χαλεπόν, οὐσίαν τε ὅσην δεῖ\ καὶ μὴ δεῖ, καὶ σῶμα οἷόν τε δεῖ καὶ μή· καὶ ψυχὴν ὅτι μὲν **5** > *Apparatus:* **d** 6 ἓν ἐποίησεν] ἐνεποίησε Hermann   **a** 1 αὐτὸ A O: αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ vulg.   **c** 3 χρηστά L (ut vid.) O²: χρή A O   **c** 4 τε om. Bekker ### English ceases teaching men one and two, until even the slowest learner has learned to count well enough; for each of us, seeing these things, would come to think of three and four and many as well. And out of these the god made one thing when he produced the moon, which, appearing now larger, now smaller, has gone through, **[e]** showing always another day, up to fifteen days and nights; and this is a circuit, if one wishes to set down the cycle, one whole, as one; so that, so to speak, even the slowest-learning living being would learn, among those to whom the god has given the nature of being able to learn. And up to these things and in them, every living being that is able **[979]** has become very able to count, looking into each thing itself, one at a time. But to reckon number always, all things in relation to one another, for the sake, I think, of something greater — for this too, having put in the moon, waxing and waning, as we said, he composed months in relation to the year, and began to see every number together in relation to number, by happy fortune. And because of these things fruits have come to be for us, and the earth has become pregnant, so that there is nourishment for all living beings, when winds and rains come neither violent nor without measure. But if anything **[b]** turns out contrary to this, toward what is poor, one must blame not the divine but the human nature, for not distributing their own life justly. Now to us, at any rate, when we were seeking about laws, it seemed, very nearly, that the rest of what is best for men was easy to know, and that anyone would become good enough both to understand what was said and to do it, if he knew what it is that is likely to be advantageous and what is not advantageous; and it seemed, and it still seems now, that **[c]** all the other pursuits are not very hard, but in what way men ought to become decent is altogether hard. And again, to acquire all the other decent things is, as the saying goes, both possible and not hard: property, as much as is needed and is not, and a body, of what sort is needed and is not; and as for the soul, that it --- ## 979c–980b ### Greek (Burnet, page 9) ἀγαθὴν δεῖ, συγχωρεῖ πᾶς παντί, τὸ δ’ ὅντινα τρόπον ἀγαθήν,\ ὅτι μὲν αὖ δικαίαν καὶ σώφρονα καὶ ἀνδρείαν, καὶ ταῦτα, ὅτι\ δὲ σοφήν, φησὶ μὲν πᾶς δεῖν, ἥντινα δὲ σοφίαν, ὡς ἄρτι\ διεληλύθαμεν, οὐδεὶς οὐδενὶ τὸ παράπαν ἔτι συνομολογεῖ **d**\ τῶν πολλῶν. νῦν οὖν δὴ παρὰ πάσας τὰς πρόσθεν σοφίας οὐ\ φαύλην τινὰ ἀνευρίσκομεν εἰς αὐτά γε ταῦτα, τὸ δοκεῖν σοφὸν\ εἶναι τόν γε μεμαθηκότα ἅπερ καὶ διεληλύθαμεν· εἰ δ’ ἔστιν\ σοφὸς ὁ ταῦτ’ ἐπιστήμων καὶ ἀγαθός, τούτου δὴ πέρι λόγον **5**\ δεῖ λαβεῖν.\  ΚΛ. Ὦ ξένε, ὡς εἰκότως εἶπες ὅτι περὶ μεγάλων μεγάλα\ ἐπιχειρεῖς φράζειν.\  ΑΘ. Οὐ γὰρ σμικρά, ὦ Κλεινία· τὸ δὲ χαλεπώτερον, ὅτι **e**\ παντάπασι καὶ πάντως ἀληθῆ.\  ΚΛ. Σφόδρα γε, ὦ ξένε· ἀλλ’ ὅμως μὴ ἀποκάμῃς λέγων\ ὃ φῄς.\  ΑΘ. Ναί, μηδὲ σφὼ τοίνυν ἀκούοντε. **5**\  ΚΛ. Ταῦτ’ ἔσται· καὶ ὑπὲρ ἀμφοῖν ἐγώ σοι φράζω.\  ΑΘ. Καλῶς. ἐξ ἀρχῆς δὴ ῥητέον ἀνάγκῃ πρῶτον, ὡς **980**\ φαίνεται, μάλιστα μὲν ἄν, εἰ δυνάμεθα ἑνὶ λαβεῖν ὀνόματι,\ τίς ἐστιν ἣν οἰόμεθα σοφίαν εἶναι, τοῦτο δ’ εἰ σφόδρα\ ἀδυνατοῦμεν, τὸ δεύτερον, τίνες εἰσίν ποτε καὶ ὁπόσαι τινές,\ ἅς τις λαβὼν σοφὸς ἂν εἴη κατὰ τὸν ἡμέτερον μῦθον. **5**\  ΚΛ. Λέγοις ἄν.\  ΑΘ. Τὸ δὴ μετὰ τοῦτο ἀνεμέσητον τῷ νομοθέτῃ τὸ\ κάλλιον τῶν πρότερον εἰρημένων περὶ θεῶν καὶ ἄμεινον\ ἀπεικάζοντι λέγειν, οἷον παιδιᾷ καλῇ χρωμένῳ καὶ τιμῶντι\ θεούς, ὕμνοις τε καὶ εὐδαιμονίᾳ γεραίροντι διάγειν τὸν αὑτοῦ **b**\ βίον.\  ΚΛ. Ἦ καλῶς, ὦ ξένε, λέγεις. εἰ γάρ σοι τοῦτο τέλος\ εἴη τῶν νόμων, θεοὺς προσπαίσαντι καθαρώτερόν δὲ δια- > *Apparatus:* **a** 1 ἀνάγκῃ Schneider: ἀνάγκη libri: ἂν εἴη Hermann   **a** 8 εἰρημένων A L O: γρ. εἰρηκότων in marg. L O (cum Vat. 1029)   **a** 9 παιδιᾷ in marg. L O: παιδείᾳ A L O   **b** 4 δὲ A L O: τε vulg. ### English should be good, everyone grants everyone; but in what way good — that it should be just, again, and temperate and brave, this too; but that it should be wise, everyone says it should, but which wisdom, as **[d]** we have just gone through, no one of the many any longer agrees with anyone at all. Now, then, beside all the former kinds of wisdom, we are finding one that is not trivial, for these very things at least: that the one, at least, who has learned what we have gone through seems to be wise; but whether the one who has knowledge of these things is wise and good, about this we must get an account. **Clin.** Stranger, how reasonably you said that you are attempting to declare great things about great things! **Ath.** **[e]** For they are not small, Clinias; and what is harder, they are altogether and in every way true. **Clin.** Very much so, stranger; but all the same, do not grow weary of saying what you say. **Ath.** Yes; then do not you two grow weary of listening either.[^17] **Clin.** It shall be so; and I declare this to you on behalf of us both. **Ath.** **[980]** Good. We must, then, of necessity,[^18] speak first from the beginning, as it appears: most of all, if we are able to take it in one name, what it is that we think wisdom is; but if we are quite unable to do this, in the second place, which they are, and how many,[^19] by taking up which one would be wise according to our story.[^20] **Clin.** Please speak. **Ath.** What comes after this, then: it is no matter for resentment for the lawgiver to speak, likening the gods more finely and better than what was said of them before, as one who makes use of a fine play[^21] and honors **[b]** the gods, and, glorifying them with hymns and happiness, to pass his own life. **Clin.** You speak well indeed, stranger. Would that this might be the goal of your laws: that you, having celebrated the gods in play,[^22] and having more purely [^17]: *You two*: the Greek is in the dual, for Clinias and the silent Megillus. [^18]: *Of necessity*: Burnet prints *anankēi*, Schneider’s dative; the manuscripts have *anankē*, “it is necessary”. [^19]: *They*: feminine plural, as of *sophiai*, “kinds of wisdom” (979d). [^20]: *Our story*: so the Athenian speaks in the *Laws* of “our present story-telling”, the city founded in words (6.752a), and calls his account of the teachers of letters a story (7.812a). [^21]: *Play*: *paidia*, the word used of the imitative arts at 975d. Burnet prints it from the margins of L and O; the text of all three manuscripts has *paideia*, “education”. The lawgiver’s “fine play” seems to be his honoring of the gods (interpretation). [^22]: *Celebrated … in play*: *prospaizein*, “play towards”, from the root of *paidia*, “play” (980a); LSJ takes it here as “sing in praise of”. --- ## 980b–981a ### Greek (Burnet, page 10) γαγόντι τὸν βίον τῆς ἅμα τελευτῆς ἀρίστης τε καὶ καλλίστης **5**\ τυχεῖν.\  ΑΘ. Πῶς οὖν, ὦ Κλεινία, λέγομεν; ἦ δοκεῖ τοὺς θεοὺς\ ὑμνοῦντες σφόδρα τιμῶμεν, εὐχόμενοι τὰ κάλλιστα καὶ\ ἄριστα περὶ αὐτῶν ἐπιέναι λέγειν ἡμῖν; οὕτως ἢ πῶς λέγεις;\  ΚΛ. Θαυμαστῶς μὲν οὖν οὕτως. ἀλλ’, ὦ δαιμόνιε, **c**\ πιστεύσας τοῖς θεοῖς εὔχου τε καὶ λέγε τὸν ἐπιόντα σοι\ λόγον τῶν καλῶν περὶ τοὺς θεούς τε καὶ τὰς θεάς.\  ΑΘ. Ἔσται ταῦτα, ἂν αὐτὸς ὁ θεὸς ἡμῖν ὑφηγῆται.\ συνεύχου μόνον. **5**\  ΚΛ. Λέγοις ἂν τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο.\  ΑΘ. Θεογονίαν τοίνυν καὶ ζῳογονίαν ἀναγκαῖον, ὡς\ ἔοικεν, πρῶτόν μοι, κακῶς ἀπεικασάντων τῶν ἔμπροσθεν,\ βέλτιον ἀπεικάσαι κατὰ τὸν ἔμπροσθεν λόγον, ἀναλαβόντα\ ὃν πρὸς τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς ἐπικεχείρηκα λέγων, φράζων ὡς εἰσὶν **d**\ θεοὶ ἐπιμελούμενοι πάντων, σμικρῶν καὶ μειζόνων, καὶ\ σχεδὸν ἀπαραμύθητοι τῶν περὶ τὰ δίκαιά εἰσιν πράγματα—\ εἰ δὴ μέμνησθέ γε, ὦ Κλεινία· ἐλάβετε μὲν γὰρ δὴ καὶ\ ὑπομνήματα—καὶ γὰρ ἦν τὰ ῥηθέντα τότε καὶ μάλα ἀληθῆ· **5**\ τόδε δὲ αὐτῶν ἦν τὸ μέγιστον, ὅτι πρεσβύτερον εἴη ψυχὴ\ σώματος ἅπασα παντός—ἆρα μέμνησθε; ἢ πάντως που\ τοῦτό γε;—ὃ γὰρ ἄμεινον καὶ παλαιότερον καὶ θεοειδέστερον,\ πιθανὸν ὅτι τοῦ †νέου καὶ νεωτέρου καὶ ἀτιμοτέρου, πανταχῇ **e**\ τε ἄρχον ἀρχομένου πρεσβύτερον καὶ ἄγον ἀγομένου πάντῃ.\ λάβωμεν δὴ τοῦτό γε, ὡς ψυχὴ πρεσβύτερόν ἐστι σώματος.\ εἰ δ’ ἔχει τοῦτο οὕτως, τό γε πρῶτον ἡμῖν τοῦ πρώτου τῆς **981**\ γενέσεως πιθανώτερον ἂν εἴη σχεδὸν ὑπηργμένον· καὶ θῶμεν\ δὴ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς ἀρχῆς εὐσχημονέστερον ἔχειν, καὶ τῶν\ μεγίστων σοφίας περὶ θεῶν γενέσεως ὀρθότατα ἐπιβαίνειν\ ἡμᾶς. **5**\  ΚΛ. Ἔστω ταῦτα εἰς δύναμιν λεγόμενα. > *Apparatus:* **c** 2 σοι A L O: ἀεί σοι in marg. γρ. L O   **c** 9 ἔμπροσθεν] ὕστερον Eus.   **d** 1 λέγων Eus.: λόγους libri   **d** 7 ἢ] ἦ Stallbaum   **e** 1 νέου A L O: χείρονος scr. recc. ### English passed your life, should meet with the end that is at once the best and the finest. **Ath.** How, then, Clinias, do we say it? Does it seem good that we honor the gods greatly by hymning them, praying that the finest and best things to say about them may come to us? So, or how do you say? **Clin.** **[c]** Wonderfully so, indeed. But, my good sir, trusting in the gods, pray, and speak the account of fine things about the gods and the goddesses that comes to you. **Ath.** It shall be so, if the god himself leads the way for us. Only join me in prayer. **Clin.** Please say what comes after this. **Ath.** The generation of gods, then, and of living beings, since those before us likened it badly, I must first, it seems, liken it better, following the account given before, taking up again **[d]** the one I have attempted, speaking against the impious, declaring that there are gods who care for all things, small and greater, and that in matters of what is just they are very nearly not to be soothed[^23] — if indeed you remember, Clinias; for you even took notes — for what was said then was very true indeed; and the greatest of it was this, that all soul is older than all body — do you remember? or surely this, at least? — for what is better and more ancient and more godlike is, **[e]** it is plausible, older than what is † young and younger and less honored; and everywhere what rules is older than what is ruled, and what leads than what is led, in every way.[^24] Let us take this, then, at least: that soul is older than body. **[981]** And if this is so, the first part, at least, of the first in coming into being would, very nearly, have been begun by us more plausibly; and let us set down that the beginning of the beginning stands more seemly, and that we are setting foot most rightly on the greatest matters of wisdom, about the coming into being of the gods. **Clin.** Let this stand as said to the best of our power. [^23]: *Against the impious*: the argument of *Laws* 10 (885b–907b): that the gods exist, with the proof that soul is older than body (891e–896c); that they care for human things (899d–905d); and that they cannot be won over by gifts (905d–907b). *Not to be soothed*: *aparamuthētoi*, from *paramutheisthai*, “soothe” (976a); the *Laws* states the third impious opinion as that the gods are *euparamuthētoi*, “easily soothed”, by sacrifices and prayers (885b). [^24]: † Burnet marks *neou*, “young”, as corrupt; later manuscripts have *cheironos*, “worse”. --- ## 981a–981e ### Greek (Burnet, page 11)  ΑΘ. Φέρε δή, ζῷόν γε ἀληθέστατα λέγεσθαι κατὰ φύσιν\ φῶμεν τοῦτό γε, ὅταν μία συνελθοῦσα σύστασις ψυχῆς καὶ\ σώματος ἀποτέκῃ μίαν μορφήν;\  ΚΛ. Ὀρθῶς. **10**\  ΑΘ. Ζῷον μὲν δὴ τὸ τοιοῦτον καλεῖται δικαιότατα; **b**\  ΚΛ. Ναί.\  ΑΘ. Στερεὰ δὲ σώματα λέγεσθαι χρὴ κατὰ τὸν εἰκότα\ λόγον πέντε, ἐξ ὧν κάλλιστα καὶ ἄριστά τις ἂν πλάττοι, τὸ\ δὲ ἄλλο γένος ἅπαν ἔχει μορφὴν μίαν· οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀσώ- **5**\ ματον ὅτι τ’ ἄλλο γίγνοιτ’ ἂν καὶ χρῶμα οὐδὲν οὐδαμῶς\ οὐδέποτ’ ἔχον, πλὴν τὸ θειότατον ὄντως ψυχῆς γένος. τοῦτο\ δ’ ἐστὶ σχεδὸν ᾧ μόνῳ πλάττειν καὶ δημιουργεῖν προσήκει,\ σώματι δέ, ὃ λέγομεν, πλάττεσθαι καὶ γίγνεσθαι καὶ ὁρᾶ- **c**\ σθαι· τῷ δέ—λέγωμεν πάλιν· οὐ γὰρ ἅπαξ ῥητέον—ἀοράτῳ\ τε εἶναι καὶ γιγνώσκοντι νοητῷ τε, μνήμης μεταλαβόντι\ λογισμοῦ τε ἐν περιτταῖς τε καὶ ἀρτίαις ἅμα μεταβολαῖς.\ πέντε οὖν ὄντων τῶν σωμάτων, πῦρ χρὴ φάναι καὶ ὕδωρ **5**\ εἶναι καὶ τρίτον ἀέρα, τέταρτον δὲ γῆν, πέμπτον δὲ αἰθέρα,\ τούτων δ’ ἐν ἡγεμονίαις ἕκαστον ζῷον πολὺ καὶ παντοδαπὸν\ ἀποτελεῖσθαι. μαθεῖν δὲ καθ’ ἓν ὧδ’ ἔστιν χρεών. γήινον\ μὲν τιθῶμεν τὸ πρῶτον ἡμῖν ἕν, πάντας μὲν ἀνθρώπους, **d**\ πάντα δὲ ὅσα πολύποδα καὶ ἄποδα, καὶ ὅσα πορεύσιμα καὶ\ ὅσα μόνιμα, διειλημμένα ῥίζαις· τὸ δὲ ἓν αὐτοῦ τόδε νομίζειν\ δεῖ, ὡς πάντα μὲν ἐξ ἁπάντων ταῦτ’ ἔστιν τῶν γενῶν, τὸ δὲ\ πολὺ τούτου γῆς ἐστιν καὶ τῆς στερεμνίας φύσεως. ἄλλο **5**\ δὲ χρὴ ζῴου γένος θεῖναι δεύτερον γιγνόμενον ἅμα καὶ\ δυνατὸν ὁρᾶσθαι· τὸ γὰρ πλεῖστον πυρὸς ἔχει, ἔχει μὴν γῆς\ τε καὶ ἀέρος, ἔχει δὲ καὶ ἁπάντων τῶν ἄλλων βραχέα μέρη, **e**\ διὸ δὴ ζῷά τε ἐξ αὐτῶν παντοδαπὰ γίγνεσθαι χρὴ φάναι καὶ\ ὁρώμενα, νομίσαι δὲ δὴ δεῖ πάλιν τὰ κατ’ οὐρανὸν ζῴων > *Apparatus:* **a** 8 τοῦτό γε L (ut vid.) O² (γ s. v.): τοῦτό τε A O: γρ. τότε in marg. O   **b** 6 ὅτι τ’ ἄλλο A O: ὅτι τἄλλα L: ὅτι ποτ’ ἄλλο in marg. L   **c** 3 νοητῷ τε L (ut vid.) O² (τ s. v.): νοητῷ δὲ A O   **c** 7 ἕκαστον A O: ἑκάστων vulg.   **d** 4 δεῖ scr. recc.: δεῖν A L O ### English **Ath.** Come, then: shall we say that this, at least, is most truly called by nature a living being, when one combination of soul and body, coming together, brings forth one shape? **Clin.** Rightly. **Ath.** **[b]** Then such a thing is most justly called a living being? **Clin.** Yes. **Ath.** And solid bodies, according to the likely account, must be said to be five, out of which one could mold the finest and best things; but all the other kind has one shape; for there is nothing else that could come to be bodiless and have no color at all, in any way, ever, except the kind that is really most divine, the kind of soul.[^25] And this is, very nearly, the only one to which it belongs to mold and to craft, **[c]** while to body, as we say, it belongs to be molded and to come into being and to be seen; but to the other — let us say it again, for it must be said more than once — it belongs to be invisible, and knowing, and intelligible, having had a share in memory and in reckoning, in odd and even changes alike. Since, then, the bodies are five, we must say that they are fire and water, and third air, fourth earth, and fifth ether,[^26] and that, with these in the lead, each living being, many and of every kind, is produced. We must learn them one by one, in this way. **[d]** Let us set down first, as one, the earthly: all human beings, and all that are many-footed and footless, and all that move about and all that stay in place, held fast by roots; and we must hold this to be what makes it one: that all of these are made from all the kinds, but the most of it is of earth and of the solid nature. And we must set down another kind of living being as second, one that comes into being and at the same time can be seen: for it has most of fire, and has, too, earth **[e]** and air, and has small parts of all the others as well; and so we must say that living beings of every kind come into being from them, and ones that are seen; and we must hold, again, that of living beings the things in the heaven are [^25]: *Five*: in the *Timaeus* four of the regular solids are given to the four elements (55d–56b), and the fifth figure the god “used for the whole” (55c); here ether is the fifth body (981c). [^26]: *Ether*: *aithēr*, the bright upper air; in the *Timaeus* it is the “clearest” kind of air (*euagestaton*, 58d). --- ## 981e–982d ### Greek (Burnet, page 12) γένη, ὃ δὴ πᾶν χρὴ φάναι θεῖον γένος ἄστρων γεγονέναι,\ σώματος μὲν τυχὸν καλλίστου, ψυχῆς δ’ εὐδαιμονεστάτης **5**\ τε καὶ ἀρίστης. δυοῖν δὲ αὐτοῖς μοιρῶν τὴν ἑτέραν χρὴ\ δόξῃ μεταδιδόναι σχεδόν· ἢ γὰρ ἀνώλεθρόν τε καὶ ἀθάνατον\ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν εἶναι καὶ θεῖον τὸ παράπαν ἐξ ἁπάσης ἀνά- **982**\ γκης, ἤ τινα μακραίωνα βίον ἔχειν ἱκανὸν ἑκάστῳ ζωῆς, ἧς\ οὐδέν τι πλείονος ἂν προσδεῖσθαί ποτε.\  Νοήσωμεν οὖν πρῶτον, ὃ λέγομεν, δύο τὰ τοιαῦτα εἶναι\ ζῷα—πάλιν γὰρ λέγωμεν—ὁρατὰ μὲν ἀμφότερα, τὸ μὲν ἐκ **5**\ πυρός, ὡς δόξειεν ἄν, ὅλον, τὸ δ’ ἐκ γῆς, καὶ τὸ μὲν γήινον\ ἐν ἀταξίᾳ, τὸ δ’ ἐκ πυρὸς ἐν τάξει πάσῃ κινούμενον. τὸ μὲν\ οὖν ἐν ἀταξίᾳ κινούμενον ἄφρον χρὴ νομίζειν, ὅπερ ὡς τὸ\ πολὺ δρᾷ τὸ περὶ ἡμᾶς ζῷον, τὸ δὲ ἐν τάξει τε καὶ οὐρανῷ **b**\ πόρον ἔχον μέγα τεκμήριον χρὴ ποιεῖσθαι τοῦ φρόνιμον εἶναι·\ κατὰ ταὐτὰ γὰρ ἂν καὶ ὡσαύτως πορευόμενον ἀεὶ καὶ ποιοῦν\ καὶ πάσχον τεκμήριον ἱκανὸν τοῦ φρονίμως ζῆν εἴη παρε-\ χόμενον. ἡ ψυχῆς δὲ ἀνάγκη νοῦν κεκτημένης ἁπασῶν **5**\ ἀναγκῶν πολὺ μεγίστη γίγνοιτ’ ἄν—ἄρχουσα γὰρ ἀλλ’ οὐκ\ ἀρχομένη νομοθετεῖ—τὸ δὲ ἀμετάστροφον, ὅταν ψυχὴ τὸ\ ἄριστον κατὰ τὸν ἄριστον βουλεύσηται νοῦν, τὸ τέλεον **c**\ ἐκβαίνει τῷ ὄντι κατὰ νοῦν, καὶ οὐδὲ ἀδάμας ἂν αὐτοῦ\ κρεῖττον οὐδὲ ἀμεταστροφώτερον ἄν ποτε γένοιτο, ἀλλ’ ὄντως\ τρεῖς Μοῖραι κατέχουσαι φυλάττουσι τέλεον εἶναι τὸ βελ-\ τίστῃ βουλῇ βεβουλευμένον ἑκάστοις θεῶν. τοῖς δὲ ἀνθρώ- **5**\ ποις ἐχρῆν τεκμήριον εἶναι τοῦ νοῦν ἔχειν ἄστρα τε καὶ\ σύμπασαν ταύτην τὴν διαπορείαν, ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἀεὶ πράττει\ διὰ τὸ βεβουλευμένα πάλαι πράττειν θαυμαστόν τινα χρόνον\ ὅσον, ἀλλ’ οὐ μεταβουλευόμενον ἄνω καὶ κάτω, τοτὲ μὲν **d**\ ἕτερα, ἄλλοτε δὲ ἄλλα πρᾶττον, πλανᾶσθαί τε καὶ μετακυ-\ κλεῖσθαι. τοῦθ’ ἡμῶν τοῖς πολλοῖς αὐτὸ τοὐναντίον ἔδοξεν,\ ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως πράττει, ψυχὴν οὐκ ἔχειν· οὕτω > *Apparatus:* **e** 6 αὐτοῖς] αὐτοῖν fecit a   **c** 1 τὸ] τότε ci. Schneider   **c** 2 ἐκβαίνει· ἀλλαχοῦ ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως in marg. L O: ἐσβαίνει A L O   **c** 7 διαπορείαν O²: διαπορίαν A O   **d** 4 πράττει ci. Stephanus: πράττειν libri ### English kinds, the whole of which, we must say, has come into being as the divine kind of the stars, which has obtained the finest body and the happiest and best soul. And we must, very nearly, give them in opinion one of two portions: either that **[982]** each of them is indestructible and immortal and altogether divine, by every necessity, or that it has a life of long ages, life good enough for each, than which it would never need any more. Let us think first, then, as we say, that such living beings are two — for let us say it again — both of them visible, the one, as it would seem, wholly of fire, the other of earth; and that the earthly one moves in disorder, the one of fire in all order. Now what moves in disorder we must hold to be unintelligent, which, **[b]** for the most part, the living being about us does; but what has its path in order and in the heaven we must take as great evidence of its being intelligent; for by traveling always in the same respects and in the same way, and acting and being acted on so, it would be offering evidence good enough of living intelligently. And the necessity of a soul that has acquired sense[^27] would be by far the greatest of all necessities — for, ruling and not ruled, it gives law — and what cannot be turned back, when a soul **[c]** has deliberated the best in accordance with the best sense, comes out as what is complete, in reality in accordance with sense, and not even adamant could ever become stronger than it or less to be turned back; but really the three Fates[^28] hold fast and keep complete what each of the gods has deliberated with the best deliberation. And for men it ought to have been evidence that the stars and all this passage have sense, that they always do the same things because they do what was deliberated long ago, for a time wonderfully **[d]** long, and do not, deliberating anew up and down, doing now some things, now others, wander and change their cycles. To the many among us this very thing seemed the opposite: that because they do the same things and in the same way, they have no soul; so far [^27]: *Sense*: *nous*, as in the series, the ordinary word in “have sense” (*noun echein*), which the dialogue uses of the stars (982c). [^28]: *Fates*: *Moirai*, the three goddesses of each one’s portion (*moira*, 981e). In the *Laws* the Athenian names them and speaks, with the third, of the power “that cannot be turned back” (*ametastrophon*, 960c–d), the word used here. --- ## 982d–983c ### Greek (Burnet, page 13) τοῖς ἄφροσι συνεφέσπετο τὸ πλῆθος, ὡς τὸ μὲν ἀνθρώπινον **5**\ ἔμφρον καὶ ζῶν ὡς κινούμενον ὑπολαβεῖν, τὸ δὲ θεῖον ἄφρον\ ὡς μένον ἐν ταῖς αὐταῖς φοραῖς· ἐξῆν δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ γε ἐπὶ\ τὰ καλλίω καὶ βελτίω καὶ φίλα τιθεμένῳ λαμβάνειν ὡς **e**\ διὰ τοῦτο αὐτὸ ἔμφρον δεῖ νομίζειν τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ\ ὡσαύτως καὶ διὰ ταὐτὰ πρᾶττον ἀεί, τοῦτο δ’ εἶναι τὴν τῶν\ ἄστρων φύσιν, ἰδεῖν μὲν καλλίστην, πορείαν δὲ καὶ χορείαν\ πάντων χορῶν καλλίστην καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεστάτην χορεύοντα **5**\ πᾶσι τοῖς ζῶσι τὸ δέον ἀποτελεῖν. καὶ μὴν ὅτι γε δικαίως\ ἔμψυχα αὐτὰ λέγομεν, πρῶτον τὸ μέγεθος αὐτῶν διανοη- **983**\ θῶμεν. οὐ γάρ, ὡς σμικρὰ φαντάζεται, τηλικαῦτα ὄντως\ ἐστίν, ἀλλ’ ἀμήχανον ἕκαστον αὐτῶν τὸν ὄγκον—πιστεῦσαι\ δ’ ἄξιον· ἀποδείξεσιν γὰρ ἱκαναῖς λαμβάνεται—τὸν γὰρ\ ἥλιον ὅλον τῆς γῆς ὅλης μείζω διανοηθῆναι δυνατὸν ὀρθῶς, **5**\ καὶ πάντα δὴ τὰ φερόμενα ἄστρα θαυμαστόν τι μέγεθος ἔχει.\ λάβωμεν δὴ τίς τρόπος ἂν εἴη τοσοῦτον περιφέρειν ὄγκον\ τινὰ φύσιν τὸν αὐτὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον, ὅσον καὶ νῦν περιφέρεται.\ θεὸν δή φημι τὸν αἴτιον ἔσεσθαι, καὶ οὔποθ’ ἑτέρως εἶναι **b**\ δυνατόν· ἔμψυχον μὲν γὰρ οὔποτε γένοιτ’ ἂν ἑτέρᾳ πλὴν\ διὰ θεόν, ὡς ἡμεῖς ἀπεφηνάμεθα. ὅτε δὲ τοῦτο οἷός τέ\ ἐστιν θεός, ἅπασα αὐτῷ ῥᾳστώνη γέγονεν τοῦ πρῶτον μὲν\ ζῷον γεγονέναι πᾶν σῶμα καὶ ὄγκον σύμπαντα, ἔπειτα, ᾗπερ **5**\ ἂν διανοηθῇ βέλτιστα, ταύτῃ φέρειν. νῦν δὴ περὶ ἁπάντων\ τούτων ἕνα λόγον λέγοιμεν ἀληθῆ· οὐκ ἔστιν γῆν τε καὶ\ οὐρανὸν ἅπαντάς τε ἀστέρας ὄγκους τε ἐκ τούτων σύμπαντας, **c**\ μὴ ψυχῆς πρὸς ἑκάστῳ γενομένης ἢ καὶ ἐν ἑκάστοις, εἶτα\ εἰς ἀκρίβειαν κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν οὕτω πορεύεσθαι κατὰ μῆνάς τε\ καὶ ἡμέρας, καὶ σύμπαντα τὰ γιγνόμενα σύμπασιν ἡμῖν ἀγαθὰ\ γίγνεσθαι. **5**\  Δεῖ δέ, ὅσῳ φλαυρότερόν ἐστ’ ἄνθρωπος, μή τοι\ ληροῦντά γε, σαφῶς δέ τι λέγοντα φαίνεσθαι. ῥύμας\ μὲν οὖν εἴ τις αἰτίας τινὰς ἐρεῖ σωμάτων ἢ φύσεις ἤ τι > *Apparatus:* **e** 3 πρᾶττον] πράττειν ci. Stephanus   **b** 2 ἑτέρᾳ A O: ἑτέρως vulg. ### English did the multitude follow the unintelligent as to take the human as intelligent and alive because it moves, and the divine as unintelligent because it stays in the same motions; but it was open to a man, at least, **[e]** who took the side of what is finer and better and dear, to grasp that for this very reason we must hold intelligent what always acts in the same respects and in the same way and for the same reasons, and that this is the nature of the stars, finest to see, and that, dancing a procession and dance the finest and most magnificent of all dances, they accomplish for all living things what is needed. And indeed, that **[983]** we call them ensouled justly, at least, let us first think about their size. For they are not really as small as they appear, but each of them is immense in bulk — and it deserves belief, for it is grasped by proofs good enough — for it is possible to think rightly that the sun as a whole is larger than the earth as a whole, and all the stars that are carried along have some wonderful size. Let us grasp, then, what way there could be for some nature to carry round so great a bulk always in the same time in which it is carried round now. **[b]** A god, I say, will be the cause, and it is never possible otherwise; for a thing could never become ensouled in any other way than through a god, as we have shown. And since a god is able to do this, it has been altogether easy for him, first, that every body and every bulk should become a living being, and then to carry it in whatever way he has in mind as best. Now, then, about all these may we speak one true account: it is not possible for earth and **[c]** heaven and all the stars and all the bulks made of these, if a soul had not come to be with each, or even in each, then to travel so precisely, year by year, by months and by days, and for all the things that come about to come about as goods for us all. And the poorer a thing man is, the more he must appear, not, certainly, talking nonsense, but saying something clearly. Now if anyone will say that rushes of bodies, or natures, or some --- ## 983c–984c ### Greek (Burnet, page 14) τοιοῦτον, οὐδὲν σαφὲς ἐρεῖ· τὸ δὲ παρ’ ἡμῶν εἰρημένον\ σφόδρ’ ἀναλαβεῖν χρή, πότερον ἔχει λόγον ὁ λόγος ἢ πάντως **d**\ ὑστερεῖ, τὸ πρῶτον μὲν τὰ ὄντα εἶναι δύο, τὸ μὲν ψυχήν, τὸ\ δὲ σῶμα, καὶ πολλὰ ἑκατέρου, πάντα δὲ ἀλλήλων ἄλλα καὶ\ ἑκάτερα ἑκατέρων, καὶ τρίτον ἄλλο οὐδὲν κοινὸν οὐδενί,\ διαφέρειν δὲ ψυχὴν σώματος. ἔμφρον μέν που, τὸ δὲ ἄφρον **5**\ θήσομεν, ἄρχον δέ, τὸ δὲ ἀρχόμενον, καὶ τὸ μὲν αἴτιον\ ἁπάντων, τὸ δὲ ἀναίτιον πάσης πάθης· ὥστε τά γε δὴ κατ’\ οὐρανὸν ὑπ’ ἄλλου του φάναι γεγονέναι, καὶ μὴ ψυχῆς τε **e**\ καὶ σώματος οὕτως εἶναι γεννήματα, πολλὴ μωρία τε καὶ\ ἀλογία. εἰ δ’ οὖν δεῖ νικᾶν τοὺς περὶ ἁπάντων τῶν τοιούτων\ λόγους καὶ πιστῶς θεῖα φαίνεσθαι γεγονέναι τὰ τοιαῦτα\ σύμπαντα, δυοῖν τοι θάτερα θετέον αὐτά· ἢ γὰρ θεοὺς αὐ- **5**\ τοὺς ταῦτα ὑμνητέον ὀρθότατα, ἢ θεῶν εἰκόνας ὡς ἀγάλματα\ ὑπολαβεῖν γεγονέναι, θεῶν αὐτῶν ἐργασαμένων· οὐ γὰρ **984**\ ἀνοήτων γε οὐδὲ βραχέος ἀξίων, ἀλλ’ ὅπερ εἰρήκαμεν, τού-\ των ἡμῖν θάτερα θετέα, τὰ δὲ τεθέντα τιμητέον πάντων\ ἀγαλμάτων διαφερόντως· οὐ γὰρ μήποτε φανῇ καλλίω καὶ\ κοινότερα συμπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἀγάλματα, οὐδ’ ἐν δια- **5**\ φέρουσιν τόποις ἱδρυμένα, καθαριότητι καὶ σεμνότητι καὶ συμ-\ πάσῃ ζωῇ διαφέροντα ἢ ταύτῃ ὡς πάντῃ ταύτῃ γεγένηται. **b**\ νῦν οὖν δὴ περὶ θεῶν ἐγχειρῶμεν τό γε τοσοῦτον, τὰ δύο\ κατιδόντες ζῷα ὁρατὰ ἡμῖν, ἅ φαμεν ἀθάνατον, τὸ δὲ γήινον\ ἅπαν θνητὸν γεγονέναι, τὰ τρία τὰ μέσα τῶν πέντε τὰ μεταξὺ\ τούτων σαφέστατα κατὰ δόξαν τὴν ἐπιεικῆ γεγονότα πειρα- **5**\ θῆναι λέγειν. αἰθέρα μὲν γὰρ μετὰ τὸ πῦρ θῶμεν, ψυχὴν\ δ’ ἐξ αὐτοῦ τιθῶμεν πλάττειν ζῷα δύναμιν ἔχοντα, ὥσπερ\ τῶν ἄλλων γενῶν, τὸ πολὺ μὲν τῆς αὐτοῦ φύσεως, τὰ δὲ **c**\ σμικρότερα συνδέσμου χάριν ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων γενῶν· μετὰ\ δὲ τὸν αἰθέρα ἐξ ἀέρος πλάττειν τὴν ψυχὴν γένος ἕτερον > *Apparatus:* **c** 9 ἐρεῖ] αιρεῖ A (ἐ ref. in ras. A²) O (ἐ s. v. O²)   **b** 1 ταύτῃ A L O: ταῦτα vulg.   πάντῃ ταύτῃ A L: πάντῃ O   **b** 3 φαμεν γρ. O: φαίνωμεν A (sed ο ex ω A²) O   ἀθάνατον A O: τὸ μὲν s. v. et in marg. τὸ μὲν ἀθάνατον a cum γρ. O ### English such thing, are certain causes, he will say nothing clear; but what has been said by us **[d]** we must take up again very firmly, whether the account has reason in it or falls short in every way:[^29] first, that the things that are are two, the one soul, the other body, and many of each, all of them other than one another, and those of each kind other than those of the other, and no third thing common to any; and that soul differs from body. The one, I suppose, we shall set down as intelligent, the other as unintelligent; the one as ruling, the other as ruled; and the one as the cause of all things, the other as the cause of no affection at all; so that **[e]** to say that the things in the heaven, at least, have come into being by something else, and are not thus the offspring of soul and of body, is great folly and want of reason. If, then, the accounts about all such things are to win, and all such things are credibly to appear to have come into being divine, we must certainly set them down as one of two: for either we must hymn them, most rightly, as gods themselves, or **[984]** take them to have come into being as images of gods, like statues, the gods themselves having made them; for they are not the work of the senseless, at least, nor of those of little worth; but, as we have said, we must set down one of these two, and once they are set down we must honor them above all statues; for never will statues appear finer and more common to all mankind, nor set up in more excellent places, nor **[b]** more excellent in purity and solemnity and in all their life, than in this way, as in every way they have come to be in this way. Now, then, about gods let us attempt this much, at least: having observed the two living beings visible to us, of which we say that one is immortal[^30] and that the earthly one has come into being wholly mortal, to try to speak of the three in the middle of the five, those that, according to the fair opinion, have most clearly come into being between these. For let us set down ether after fire, and let us set down that soul molds from it living beings that have power, as **[c]** with the other kinds, for the most part of its own nature, and in the smaller parts, for the sake of a bond, from the other kinds; and that after the ether the soul molds from air another kind [^29]: *The account has reason in it*: *echei logon ho logos*, “the *logos* has *logos*”; *logon echein* is “be reasonable”. [^30]: *One is immortal*: Burnet prints *athanaton*, “immortal”, alone; *to men*, “the one”, is written above the line in A by a later hand and given as a variant in O. The English supplies it, as the following “the earthly one” requires. --- ## 984c–985b ### Greek (Burnet, page 15) ζῴων, καὶ τὸ τρίτον ἐξ ὕδατος. πάντα δὲ δημιουργήσασαν\ ταῦτα ψυχὴν ζῴων εἰκὸς ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἐμπλῆσαι, χρησαμένην **5**\ πᾶσι τοῖς γένεσι κατὰ δύναμιν, πάντων μὲν μετόχων τοῦ ζῆν\ γεγονότων· δεύτερα δὲ καὶ τρίτα καὶ τέταρτα καὶ πέμπτα,\ ἀπὸ θεῶν τῶν φανερῶν ἀρξάμενα γενέσεως, εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς **d**\ ἀνθρώπους ἀποτελευτᾶν.\  Θεοὺς μὲν δή, Δία τε καὶ Ἥραν καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πάντας,\ ὅπῃ τις ἐθέλει, ταύτῃ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τιθέσθω νόμον καὶ\ πάγιον ἐχέτω τοῦτον τὸν λόγον· θεοὺς δὲ δὴ τοὺς ὁρατούς, **5**\ μεγίστους καὶ τιμιωτάτους καὶ ὀξύτατον ὁρῶντας πάντῃ, τοὺς\ πρώτους τὴν τῶν ἄστρων φύσιν λεκτέον καὶ ὅσα μετὰ τούτων\ αἰσθανόμεθα γεγονότα, μετὰ δὲ τούτους καὶ ὑπὸ τούτοις ἑξῆς\ δαίμονας, ἀέριον δὲ γένος, ἔχον ἕδραν τρίτην καὶ μέσην, τῆς **e**\ ἑρμηνείας αἴτιον, εὐχαῖς τιμᾶν μάλα χρεὼν χάριν τῆς εὐφήμου\ διαπορείας. τῶν δὲ δύο τούτων ζῴων, τοῦ τ’ ἐξ αἰθέρος ἐφεξῆς\ τε ἀέρος ὄν, διορώμενον ὅλον αὐτῶν ἑκάτερον εἶναι—παρὸν\ δὴ πλησίον οὐ κατάδηλον ἡμῖν γίγνεσθαι—μετέχοντα δὲ **5**\ φρονήσεως θαυμαστῆς, ἅτε γένους ὄντα εὐμαθοῦς τε καὶ **985**\ μνήμονος, γιγνώσκειν μὲν σύμπασαν τὴν ἡμετέραν αὐτὰ\ διάνοιαν λέγωμεν, καὶ τόν τε καλὸν ἡμῶν καὶ ἀγαθὸν ἅμα\ θαυμαστῶς ἀσπάζεσθαι καὶ τὸν σφόδρα κακὸν μισεῖν, ἅτε\ λύπης μετέχοντα ἤδη—θεὸν μὲν γὰρ δὴ τὸν τέλος ἔχοντα **5**\ τῆς θείας μοίρας ἔξω τούτων εἶναι, λύπης τε καὶ ἡδονῆς, τοῦ\ δὲ φρονεῖν καὶ τοῦ γιγνώσκειν κατὰ πάντα μετειληφέναι—\ καὶ συμπλήρους δὴ ζῴων οὐρανοῦ γεγονότος, ἑρμηνεύεσθαι **b**\ πρὸς ἀλλήλους τε καὶ τοὺς ἀκροτάτους θεοὺς πάντας τε καὶ\ πάντα, διὰ τὸ φέρεσθαι τὰ μέσα τῶν ζῴων ἐπί τε γῆν καὶ ἐπὶ\ τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἐλαφρᾷ φερόμενα ῥύμῃ. τὸ δὲ ὕδατος\ πέμπτον ὂν ἡμίθεον μὲν ἀπεικάσειεν ἄν τις ὀρθῶς ἀπεικάζων **5**\ ἐξ αὐτοῦ γεγονέναι, καὶ τοῦτ’ εἶναι τοτὲ μὲν ὁρώμενον, ἄλλοτε > *Apparatus:* **e** 1 δὲ γένος A L O Eus.: γε Vat. 1029 Stallbaum   **e** 3 διαπορίας A (sed ί in ras.)   **e** 4 ὂν διορώμενον A L O: οὐ διορώμενον vulg.: οὐδ’ ὁρώμενον Hermann   **a** 4 κακὸν L O² (ον s. v.): κακῶς A O   **b** 1 δὴ A L: δὲ O   **b** 6 καὶ A: om. O ### English of living beings, and the third from water. And it is likely that soul, having crafted all these, filled the whole heaven with living beings, making use of all the kinds as far as it could, all of them having come to share in life; and that the second and third and fourth and fifth, **[d]** beginning their coming into being from the manifest gods, end in us human beings. As for the gods, Zeus and Hera and all the others, let anyone set them down where he wishes, by the same law, and let him keep this account fixed; but as the visible gods, the greatest and most honored and the sharpest-sighted everywhere, the first, we must speak of the nature of the stars and all the things that we perceive to have come into being along with them; and after these, and below them, next, **[e]** the daimons, and the kind of air, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation, we must very much honor with prayers for the sake of the auspicious passage.[^31] Of these two living beings, the one of ether and the one that is next in order, of air, each of them being wholly such as to be seen through — and, though near at hand, it does not become plain to us — but sharing in **[985]** a wonderful intelligence, since they are of a kind quick to learn and of good memory, let us say that they know all our thought, and that they at once welcome the fine and good among us wonderfully, and hate the very bad, as already sharing in pain — for the god who has the completion of the divine portion is outside these, pain and pleasure, but has a share in being intelligent and in knowing in every respect — **[b]** and, the heaven having indeed become full of living beings, that they interpret everyone and everything to one another and to the highest gods, because the middle living beings are carried along both to the earth and to the whole heaven, carried along with a light rush. As for the fifth, which is of water, one who likens rightly would liken it to a demigod, as having come into being from it, and as being sometimes seen, and at other times [^31]: *Daimons*: in the *Symposium* (202e) Diotima calls all that is daimonic “interpreting and conveying” between gods and men. --- ## 985b–986a ### Greek (Burnet, page 16) δὲ ἀποκρυφθὲν ἄδηλον γιγνόμενον, θαῦμα κατ’ ἀμυδρὰν ὄψιν\ παρεχόμενον. τούτων δὴ τῶν πέντε ὄντως ὄντων ζῴων, ὅπῃ **c**\ τινὲς ἐνέτυχον ἡμῶν, ἢ καθ’ ὕπνον ἐν ὀνειροπολίᾳ προστυ-\ χόντες, ἢ κατὰ φήμας τε καὶ μαντείας λεχθέν τισιν ἐν ἀκοαῖς\ ὑγιαίνουσιν ἢ καὶ κάμνουσιν, ἢ καὶ τελευτῇ βίου προστυχέσι\ γενομένοις, ἰδίᾳ τε καὶ δημοσίᾳ δόξας παραγενομένας, ὅθεν **5**\ ἱερὰ πολλὰ πολλῶν γέγονεν, τὰ δὲ γενήσεται, τούτων πάντων\ νομοθέτης, ὅστις νοῦν κέκτηται καὶ τὸν βραχύτατον, οὔποτε\ μὴ τολμήσῃ καινοτομῶν, ἐπὶ θεοσέβειαν ἥτις μὴ σαφὲς ἔχει\ τι τρέψαι πόλιν ἑαυτοῦ· καὶ μὴν οὐδ’ ὧν ὁ πάτριος νόμος **d**\ εἴρηκεν περὶ θυσιῶν ἀποκωλύσει, μηδὲν τὸ παράπαν εἰδώς,\ ὥσπερ οὐδ’ ὂν δυνατὸν εἰδέναι τῇ θνητῇ φύσει τῶν τοιούτων\ πέρι. τοὺς δὲ ὄντως ἡμῖν φανεροὺς ὄντας θεοὺς ἆρ’ οὐχ\ αὑτὸς λόγος ἔχει κακίστους εἶναι τοὺς μὴ τολμῶντας λέγειν **5**\ ἡμῖν καὶ φανεροὺς ποιεῖν ἀνοργιάστους τε ὄντας ἑτέρους\ θεοὺς καὶ τιμὰς μὴ δεχομένους τὰς προσηκούσας αὐτοῖς; νῦν\ δὲ δὴ συμβαίνει γιγνόμενον ἅμα τὸ τοιοῦτον· οἷον γὰρ εἴ **e**\ ποτέ τις ἡμῶν ἥλιον ἢ σελήνην ἑωρακὼς ἦν γιγνομένους\ ἐφορῶντάς τε ἡμᾶς πάντας, καὶ μὴ ἔφραζεν ἀδύνατος ὤν πῃ\ φράζειν, τιμῆς τε ἀμοίρους ὄντας ἅμα καὶ μὴ προθυμοῖτο τό\ γε αὑτοῦ μέρος, εἰς ἔντιμον χώραν καταφανεῖς ἄγων αὐτούς, **5**\ ἑορτάς τε αὐτοῖς γίγνεσθαι ποιεῖν καὶ θυσίας, ἀπολαμβανό-\ μενόν τε χρόνον ἑκάστοις μειζόνων καὶ ἐλαττόνων πολλάκις\ ἐνιαυτῶν ὥρας διανέμειν, ἆρ’ οὐκ ἂν κακὸς ἑαυτῷ τε καὶ **986**\ ἄλλῳ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι λεγόμενος ἐν δίκῃ συνεδόκει λέγεσθαί\ ποτ’ ἄν;\  ΚΛ. Πῶς γὰρ οὔκ, ὦ ξένε; κάκιστος μὲν οὖν.\  ΑΘ. Τοῦτο τοίνυν, ὦ Κλεινία φίλε, περὶ ἐμὲ νῦν γιγνό- **5**\ μενον ἴσθι φανερῶς.\  ΚΛ. Πῶς λέγεις; > *Apparatus:* **c** 4 γρ. τοῦ βίου O   **c** 5 ἰδίᾳ τε] γρ. τοῖς δὲ O   **d** 5 αὑτὸς re vera A   **e** 1 γὰρ A L O: ἂν vulg.   **e** 3 ἀδύνατος] δυνατὸς Grou   **e** 4 προθυμοῖτο] προὐθυμεῖτο Hermann   **e** 7 καὶ A O: τε καὶ O² ### English hidden away and becoming unseen, **[c]** presenting a wonder to dim sight. Of these five living beings, then, that really are, in whatever way some of us have met with them, whether meeting with them in sleep, in dreaming, or through voices and oracles told to some in their hearing, in health or in sickness too, or also to those who have met with the end of life, opinions that have arisen in private and in public, from which many sacred rites of many have come to be, and others will come to be — of all these, the lawgiver who has acquired sense, even the least, will never dare, innovating, **[d]** to turn his city to a reverence toward the gods that has nothing clear about it; nor indeed will he prevent what the ancestral law has said about sacrifices, knowing nothing at all, as it is not even possible for mortal nature to know about such things. But as for the gods who are really manifest to us, does not the same account[^32] hold that those are the worst who do not dare to speak of them to us and make it manifest that they are other gods, who are without rites and do not receive the honors that belong to them? **[e]** But now, as it is, just such a thing turns out to be happening at the same time. For it is as if one of us had ever seen the sun or the moon coming into being and looking down on us all, and did not declare it, being in some way unable to declare it, and they, at the same time, were without a portion of honor, and he were not eager, for his own part at least, by bringing them, plainly seen, into an honored place, to make feasts and sacrifices take place for them, and, setting apart a time for each, **[986]** to distribute the seasons of years often longer and shorter: would he not, if he were called bad, seem to himself and to anyone else who knew to be called so justly? **Clin.** Of course, stranger; the very worst, indeed. **Ath.** Well then, my dear Clinias, know that this is manifestly happening now in my own case. **Clin.** What do you mean? [^32]: *The same account*: *hautos*, contracted from *ho autos*, “the same”; Burnet records that A really has this form. --- ## 986a–986e ### Greek (Burnet, page 17)  ΑΘ. Ἴστε ὀκτὼ δυνάμεις τῶν περὶ ὅλον οὐρανὸν γεγονυίας\ ἀδελφὰς ἀλλήλων, ὧν καθεώρακα ἐγώ—καὶ οὐδὲν μέγα διαπέ-\ πραγμαι· ῥᾴδιον γὰρ καὶ ἑτέρῳ—τούτων δ’ εἰσὶ τρεῖς αὗται, **b**\ μία μὲν ἡλίου, μία δὲ σελήνης, μία δὲ τῶν \[πλανητῶν\] ἄστρων\ ὧν ἐμνήσθημεν ὀλίγον ἔμπροσθεν, πέντε δὲ ἕτεραι. ταύτας\ δὴ πάσας καὶ τούτους τοὺς ἐν ταύταισιν εἴτε αὐτοὺς ἰόντας εἴτε\ φερομένους ἐν ὀχήμασι πορεύεσθαι ταύτῃ, μηδεὶς ἄλλως ποτὲ **5**\ νομίσῃ πάντων ἡμῶν ὡς οἱ μὲν θεοί εἰσιν αὐτῶν, οἱ δ’ οὔ,\ μηδ’ ὡς οἱ μὲν γνήσιοι, οἱ δὲ τοιοῦτοί τινες οἵους οὐδὲ θέμις\ εἰπεῖν ἡμῶν οὐδενί, πάντες δὲ δὴ πάντας λέγωμέν τε καὶ\ φῶμεν ἀδελφούς τ’ εἶναι καὶ ἐν ἀδελφαῖς μοίραις, καὶ τιμὰς **c**\ ἀποδιδῶμεν μὴ τῷ μὲν ἐνιαυτόν, τῷ δὲ μῆνα, τοῖς δὲ μήτε\ τινὰ μοῖραν τάττωμεν μήτε τινὰ χρόνον ἐν ᾧ διεξέρχεται\ τὸν αὑτοῦ πόλον, συναποτελῶν κόσμον ὃν ἔταξεν λόγος ὁ\ πάντων θειότατος ὁρατόν· ὃν ὁ μὲν εὐδαίμων πρῶτον μὲν **5**\ ἐθαύμασεν, ἔπειτα δὲ ἔρωτα ἔσχεν τοῦ καταμαθεῖν ὁπόσα\ θνητῇ φύσει δυνατά, ἡγούμενος ἄρισθ’ οὕτως εὐτυχέστατά τε\ διάξειν τὸν βίον τελευτήσας τε εἰς τόπους ἥξειν προσήκοντας **d**\ ἀρετῇ, καὶ μεμυημένος ἀληθῶς τε καὶ ὄντως, μεταλαβὼν\ φρονήσεως εἷς ὢν μιᾶς, τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον θεωρὸς τῶν\ καλλίστων γενόμενος, ὅσα κατ’ ὄψιν, διατελεῖ. νῦν δὴ τὸ\ μετὰ τοῦθ’ ἡμῖν λοιπὸν λέγειν ὅσοι τ’ εἰσίν, καὶ τίνες· οὐ γὰρ **5**\ μήποτε φανῶμεν ψευδεῖς. βεβαίως δὴ διισχυρίζομαι τό γε **e**\ τοσοῦτον. λέγω γὰρ πάλιν ὀκτὼ μὲν εἶναι, τῶν δὲ ὀκτὼ\ τρεῖς μὲν εἰρῆσθαι, πέντε δ’ ἔτι λοιπάς. ἡ τετάρτη δὲ φορὰ\ καὶ διέξοδος ἅμα καὶ πέμπτη τάχει μὲν ἡλίῳ σχεδὸν ἴση, καὶ\ οὔτε βραδυτέρα οὔτε θάττων τό γ’ ἐπίπαν. δεῖ τούτων τριῶν **5**\ ὄντων τὸν νοῦν ἱκανὸν ἔχοντα ἡγεῖσθαι. λέγωμεν δὴ ταύτας\ ἡλίου τ’ εἶναι καὶ ἑωσφόρου, καὶ τρίτου—ὡς μὲν ὀνόματι\ φράζειν οὐκ ἔστιν διὰ τὸ μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι, τούτου δ’ αἴτιος\ ὁ πρῶτος ταῦτα κατιδὼν βάρβαρος ὤν· παλαιὸς γὰρ δὴ > *Apparatus:* **b** 2 πλανητῶν (A O) seclusi: πλανήτων L: ἀπλανῶν Ast: πάντων vulg.   **c** 2 μήτε τινὰ] μή τινα Eus.   **c** 3 μήτε] μηδὲ Eus.   **c** 5 ὁρατόν om. Eus.   **e** 5 δεῖ scripsi: ἀεὶ libri ### English **Ath.** Know that there are eight powers of the things about the whole heaven, born sisters of one another, which I have seen — and I have accomplished nothing great, **[b]** for it is easy for another too — and of these, these are three: one of the sun, one of the moon, and one of the stars that we mentioned a little before,[^33] and five others. All these, then, and those that are in them, as they travel this way, whether they go of themselves or are carried along in vehicles: let none of us all ever hold otherwise, that some of them are gods and others not, nor that some are true-born and others of such a sort as it is not permitted for any of us even to say; but let us all speak and **[c]** say that they are all brothers and in sister portions, and let us render them honors, not to one a year and to another a month, while to others we assign neither any portion nor any time in which it goes through its own orbit, helping to complete the cosmos that reason, the most divine of all, set in order to be visible. The happy man first wonders at it, and then he comes to have a love of learning thoroughly as much as is possible for mortal nature, thinking that in this way he **[d]** will pass his life best and most fortunately, and, when he has died, will come to places that belong to virtue; and, initiated[^34] truly and really, having had a share, being one, in one intelligence, he continues for the rest of time as a contemplator of the finest things, as many as there are for sight. Now, then, what remains for us after this is to say how many they are, and which; for **[e]** we shall never appear false. I affirm this much, at least, firmly. For I say again that they are eight, and that of the eight three have been spoken of, and five are still left. The fourth motion and course, and the fifth along with it, are in speed very nearly equal to the sun, and neither slower nor faster, on the whole. The one that has sense good enough must lead these, which are three.[^35] Let us say, then, that these are the sun’s and the Dawn-bringer’s,[^36] and a third’s — which it is not possible to declare by a name, because it is not known; and the cause of this is the first to observe these things, being a barbarian; for indeed an ancient [^33]: *The stars*: Burnet deletes *planētōn*, “wandering”, which all three manuscripts have (L with another accent); Ast proposed *aplanōn*, “fixed”. Without the word, the stars meant are perhaps the fixed stars (interpretation). [^34]: *Initiated*: *memuēmenos*, the word for one initiated into the mysteries. [^35]: *Must*: *dei*, Burnet’s own correction; the manuscripts have *aei*, “always”. *Lead*: *hēgeisthai*, with the genitive “these”; taken without it, the words could mean “these being three, one who has sense good enough must think so”, as *hēgeisthai* is rendered at 987d (interpretation). [^36]: *Dawn-bringer*: *Heōsphoros*, the morning star, the planet Venus. --- ## 987a–987d ### Greek (Burnet, page 18) τρόπος ἔθρεψεν τοὺς πρώτους ταῦτα ἐννοήσαντας διὰ τὸ **987**\ κάλλος τῆς θερινῆς ὥρας, ἣν Αἴγυπτός τε Συρία θ’ ἱκανῶς\ κέκτηται, φανεροὺς μὲν ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἀστέρας ἀεὶ σύμ-\ παντας καθορῶντας, ἅτε νεφῶν καὶ ὑδάτων ἀπόπροσθεν ἀεὶ\ τοῦ κόσμου κεκτημένους, ὅθεν καὶ πανταχόσε καὶ δεῦρ’ **5**\ ἐξήκει, βεβασανισμένα χρόνῳ μυριετεῖ τε καὶ ἀπείρῳ. διὸ\ θαρροῦντα χρὴ ταῦτα εἰς νόμους θέσθαι—τὸ γὰρ μὴ τίμια\ τὰ θεῖα εἶναι, τὰ δὲ τίμια, σαφῶς οὐκ ἐμφρόνων—ὅτι δὲ οὐκ\ ὀνόματα ἔσχηκεν, τήν γε αἰτίαν χρὴ λέγεσθαι ταύτην. ἀλλὰ **b**\ γὰρ ἐπωνυμίαν εἰλήφασιν θεῶν· ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἑωσφόρος ἕσπερός\ τε ὢν αὑτὸς Ἀφροδίτης εἶναι σχεδὸν ἔχει λόγον καὶ μάλα\ Συρίῳ νομοθέτῃ πρέπον, ὁ δ’ ὁμόδρομος ἡλίῳ τε ἅμα καὶ\ τούτῳ σχεδὸν Ἑρμοῦ. τρεῖς δ’ ἔτι φορὰς λέγωμεν ἐπὶ δεξιὰ **5**\ πορευομένων μετὰ σελήνης τε καὶ ἡλίου. ἕνα δὲ τὸν ὄγδοον\ χρὴ λέγειν, ὃν μάλιστά τις ἂν κόσμον προσαγορεύοι, ὃς ἐναν-\ τίος ἐκείνοις σύμπασιν πορεύεται, ⟨οὐκ⟩ ἄγων τοὺς ἄλλους,\ ὥς γε ἀνθρώποις φαίνοιτ’ ἂν ὀλίγα τούτων εἰδόσιν. ὅσα δὲ\ ἱκανῶς ἴσμεν, ἀνάγκη λέγειν καὶ λέγομεν· ἡ γὰρ ὄντως **c**\ οὖσα σοφία ταύτῃ πῃ φαίνεται τῷ καὶ σμικρὰ συννοίας ὀρθῆς\ θείας τε μετειληφότι. λοιποὶ δὴ τρεῖς ἀστέρες, ὧν εἷς μὲν\ βραδυτῆτι διαφέρων αὐτῶν ἐστι, Κρόνου δ’ αὐτόν τινες ἐπω-\ νυμίαν φθέγγονται· τὸν δὲ μετὰ τοῦτον βραδυτῆτι λέγειν **5**\ χρὴ Διός, Ἄρεως δὲ ὁ μετὰ τοῦτον, πάντων δὲ οὗτος\ ἐρυθρώτατον ἔχει χρῶμα. χαλεπὸν δὲ οὐδὲν τούτων κατα-\ νοῆσαί τινα φράζοντός τινος, ἀλλὰ μαθόντα, ὡς λέγομεν, **d**\ ἡγεῖσθαι δεῖ.\  Τόδε γε μὴν διανοηθῆναι χρὴ πάντ’ ἄνδρα Ἕλληνα, ὡς\ τόπον ἔχομεν τὸν τῶν Ἑλλήνων πρὸς ἀρετὴν ἐν τοῖς σχεδὸν > *Apparatus:* **a** 1 τρόπος A L O: τόπος Eus.   **a** 2 τε Eus.: τε καὶ libri   θ’ A L O: om. vulg.   **a** 4 γρ. ἀπόπροθεν O   **a** 5 κεκτημένους A L O: κατῳκισμένους vulg.   **a** 8 τὰ δὲ τίμια libri: ἢ τάδε μὴ θεῖα vulg.   **b** 3 αὐτὸς A   **b** 4 πρέπων fecit A² (ω ex ο)   **b** 7 ἂν scripsi: ἄνω libri   **b** 8 οὐκ addidi   **c** 4 κρόνου L O² (s. v.): ἡλίου A O: φαίνωνα vulg.   **c** 5 τοῦτον] τοῦτο A   **c** 6 ἄρεος fecit A²   **c** 7 ἐρυθρότατον fecit A² ### English **[987]** way nourished those who first thought of these things,[^37] because of the beauty of the summer season, which Egypt and Syria possess well enough, seeing all the stars, so to speak, always manifest, inasmuch as they had always possessed them far from the clouds and waters of the cosmos; and from there these things have reached everywhere, and here too, having been tested by a time of countless years and without limit. So one must, with confidence, set these things down in laws — for that the divine things should be without honor, and the others honored, is clearly not the mark of intelligent men — and that they have not **[b]** got names, the cause, at least, must be said to be this. But in fact they have taken the titles of gods: for the Dawn-bringer, being the same as the Evening Star, very nearly has reason to be Aphrodite’s, a thing quite fitting for a Syrian lawgiver;[^38] and the one that runs the same course with the sun and with this one at once is very nearly Hermes’. Let us speak of three motions more, of those that travel to the right with the moon and the sun. And one must speak of the eighth as one, which one might most of all name cosmos, which travels contrary to all those, not leading the others, as it would appear, at least, to men who know little of these things.[^39] But what **[c]** we know well enough we must say, and we do say it; for the wisdom that really is appears in some such way to one who has had even a small share of right and divine understanding. Three stars remain, then, of which one differs from them in slowness, and some utter the title of Cronus for it; the one after this in slowness one must call Zeus’, and the one after this is Ares’, and this one has the reddest color of all.[^40] None of these is hard **[d]** for one to apprehend when someone declares them; but one who has learned must, as we say, think so. But every Greek man must think about this, at least: that the place we have, the place of the Greeks, is for virtue very nearly among the [^37]: *Way*: *tropos*. Eusebius has *topos*, “place”, which would make it the region that nourished them. [^38]: *The same as the Evening Star*: *hautos*, “the same”, as at 985d; Burnet records that A has *autos*, “itself”. The morning star and the evening star are one planet, Venus. [^39]: *Might … name*, *not leading*: *an* and *ouk* are Burnet’s own; the manuscripts have *anō*, “above”, and lack “not”, so that the eighth would lead the others. [^40]: *Cronus*: so L and a corrector of O; A and O have “the Sun’s”, the name the Chaldaeans gave this planet (Diodorus 2.30.3), and the early printed editions *Phainōn*, “the Shiner”. The planets named in this passage are, in modern names, Venus (Aphrodite’s), Mercury (Hermes’), Saturn (Cronus’), Jupiter (Zeus’) and Mars (Ares’). --- ## 987d–988c ### Greek (Burnet, page 19) ἄριστον· τὸ δ’ ἐπαινετὸν αὐτοῦ χρὴ λέγειν ὅτι μέσος ἂν εἴη **5**\ χειμώνων τε καὶ τῆς θερινῆς φύσεως, ἡ δ’ ὑστεροῦσα ἡμῖν\ εἰς τὸ θερινὸν φύσις τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἐκεῖ τόπον, ὅπερ εἴπομεν,\ ὕστερον αὐτοῖς παραδέδωκεν τὸ τούτων τῶν θεῶν τοῦ κόσμου\ κατανόημα. λάβωμεν δὲ ὡς ὅτιπερ ἂν Ἕλληνες βαρβάρων\ παραλάβωσι, κάλλιον τοῦτο εἰς τέλος ἀπεργάζονται· καὶ δὴ **e**\ καὶ περὶ τὰ νῦν λεγόμενα ταὐτὸν δεῖ διανοηθῆναι τοῦτο, ὡς\ χαλεπὸν μὲν πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀναμφισβητήτως ἐξευρίσκειν,\ πολλὴ δ’ ἐλπὶς ἅμα καὶ καλὴ κάλλιον καὶ δικαιότερον **988**\ ὄντως τῆς ἐκ τῶν βαρβάρων ἐλθούσης φήμης τε ἅμα καὶ\ θεραπείας πάντων τούτων τῶν θεῶν ἐπιμελήσεσθαι τοὺς\ Ἕλληνας, παιδείαις τε καὶ ἐκ Δελφῶν μαντείαις χρω-\ μένους καὶ πάσῃ τῇ κατὰ νόμους θεραπείᾳ. τόδε δὲ μηδείς **5**\ ποτε φοβηθῇ τῶν Ἑλλήνων, ὡς οὐ χρὴ περὶ τὰ θεῖά ποτε\ πραγματεύεσθαι θνητοὺς ὄντας, πᾶν δὲ τούτῳ διανοηθῆναι\ τοὐναντίον, ὡς οὔτε ἄφρον ἐστίν ποτε τὸ θεῖον οὔτε ἀγνοεῖ\ που τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν, ἀλλ’ οἶδεν ὅτι διδάσκοντος αὐ- **b**\ τοῦ συνακολουθήσει καὶ μαθήσεται τὰ διδασκόμενα. ὅτι δὲ\ διδάσκει τοῦτο αὐτὸ ἡμᾶς, μανθάνομεν δὲ ἡμεῖς ἀριθμόν τε καὶ\ ἀριθμεῖν, οἶδεν δήπου. πάντων γὰρ ἀφρονέστατον ἂν εἴη\ τοῦτο ἀγνοοῦν· τὸ λεγόμενον γὰρ ἂν ὄντως αὐτὸ αὑτὸ ἀγνοοῖ, **5**\ χαλεπαῖνον τῷ δυναμένῳ μανθάνειν, ἀλλ’ οὐ συγχαῖρον ἄνευ\ φθόνου διὰ θεὸν ἀγαθῷ γενομένῳ. λόγον δὴ καὶ πολὺν καὶ\ καλὸν ἔχει, τότε μέν, ὅτε περὶ θεῶν ἦν ἀνθρώποις διανοήματα **c**\ πρῶτα, ὥς τε ἐγένοντο οἷοί τε ἐγίγνοντο καὶ ὁ μὲν καὶ οἵας\ μετεχειρίζοντο πράξεις, μὴ κατὰ νοῦν τοῖς σώφροσιν λέγεσθαι\ μηδὲ φίλως, μηδ’ ὡς οἱ δεύτεροι, ἐν οἷς πρεσβύτατα μὲν τὰ\ πυρὸς ἐλέγετο καὶ ὕδατος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σωμάτων, ὕστερα δὲ **5**\ τὰ τῆς θαυμαστῆς ψυχῆς, καὶ φορὰ κρείττων καὶ τιμιωτέρα, ἣν > *Apparatus:* **d** 8 αὐτοῖς] αὖ Ast   **d** 9 δὲ] δὴ Eus.   **e** 1 παραλάβωσι L Eus.: παραλάβωμεν A O   **a** 7 τούτῳ A L O: τούτου vulg.   **b** 5 αὑτὸ O²: om. A O   **b** 6 οὐ] γρ. οὖν ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως O   **c** 2 καὶ ὁ μὲν A O (sed ὁ μὲν punct. not. O²): καὶ οἶμαι in marg. a: καὶ ὅθεν Hermann   **c** 4 μηδ’ ὡς] ὡς μηδ’ ci. Stallbaum   **c** 6 ἣν] τὴν A O: τὴν τὸ vulg. ### English best; and what is praiseworthy in it one must say: that it would be midway between winters and the summer nature; and our nature, which falls behind that of the place there in respect of summer, as we said, has handed down to them later the apprehension of these gods of the cosmos. And let us take it that whatever Greeks **[e]** take over from barbarians, they carry it more finely to completion; and indeed about what is now being said one must think this same thing: that it is hard to discover all such things beyond dispute, **[988]** but there is much hope, and fine hope too, that the Greeks will care for all these gods more finely and more justly, really, than the report and at once the service that came from the barbarians, using kinds of education and the oracles from Delphi and all the service according to the laws. And let none of the Greeks ever fear this, that those who are mortal ought never to busy themselves with divine things; but let him think the very opposite of this: that the divine is never unintelligent, nor is it ignorant, **[b]** I suppose, of human nature, but knows that when it teaches, human nature will follow along and learn what is taught. And that it teaches us this very thing, and that we learn number and counting, it knows, surely; for it would be the most unintelligent of all things if it were ignorant of this; for, as the saying goes, it would really be ignorant of its own self, being angry with what is able to learn, and not rejoicing with it, without envy, when it has become good through a god. **[c]** There is, then, much and fine reason in this: that at that time, when men had first thoughts about the gods — how they came into being, and of what sort they came to be, and the one, and what deeds they took in hand — these things were said not to the liking of the temperate, nor in a friendly way;[^41] nor as by the second, among whom the things of fire and water and the other bodies were said to be oldest, and those of the wonderful soul later, and the stronger and more honored motion to be the one that[^42] [^41]: *And the one*: so Burnet prints, with A and O; a corrector of O marks *ho men*, “the one”, as spurious, a later hand in A writes “and, I think” in the margin, and Hermann proposed “and whence”. The words make no clear sense. [^42]: *The second*: those who came after the poets, who said that fire, water and the other bodies were oldest and soul later; the *Laws* answers them (10.891c–896c) (interpretation). --- ## 988c–989b ### Greek (Burnet, page 20) σῶμα εἴληχεν φέρειν αὐτό τε ἑαυτὸ θερμότητι καὶ ψύξεσιν\ καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς τοιούτοις, ἀλλ’ οὐ ψυχὴ σῶμά τε καὶ ἑαυτήν·\ νῦν δ’ ὅτε λέγομεν ψυχὴν μέν, ἄνπερ ἐν σώματι γένηται, **d**\ θαῦμα οὐδὲν κινεῖν τε καὶ περιφέρειν τοῦτο καὶ ἑαυτήν, οὐδ’\ ἡμῖν ἀπιστεῖ ψυχὴ κατὰ λόγον οὐδένα ὡς βάρος οὐδὲν περι-\ φέρειν δυναμένη. διὸ καὶ νῦν ἡμῶν ἀξιούντων, ψυχῆς οὔσης\ αἰτίας τοῦ ὅλου, καὶ πάντων μὲν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ὄντων τοιούτων, **5**\ τῶν δὲ αὖ φλαύρων τοιούτων ἄλλων, τῆς μὲν φορᾶς πάσης\ καὶ κινήσεως ψυχὴν αἰτίαν εἶναι θαῦμα οὐδέν, τὴν δ’ ἐπὶ **e**\ τἀγαθὸν φορὰν καὶ κίνησιν τῆς ἀρίστης ψυχῆς εἶναι, τὴν δ’\ ἐπὶ τοὐναντίον ἐναντίαν, νενικηκέναι δεῖ καὶ νικᾶν τὰ ἀγαθὰ\ τὰ μὴ τοιαῦτα.\  Ταῦτα ἡμῖν εἴρηται πάντα κατὰ τὴν τῶν ἀνοσίων τιμωρὸν **5**\ \[δὲ\] δίκην· περὶ δὲ δὴ τὸ δοκιμαζόμενον οὐχ οἷόν τε ἡμῖν\ ἀπιστεῖν ὡς οὐ δεῖ τόν γε ἀγαθὸν σοφὸν ἡμᾶς ἡγεῖσθαι,\ τὴν δὲ σοφίαν ταύτην, ἣν ζητοῦμεν πάλαι, ἴδωμεν ἄν ποτ’ **989**\ ἄρα ἐπινοήσωμεν ἢ κατὰ παιδείαν ἢ κατὰ τέχνην, ἥντινα τοῦ\ γιγνώσκειν ἐνδεεῖς ὄντες τῶν δικαίων, ἀγνώμονες ἂν εἶμεν\ ὄντες τοιοῦτοι. δοκοῦμεν δή μοι, καὶ λεκτέον· ἄνω γὰρ καὶ\ κάτω ζητῶν ᾗ μοι καταφανὴς γέγονεν, πειράσομαι δήλην **5**\ ὑμῖν αὐτὴν ἀποτελεῖν. τὸ δὴ μέγιστον ἀρετῆς οὐ καλῶς\ πραττόμενον ἡμῖν γέγονεν αἴτιον, ὡς ἄρτι σημαίνειν ἐκ τῶν\ εἰρημένων μοι σφόδρα δοκεῖ. μεῖζον μὲν γὰρ ἀρετῆς μηδεὶς **b**\ ἡμᾶς ποτε πείσῃ τῆς εὐσεβείας εἶναι τῷ θνητῷ γένει· τοῦτο\ δ’ ὅτι δι’ ἀμαθίαν τὴν μεγίστην ἐν ταῖς ἀρίσταις φύσεσιν\ οὐ γέγονεν, λεκτέον. ἄρισται δ’ εἰσὶν αἱ χαλεπώτατα μὲν ἂν\ γενόμεναι, μέγιστον δὲ ὄφελος, ἂν γίγνωνται· τά τε γὰρ τῆς **5**\ βραδείας τε καὶ τῆς ἐναντίας φύσεως μετρίως ἀποδεχομένη\ ψυχὴ καὶ πρᾴως, εὔκολος ἂν εἴη, τήν τε ἀνδρείαν ἀγαμένη,\ καὶ πρὸς τὸ σωφρονεῖν εὐπειθής, καὶ τό γε μέγιστον, ἐν > *Apparatus:* **c** 7 τε] γε ci. Stallbaum   **d** 2 θαῦμα οὐδὲν secl. Stallbaum (e1 secl. Hermann)   **e** 6 δὲ A L O: δὴ ci. Stallbaum om. vulg.   **a** 3 γρ. εἶμεν ἀπ’ ὀρθώσεως O: εἴημεν A O   **b** 2 πείσῃ L (ut vid.): πεισθῇ A O: πείθῃ vulg. ### English body has obtained, to carry its own self by heat and coldness and all such things, and not the one by which soul carries body and itself. **[d]** But now, when we say that it is no wonder that soul, if it comes to be in a body, moves and carries round both this and itself, soul does not, by any account, disbelieve us, as though it were unable to carry round any weight. And so now too, since we claim — soul being the cause of the whole, and all good things being of this sort, and the poor ones, again, of another such sort — **[e]** that it is no wonder that soul is the cause of all motion and movement, and that the motion and movement toward the good belongs to the best soul, and the contrary to the contrary, the good things must have conquered, and must conquer, the things that are not such. All these things have been said by us in accordance with the justice that avenges the unholy; but as to the matter under scrutiny, then, it is not possible for us to disbelieve that we must think the good man, at least, wise; **[989]** but this wisdom, which we have long been seeking, let us see whether we might ever, then, come to think of it, either by education or by craft: one, lacking the knowing of which, we would be without judgment of what is just, being such. And to me we do seem to be such; and it must be said; for, seeking up and down, in the way it has become plain to me, I shall try to make it clear to you. The greatest thing of virtue, then, not being finely practiced, has become the cause for us, as, **[b]** it very strongly seems to me, what has been said just now indicates. For let no one ever persuade us that anything of virtue is greater, for the mortal race, than piety; and it must be said that it is through the greatest stupidity that this has not come about in the best natures.[^43] The best are those that would come into being with the greatest difficulty, but are of the greatest benefit, if they come into being; for a soul that accepts the things of the slow nature and of the contrary one moderately and gently would be good-natured, admiring courage, and ready to be persuaded toward being temperate; and, what is greatest, in [^43]: *Stupidity*: *amathia*, as in the series (*Alcibiades I*). --- ## 989c–990b ### Greek (Burnet, page 21) ταύταις ταῖς φύσεσιν δυναμένη μανθάνειν καὶ μνήμων οὖσα, **c**\ εὖ μάλα χαίρειν τούτοις αὐτοῖς δύναιτ’ ἂν φιλομαθὴς ὥστ’\ εἶναι. ταῦτα γὰρ οὔτε ῥᾴδια φύεσθαι, γενόμενά τε, καὶ\ τροφῆς καὶ παιδείας τυχόντα ἧς δεῖ, τοὺς πλείστους αὐτῶν\ καὶ χείρους κατέχειν ὀρθότατα δύναιτ’ ἂν τῷ φρονεῖν καὶ **5**\ πράττειν καὶ λέγειν περὶ θεοὺς ἕκαστα ὡς δεῖ τε καὶ ὅτε δεῖ,\ περὶ θυσίας τε καὶ καθαρμοὺς τῶν περὶ θεούς τε καὶ ἀνθρώ-\ πους, οὐ σχήμασι τεχνάζοντας, ἀλλὰ ἀληθείᾳ τιμῶντας\ ἀρετήν, ὃ δὴ καὶ μέγιστόν ἐστι συμπάντων πάσῃ τῇ πόλει. **d**\ τοῦτο δὴ οὖν τὸ μέρος εἶναί φαμεν φύσει κυριώτατον καὶ\ δυνατὸν ὡς οἷόν τε κάλλιστα καὶ ἄριστα μαθεῖν, εἰ διδάσκοι\ τις. ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ἂν διδάξειεν, εἰ μὴ θεὸς ὑφηγοῖτο· εἰ τ’ οὖν\ διδάσκοι, κατὰ τρόπον δὲ μὴ δρῷ τὸ τοιοῦτον, κρεῖττον μὴ **5**\ μανθάνειν. ὅμως δ’ ἐκ τῶν νῦν λεγομένων ἀνάγκη μαθεῖν\ ταῦτα καὶ ἐμὲ λέγειν τὴν τοιαύτην τε καὶ ἀρίστην φύσιν.\ πειρώμεθα δὴ τῷ τε λόγῳ διεξελθεῖν ἅ τ’ ἐστὶν καὶ οἷα καὶ **e**\ ὡς δεῖ μανθάνειν, κατὰ δύναμιν τήν τ’ ἐμὴν τοῦ λέγοντος\ καὶ τὴν τῶν δυναμένων εἰσακοῦσαι, θεοσεβείας ᾧτινι τρόπῳ **990**\ τις τίνα μαθήσεται. σχεδὸν μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ἄτοπον ἀκού-\ σαντι, τὸ δ’ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ λέγομεν ἡμεῖς γε, ὅ τις οὐκ ἄν ποτε\ δόξειεν δι’ ἀπειρίαν τοῦ πράγματος—ἀστρονομίαν—ἀγνοεῖ τε\ ὅτι σοφώτατον ἀνάγκη τὸν ἀληθῶς ἀστρονόμον εἶναι, μὴ τὸν **5**\ καθ’ Ἡσίοδον ἀστρονομοῦντα καὶ πάντας τοὺς τοιούτους, οἷον\ δυσμάς τε καὶ ἀνατολὰς ἐπεσκεμμένον, ἀλλὰ τὸν τῶν ὀκτὼ\ περιόδων τὰς ἑπτὰ περιόδους, διεξιούσης τὸν αὑτῶν κύκλον\ ἑκάστης οὕτως ὡς οὐκ ἂν ῥᾳδίως ποτὲ πᾶσα φύσις ἱκανὴ **b**\ γένοιτο θεωρῆσαι, μὴ θαυμαστῆς μετέχουσα φύσεως. ὃ νῦν\ εἰρήκαμεν ἐροῦμέν τε, ὥς φαμεν, ὅπῃ δεῖ τε καὶ ὅπως χρεὼν\ μανθάνειν· πρῶτον δ’ ἡμῖν τόδε λεγέσθω. > *Apparatus:* **d** 2 φαμεν ἐν φύσει in marg. L O   **d** 4 εἴτ’ οὖν A O: εἰ δ’ οὖν L O²   **d** 7 τε] γε ci. Stallbaum   **a** 1 δυναμένων] δυναμεων A (ν s. v. A²)   **a** 4 ἀγνοεῖ τε Schneider: ἀγνοεῖτε vulg.   **a** 8 αὑτῶν A L O: αὐτὸν vulg.   **b** 1 οὐκ ἂν O²: οὐ καὶ A O ### English **[c]** these natures able to learn, and having a good memory, it would be able to delight very much in these very things, so as to be a lover of learning. For these are not easy to grow; but once they have come into being, and have met with the nourishment and education they need, they would be able most rightly to hold in check the most of them, and the worse ones, by being intelligent and by doing and saying each thing about the gods as one must and when one must, concerning the sacrifices and purifications that bear on gods and men; not contriving with outward show, but honoring **[d]** virtue in truth, which is indeed the greatest thing of all for the whole city. This part, then, we say is by nature the most sovereign, and able to learn as finely and as well as is possible, if someone should teach it. But one would not even teach it unless a god led the way; and if, then, someone should teach, but not do such a thing in the right way, it is preferable not to learn. Nevertheless, from what is now being said, the nature of this kind and the best must learn these things, and I must say them. **[e]** Let us try, then, to go through in the account what these things are, and of what sort, and how one must learn them, according to the power both of me as the speaker **[990]** and of those able to give ear: in what way one will learn what things of reverence toward the gods. It is very nearly strange, then, to one who hears it; but we, at least, say its name — a name that one would never expect, through inexperience of the matter: astronomy; and one is ignorant that the true astronomer must be the wisest: not the one who does astronomy after Hesiod’s fashion, and all such men, as one who has looked into settings and risings,[^44] but the one who has looked into the seven circuits of the eight circuits,[^45] **[b]** each going through its own cycle in such a way as no nature would ever easily become good enough to contemplate, unless it shares in a wonderful nature. What we have now spoken of we shall also tell, as we say: where one must learn it and how one must; but first let this be said by us. [^44]: *Hesiod*: in the *Works and Days* the farmer’s year is timed by the risings and settings of the Pleiades, Arcturus and Orion (383–387, 564–567, 597–598, 609–617). [^45]: *The seven circuits*: the moon’s, the sun’s and those of the five stars named at 987b–c; the eighth is the one that travels contrary to them all, which one might most of all name cosmos (987b). --- ## 990b–991a ### Greek (Burnet, page 22)  Σελήνη μὲν περίοδον τὴν αὑτῆς τάχιστα διέξεισιν, ἄγουσα **5**\ μῆνα καὶ πανσέληνον πρώτην· δεύτερον δὲ κατανοεῖν δεῖ\ τὸν ἥλιον, τροπὰς ἄγοντα διὰ πάσης τῆς αὑτοῦ περιόδου, καὶ\ τούτῳ τοὺς συνδρόμους. ἵνα δὲ μὴ πολλάκις ταὐτὰ περὶ\ τῶν αὐτῶν διαλεγώμεθα, τὰς ἄλλας ὅσας ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν **c**\ διεξήλθομεν ὁδοὺς τούτων οὐ ῥᾴδιον συννοεῖν, ἐπὶ δὲ ταῦτα\ παρασκευάζοντας φύσεις οἵας δυνατὸν εἶναι, χρεὼν πολλὰ\ προδιδάσκοντα καὶ ἐθίζοντα ἀεὶ διαπονήσασθαι παῖδα ὄντα\ καὶ νεανίσκον. διὸ μαθημάτων δέον ἂν εἴη· τὸ δὲ μέγιστόν **5**\ τε καὶ πρῶτον καὶ ἀριθμῶν αὐτῶν ἀλλ’ οὐ σώματα ἐχόντων,\ ἀλλὰ ὅλης τῆς τοῦ περιττοῦ τε καὶ ἀρτίου γενέσεώς τε καὶ\ δυνάμεως, ὅσην παρέχεται πρὸς τὴν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν.\ ταῦτα δὲ μαθόντι τούτοις ἐφεξῆς ἐστιν ὃ καλοῦσι μὲν **d**\ σφόδρα γελοῖον ὄνομα γεωμετρίαν, τῶν οὐκ ὄντων δὲ\ ὁμοίων ἀλλήλοις φύσει ἀριθμῶν ὁμοίωσις πρὸς τὴν τῶν\ ἐπιπέδων μοῖραν γεγονυῖά ἐστιν διαφανής· ὃ δὴ θαῦμα οὐκ\ ἀνθρώπινον ἀλλὰ γεγονὸς θεῖον φανερὸν ἂν γίγνοιτο τῷ **5**\ δυναμένῳ συννοεῖν. μετὰ δὲ ταύτην τοὺς τρὶς ηὐξημένους\ καὶ τῇ στερεᾷ φύσει ὁμοίους· τοὺς δὲ ἀνομοίους αὖ γεγονό-\ τας ἑτέρᾳ τέχνῃ ὁμοιοῖ, ταύτῃ ἣν δὴ στερεομετρίαν ἐκάλεσαν\ οἱ προστυχεῖς αὐτῇ γεγονότες· ὃ δὲ θεῖόν τ’ ἐστὶν καὶ θαυ- **e**\ μαστὸν τοῖς ἐγκαθορῶσί τε καὶ διανοουμένοις ὡς περὶ τὸ\ διπλάσιον ἀεὶ στρεφομένης τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ τῆς ἐξ ἐναντίας\ ταύτῃ καθ’ ἑκάστην ἀναλογίαν εἶδος καὶ γένος ἀποτυποῦται\ πᾶσα ἡ φύσις. ἡ μὲν δὴ πρώτη τοῦ διπλασίου κατ’ ἀριθμὸν **991**\ ἓν πρὸς δύο κατὰ λόγον φερομένη, διπλάσιον δὲ ἡ κατὰ\ δύναμιν οὖσα· ἡ δ’ εἰς τὸ στερεόν τε καὶ ἁπτὸν πάλιν αὖ > *Apparatus:* **b** 7 ἄγοντα scr. recc.: ἀγαγόντα A L O   **c** 2 ἐπὶ] ἐπεὶ A (ὶ supra εὶ A²) O   **c** 3 οἵας Theo et in marg. γρ. L O: δι’ ἃς A O   **c** 4 ἀεὶ scripsi: δεῖ libri: secl. Stallbaum   **c** 6 καὶ ἀριθμῶν A L O: ἀριθμὸν vulg.: ἀριθμῶν Bekker   σώματα L Theo et in marg. γρ. O: σώματος A O   **d** 3 ὁμοίωσις O² (ι supra ει): ὁμοιώσεις A O   **d** 6 τρὶς Bekker: τρεῖς libri   **d** 8 ὁμοιοῖ A O: ὁμοίᾳ L O²   στερεομετρίαν Theo L²: γεωμετρίαν A O   **e** 2 ὡς περὶ O² (ὶ supra εὶ): ὡσπερεὶ A O   **a** 3 δ’ εἰς in marg. A²: δὶς A L O ### English The moon goes through its own circuit most quickly, bringing on the month and the full moon, first;[^46] second, one must apprehend the sun, bringing on the turnings through the whole of its circuit, and those that run along with it.[^47] And so that we may not often **[c]** discuss the same things about the same things: the other routes of these, all that we went through before, are not easy to understand; but, preparing for these things natures such as there can be, one must labor at it always, teaching him much beforehand and accustoming him while he is a boy and a young man.[^48] Therefore there would be need of subjects of learning; and the greatest and first is also that of numbers themselves, but not of numbers that have bodies, but of the whole coming into being and power of the odd and the even, as much as it contributes to the nature of the things that are. **[d]** And for one who has learned these, next after them is what they call by a very ridiculous name, geometry; but it is a making alike, become evident, of numbers that are not like one another by nature, with respect to the portion of plane figures;[^49] and this, to one able to understand it, would become manifest as a wonder that has come into being not human but divine. After this, the numbers three times increased and like the solid nature; and those that, again, have come to be unlike, one makes like by another craft, the one that **[e]** those who have met with it have called stereometry.[^50] And what is divine and wonderful to those who see into it and think about it is how, as the power, and the power opposite to it, turn always about the double, in each proportion **[991]** the whole of nature stamps out form and kind.[^51] The first proportion, then, that of the double in number, is carried along as one to two in ratio, and the one that is by power is double; and the one into the solid and tangible is, again, [^46]: *First*: *prōtēn*, which agrees in form with “full moon”, is taken with the “second” that follows: the moon is learned first, the sun second (interpretation). [^47]: *Turnings*: *tropai*, the solstices. [^48]: *Always*: *aei*, Burnet’s correction; the manuscripts have *dei*, “must”, which Stallbaum deletes. [^49]: *Geometry*: the word means “land-measuring”. *A making alike*: numbers whose ratio is not that of two squares, such as 1 and 2, are made alike as the areas of squares whose sides cannot be measured by one another; compare *Theaetetus* 147d–148b (interpretation). [^50]: *Three times increased*: numbers of three dimensions, products of three factors, such as cubes (interpretation); *tris*, “three times”, is Bekker’s correction for the manuscripts’ *treis*, “three”. *Stereometry*: “solid-measuring”, the reading of Theon of Smyrna and a corrector of L; A and O have *geōmetria*, “geometry”. [^51]: *Power*: *dunamis*, also the mathematicians’ word for a square. *The double*: the ratio 2:1, which gives 1:2 in numbers, 1:4 in squares and 1:8 in cubes (interpretation). --- ## 991a–991e ### Greek (Burnet, page 23) διπλάσιον, ἀφ’ ἑνὸς εἰς ὀκτὼ διαπορευθεῖσα· ἡ δὲ διπλασίου\ μὲν εἰς μέσον, ἴσως δὲ τοῦ ἐλάττονος πλέον ἔλαττόν τε τοῦ **5**\ μείζονος, τὸ δ’ ἕτερον τῷ αὐτῷ μέρει τῶν ἄκρων αὐτῶν\ ὑπερέχον τε καὶ ὑπερεχόμενον—ἐν μέσῳ δὲ τοῦ ἓξ πρὸς τὰ\ δώδεκα συνέβη τό τε ἡμιόλιον καὶ ἐπίτριτον—τούτων αὐτῶν **b**\ ἐν τῷ μέσῳ ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα στρεφομένη τοῖς ἀνθρώποις σύμ-\ φωνον χρείαν καὶ σύμμετρον ἀπενείματο παιδιᾶς ῥυθμοῦ τε\ καὶ ἁρμονίας χάριν, εὐδαίμονι χορείᾳ Μουσῶν δεδομένη.\  Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν δὴ ταύτῃ γιγνέσθω τε καὶ ἐχέτω σύμπαντα· **5**\ τὸ δ’ ἐπὶ τούτοις τέλος, εἰς θείαν γένεσιν ἅμα καὶ τὴν\ τῶν ὁρατῶν καλλίστην τε καὶ θειοτάτην φύσιν ἰτέον, ὅσην\ ἀνθρώποις θεὸς ἔδωκεν κατιδεῖν, ἣν οὔποτε ἄνευ τῶν νῦν\ διειρημένων μὴ κατιδὼν ἐπεύξηταί τις ῥᾳστώνῃ παραλαβεῖν. **c**\ πρὸς τούτοις δὲ τὸ καθ’ ἓν τῷ κατ’ εἴδη προσακτέον ἐν\ ἑκάσταις ταῖς συνουσίαις, ἐρωτῶντά τε καὶ ἐλέγχοντα τὰ μὴ\ καλῶς ῥηθέντα· πάντως γὰρ καλλίστη καὶ πρώτη βάσανος\ ἀνθρώποις ὀρθῶς γίγνεται, ὅσαι δὲ οὐκ οὖσαι προσποιοῦνται, **5**\ ματαιότατος πόνος ἁπάντων. ἔτι δὲ τὴν ἀκρίβειαν τοῦ\ χρόνου ἡμῖν ληπτέον, ὡς ἀκριβῶς ἀποτελεῖ πάντα τὰ κατ’\ οὐρανὸν γιγνόμενα, ἵν’ ὁ πιστεύσας ὡς ὁ λόγος ἀληθὴς **d**\ γέγονεν ὅτι πρεσβύτερόν τ’ ἐστὶν ἅμα καὶ θειότερον ψυχὴ\ σώματος, ἡγήσαιτ’ ἂν παγκάλως τε καὶ ἱκανῶς εἰρῆσθαι τὸ\ θεῶν εἶναι πάντα πλέα καὶ μηδέποτε λήθῃ μηδὲ ἀμελείᾳ τῶν\ κρειττόνων ἡμᾶς παρωλιγωρῆσθαι. νοητέον δ’ ἐστὶν περὶ **5**\ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα τόδε, ὡς, ἐὰν μέν τις ἕκαστα τούτων ὀρθῶς\ λαμβάνῃ, μέγ’ ὄφελος γίγνεται τῷ παραλαμβάνοντι κατὰ\ τρόπον, εἰ δὲ μή, θεὸν ἄμεινον ἀεὶ καλεῖν· ὁ δὲ τρόπος ὅδε\ —ἀνάγκη γὰρ τό γε τοσοῦτον φράζειν—πᾶν διάγραμμα **e**\ ἀριθμοῦ τε σύστημα καὶ ἁρμονίας σύστασιν ἅπασαν τῆς τε\ τῶν ἄστρων περιφορᾶς τὴν ὁμολογίαν οὖσαν μίαν ἁπάντων > *Apparatus:* **b** 7 ἰτέον O²: εἴτε A O   **c** 1 ἐπεύξηταί A O: ἐπεύξεται O² (ε supra η)   **c** 3 τὰ s. v. O²: om. A O   **c** 4 πάντως A O: πάντων O² (ν s. v.)   **c** 5 τὸ ἀνθρώποις ὠβέλισται in marg. O   **d** 7 κατὰ τρόπον] κατροπον A (τὰ s. v. A²) ### English double, having passed from one to eight; and the one that is of the double into the mean — one mean being equally more than the lesser and less than the greater, the other exceeding and exceeded by the same part of the extremes themselves; in the middle of six to **[b]** twelve there came about both the one-and-a-half and the one-and-a-third — this one, turning to both sides in the middle of these very ones, has assigned to men a use concordant and commensurate, for the sake of the play of rhythm and harmony, being given by the happy dance of the Muses.[^52] Let all these things, then, come about in this way and be so. But as the goal after these, one must go to the divine coming into being and at once to the finest and most divine nature of visible things, as much of it as a god has given men to observe; which, without the things now **[c]** set out, no one, having observed it, will ever pray to take over with ease. In addition to these, one must bring what is one by one to what is by forms, in each of the gatherings, questioning and refuting what has not been said well;[^53] for in every way this proves rightly the finest and first test for men, while all that pretend to be tests and are not are the most futile labor of all. Further, we must grasp the precision of time, how precisely it accomplishes all the things **[d]** that come about in the heaven, so that one who has trusted that the account has turned out true, that soul is at once older and more divine than body, would think that it has been said altogether finely and well enough that all things are full of gods, and that we have never been slighted through the forgetfulness or the neglect of those who are stronger.[^54] And about all such things this must be noted: that if someone takes each of them rightly, it becomes a great benefit to the one who takes them over in the right way; but if not, it is better always to call on a god. And the way is this — **[e]** for it is necessary to declare this much, at least — every diagram, and system of number, and every combination of harmony, and the agreement of the revolution of the stars, as being one for them all, [^52]: *The mean*: between 6 and 12, the arithmetic mean 9 exceeds 6 by as much as it falls short of 12; the harmonic mean 8 exceeds 6 by a third of 6 and falls short of 12 by a third of 12. The ratios 9:6 and 12:8 are 3:2, “one-and-a-half”, the musical fifth; 8:6 and 12:9 are 4:3, “one-and-a-third”, the fourth; compare *Timaeus* 35c–36b. [^53]: *One by one … by forms*: the single things are to be brought under their forms (interpretation). [^54]: *Full of gods*: Aristotle gives the saying to Thales (*On the Soul* 1.5, 411a7–8); the *Laws* uses it at 10.899b. --- ## 991e–992d ### Greek (Burnet, page 24) ἀναφανῆναι δεῖ τῷ κατὰ τρόπον μανθάνοντι, φανήσεται δέ,\ ἄν, ὃ λέγομεν, ὀρθῶς τις εἰς ἓν βλέπων μανθάνῃ—δεσμὸς **5**\ γὰρ πεφυκὼς πάντων τούτων εἷς ἀναφανήσεται διανοουμένοις **992**\ —εἰ δ’ ἄλλως πως ταῦτα μεταχειριεῖταί τις, τύχην δεῖ καλεῖν,\ ὥσπερ καὶ λέγομεν. οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ γε τούτων μήποτέ τις ἐν\ πόλεσιν εὐδαίμων γένηται φύσις, ἀλλ’ οὗτος ὁ τρόπος, αὕτη\ ἡ τροφή, ταῦτα τὰ μαθήματα· εἴτε χαλεπὰ εἴτε ῥᾴδια, ταύτῃ **5**\ πορευτέον. ἀμελῆσαι δὲ οὐ θεμιτόν ἐστιν θεῶν, καταφανοῦς\ γενομένης τῆς πάντων αὐτῶν κατὰ τρόπον λεγομένης φήμης\ εὐτυχοῦς. τὸν δὲ σύμπαντα ταῦτα οὕτως εἰληφότα, τοῦτον **b**\ λέγω τὸν ἀληθέστατα σοφώτατον· ὃν καὶ διισχυρίζομαι\ παίζων καὶ σπουδάζων ἅμα, ὅτε θανάτῳ τις τῶν τοιούτων\ τὴν αὑτοῦ μοῖραν ἀναπλήσει, σχεδὸν ἐάνπερ ἔτ’ ἀποθανὼν\ ᾖ, μήτε μεθέξειν ἔτι πολλῶν τότε καθάπερ νῦν αἰσθήσεων, **5**\ μιᾶς τε μοίρας μετειληφότα μόνον καὶ ἐκ πολλῶν ἕνα\ γεγονότα, εὐδαίμονά τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ σοφώτατον ἅμα καὶ\ μακάριον, εἴτε τις ἐν ἠπείροις εἴτ’ ἐν νήσοις μακάριος ὢν\ ζῇ, κἀκεῖνον μεθέξειν τῆς τοιαύτης ἀεὶ τύχης, κεἴτε δημοσίᾳ **c**\ τις ἐπιτηδεύσας ταῦτα εἴτε ἰδίᾳ διαβιῷ, τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως\ αὐτὸν πράξειν παρὰ θεῶν. ὃ δὲ κατ’ ἀρχάς τε ἐλέγομεν,\ καὶ νῦν αὑτὸς πάρεστι λόγος ἀληθὴς ὄντως, ὡς οὐ δυνατὸν\ ἀνθρώποις τελέως μακαρίοις τε καὶ εὐδαίμοσι γενέσθαι πλὴν **5**\ ὀλίγων, ἔστιν ταῦτα ὀρθῶς εἰρημένα· ὁπόσοι γὰρ θεῖοι καὶ\ σώφρονες ἅμα τῆς ἄλλης τε μετέχοντες ἀρετῆς φύσει, πρὸς\ δὲ τούτοις ὅσα μαθήματος ἔχεται μακαρίου πάντα εἰληφότες **d**\ —ἃ δ’ ἔστιν εἰρήκαμεν—τούτοισιν μόνοις τὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου\ σύμπαντα ἱκανῶς εἴληχέ τε καὶ ἔχει. τοῖς μὲν οὖν ταῦτα\ οὕτω διαπονήσασιν ἰδίᾳ λέγομεν καὶ δημοσίᾳ κατὰ νόμον > *Apparatus:* **e** 4 φανήσεται A O: ἀναφανήσεται vulg.   **e** 5 ὃ λέγομεν L (ut vid.): ὁ λεγόμενος A O   **a** 4 εὐδαίμων L (ut vid.): εὐδαιμόνων A O   **a** 5 ἡ Theo: om. libri   τὰ L Theo: om. A O   **b** 4 ἐάνπερ ἔτ’ L et ἔτ’ in marg. O²: ἐάνπερεατα A: ἐάνπερ ἔᾶτε O   **c** 1 κεἴτε L et γρ. O: κειτο A (κ’ εἴτε fecit et in marg. κ’ εἴ τὲ A²): κεῖται O (in marg. κἄντε)   **c** 4 αὑτὸς Bekker: αὐτὸς libri ### English must come to light for the one who learns in the right way; and it will appear if, as we say, someone learns rightly looking to one thing — **[992]** for one bond of all these, by nature, will come to light to those who think about them — but if someone takes these things in hand in some other way, one must call on fortune, as we also say. For without these, at least, no nature in cities will ever become happy; but this is the way, this the nourishment, these the subjects of learning; whether hard or easy, one must travel this way. And it is not permitted to neglect the gods, now that the report about them all, spoken in the right way, has become plain and **[b]** fortunate. The one who has taken up all these things in this way, him I call the most truly wisest; of whom I also affirm, in play and in earnest at once, that when such a one fills up his own portion by death, if indeed, very nearly, he still is when he has died, he will no longer then share, as now, in many perceptions, but, having had a share in one portion only and having become one out of many, will be happy, and at once wisest and blessed; and whether one **[c]** lives blessed on the mainlands or on the islands, that one too will always share in such fortune; and whether one passes his life having pursued these things in public or in private, he will fare the same and in the same way at the hands of the gods.[^55] And what we were saying at the beginning, the same account is present now too as really true: that it is not possible for human beings to become completely blessed and happy, except for a few: this has been rightly said.[^56] For as many as are divine and temperate at once, and share by nature in the rest of virtue, **[d]** and, in addition to these, have taken up all that belongs to the blessed subject of learning — and what they are we have said — to these alone have all the things of the daimonic fallen as their lot well enough, and are theirs.[^57] As for those, then, who have labored at these things in this way, we say in private, and in public, by law, [^55]: *On the islands*: perhaps the Islands of the Blessed, where Hesiod’s heroes live (*Works and Days* 167–173) (interpretation). [^56]: *At the beginning*: 973c. *The same account*: *hautos*, Bekker’s correction for the manuscripts’ *autos*, “the account itself”. [^57]: *The daimonic*: *to daimonion*, as in the series; here the divine power that allots each his fortune (interpretation). --- ## 992d–992e ### Greek (Burnet, page 25) τίθεμεν, εἰς πρεσβύτου τέλος ἀφικομένοις τὰς μεγίστας **5**\ ἀρχὰς παραδίδοσθαι δεῖν, τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους τούτοις συνεπο-\ μένους εὐφημεῖν πάντας θεοὺς ἅμα καὶ πάσας, καὶ τὸν\ νυκτερινὸν σύλλογον ἐπὶ ταύτην τὴν σοφίαν ἱκανῶς γνόντας\ τε καὶ δοκιμάσαντας ἡμᾶς ὀρθότατα πάντας παρακαλεῖν. **e** > *Apparatus:* **d** 5 τίθεμεν L: θεμεν A (θέμενοι A²) O (τί φαῖμεν O²)   **d** 6 τούτοις] τούτους A L O ### English set down that, when they have come to the completion of old age, the greatest offices must be handed over to them; and that the others, following them, must speak auspiciously of all the gods and all the goddesses at once; and that **[e]** all of us, having come to know it well enough and having scrutinized it, must most rightly summon the nocturnal council to this wisdom.[^58] [^58]: *Speak auspiciously*: *euphēmein*, as in the series (*Alcibiades II*). *The nocturnal council*: the council of the *Laws*, which meets every day from dawn until sunrise (12.951d) and whose members must know that soul is the oldest of all things that have come into being, and that *nous*, “sense”, has ordered all things in the heaven (12.966d–967e). --- ## Outline The divisions follow the argument. References are to Stephanus pages and sections, which stand in the margins of both pages of the text. ### I. The question (973a–974d) **973a–b** Clinias: the three have come “to look into the matter of intelligence”; the *Laws* has gone through “everything that concerned the setting down of laws”, but not “by learning what a mortal human being would be wise”. **973b–d** The Athenian’s “strange account”: “it is not possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — so long as we live”; but “there is a fine hope” for one who has died. **973d–974a** Coming into being is hard for every living being; the time of life “would be short, in the reckoning”, and old age would make anyone unwilling to live again. **974b–d** Wisdom “runs away in flight” when sought among the crafts; the soul divines that it has “this power by some nature, but what it is, and when, and how, it is not at all able to discover”. Clinias concurs, in the hope “of forming about them, hereafter, the truest opinion”. ### II. The kinds of knowledge that do not make wise (974d–976c) **974d–975c** The necessities: “the making, at any rate, of barley-meal and wheat-flour, and with it nourishment, is fine and good, but it will never be willing to produce a man completely wise”; nor farming, building, the crafts of equipment, hunting; nor prophecy and interpretation, for “it knows only what is said, but whether it is true it has not learned”. **975d** The imitative arts: “a kind of play, imitative for the most part but in no way serious”. **975e–976b** The helpers: the general’s craft, medicine, the pilot’s art, the pleading of lawsuits; “none of these is esteemed for the truest wisdom; for they are carried along without measure, guessed at by opinions”. **976b–c** Quickness of learning and memory: “none of the intelligent will ever be willing to call anyone really wise for any of these”. ### III. Number, the gift of Heaven (976c–979b) **976c–e** The knowledge sought is the one which, if it departed, “would render the human living being the most senseless and most unintelligent”: “the one that has given number to the whole mortal race”. **977a–b** Its giver is “Heaven, very nearly”, whom “it is also most just … to honor and to pray to above all”. **977c–978b** “If we were to take number out of human nature, we would never become intelligent in anything”; number is “the cause of all good things”, and “everything that has shared in anything bad, has been left without any number”. **978b–979a** “How we learned to count”: from heaven, which “never ceases teaching men one and two”, and from the moon, by which the god “composed months in relation to the year”. **979a–b** Fruits and nourishment come from these things; if anything turns out poorly, “one must blame not the divine but the human nature”. ### IV. Which wisdom? (979b–980b) **979b–d** The rest of virtue is easy to agree on, “but which wisdom … no one of the many any longer agrees with anyone at all”. **979d–980a** Clinias: “how reasonably you said that you are attempting to declare great things about great things!” The Athenian will say “what it is that we think wisdom is”, or “which they are, and how many”. **980a–b** The lawgiver may speak, “likening the gods more finely and better than what was said of them before”; Clinias’ wish, that the Athenian should “meet with the end that is at once the best and the finest”. ### V. The new beginning (980b–981a) **980b–c** The Athenian proposes a prayer: “Does it seem good that we honor the gods greatly by hymning them, praying that the finest and best things to say about them may come to us?” Clinias: “trusting in the gods, pray, and speak the account of fine things about the gods and the goddesses that comes to you”. **980c–981a** “The generation of gods, then, and of living beings, since those before us likened it badly, I must first, it seems, liken it better”, taking up the account against the impious: “that all soul is older than all body”. ### VI. The five bodies and the living beings (981a–982a) **981a–c** A living being: “one combination of soul and body, coming together, brings forth one shape”; soul molds and crafts, body is molded; the bodies are five, “fire and water, and third air, fourth earth, and fifth ether”. **981d–982a** The earthly kind, “the most of it is of earth and of the solid nature”; the fiery kind, “the divine kind of the stars”, either immortal or of “a life of long ages”. ### VII. The stars are intelligent and divine (982a–984b) **982a–c** “What moves in disorder we must hold to be unintelligent”; the stars’ order is “great evidence of its being intelligent”; “the three Fates hold fast and keep complete what each of the gods has deliberated”. **982c–e** The many took sameness for soullessness, “so far did the multitude follow the unintelligent”; the stars, “dancing a procession and dance the finest and most magnificent of all dances, … accomplish for all living things what is needed”. **983a–c** Their size: “the sun as a whole is larger than the earth as a whole”; “A god, I say, will be the cause”; “a thing could never become ensouled in any other way than through a god”. **983c–984b** Soul and body are two, “the one as the cause of all things, the other as the cause of no affection at all”; so “either we must hymn them, most rightly, as gods themselves, or take them to have come into being as images of gods, like statues”. ### VIII. The middle kinds (984b–985c) **984b–d** Ether, air and water: soul “filled the whole heaven with living beings”, and the second to the fifth, “beginning their coming into being from the manifest gods, end in us human beings”. **984d–985b** “Zeus and Hera and all the others, let anyone set them down where he wishes”; the visible gods are “the nature of the stars”; then “the daimons, and the kind of air, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation”; the two middle kinds “interpret everyone and everything to one another and to the highest gods”. **985b–c** The fifth, of water: “a demigod”, “sometimes seen, and at other times hidden away”. ### IX. The lawgiver and the visible gods (985c–986a) **985c–d** The lawgiver “will never dare, innovating, to turn his city to a reverence toward the gods that has nothing clear about it”, nor prevent what the ancestral law says about sacrifices. **985d–986a** But the gods “who are really manifest to us” are “without rites and do not receive the honors that belong to them”; one who saw the sun or the moon and did not declare it would justly be called bad. Clinias: “Of course, stranger; the very worst, indeed.” ### X. The eight powers (986a–987d) **986a–c** “Eight powers of the things about the whole heaven, born sisters of one another”: “let us all speak and say that they are all brothers and in sister portions, and let us render them honors”. **986c–d** “The happy man first wonders at it, and then he comes to have a love of learning thoroughly as much as is possible for mortal nature”; after death he “continues for the rest of time as a contemplator of the finest things”. **986d–987a** The sun’s, the Dawn-bringer’s and a third’s, “which it is not possible to declare by a name, because it is not known”; the cause is “the first to observe these things, being a barbarian”, in lands of “the beauty of the summer season, which Egypt and Syria possess well enough”. **987a–d** The planets have no names of their own, but “have taken the titles of gods”: the Dawn-bringer, “being the same as the Evening Star”, is Aphrodite’s, and the third is Hermes’; three slower, Cronus’, Zeus’ and Ares’; and the eighth, “which one might most of all name cosmos”. ### XI. Greeks and barbarians; the divine is not envious (987d–988b) **987d–988a** Greece lies “midway between winters and the summer nature”; “whatever Greeks take over from barbarians, they carry it more finely to completion”. **988a–b** Let no Greek fear “that those who are mortal ought never to busy themselves with divine things”; the divine knows “that it teaches us this very thing, and that we learn number and counting”. ### XII. Soul the cause of motion (988b–e) **988b–c** The first accounts of the gods were “said not to the liking of the temperate”, and the second made the things of fire and water “oldest, and those of the wonderful soul later”. **988d–e** Soul “the cause of the whole”: “the motion and movement toward the good belongs to the best soul, and the contrary to the contrary”, and “the good things must have conquered, and must conquer”. ### XIII. The wisdom sought (988e–990b) **988e–989b** “We must think the good man, at least, wise”; nothing of virtue is greater than “piety”, and it has not come about in the best natures “through the greatest stupidity”. **989b–d** The best natures: “good-natured, admiring courage, and ready to be persuaded toward being temperate”, able to learn, “a lover of learning”; “one would not even teach it unless a god led the way”. **989e–990b** Its name, “astronomy”: “the true astronomer must be the wisest”, not the one who “does astronomy after Hesiod’s fashion”, but the one who has looked into “the seven circuits of the eight circuits”. ### XIV. The subjects of learning (990b–991b) **990b–c** The moon and the sun; “one must labor at it always, teaching him much beforehand and accustoming him while he is a boy and a young man”. **990c** “The greatest and first is also that of numbers themselves, but not of numbers that have bodies”. **990d** “What they call by a very ridiculous name, geometry”; “the numbers three times increased and like the solid nature”, by “stereometry”. **990e–991b** “As the power, and the power opposite to it, turn always about the double, in each proportion the whole of nature stamps out form and kind”; the means between six and twelve, “the one-and-a-half and the one-and-a-third”, given “for the sake of the play of rhythm and harmony”. ### XV. The goal (991b–992a) **991b** “The divine coming into being and at once … the finest and most divine nature of visible things”. **991c** “One must bring what is one by one to what is by forms”, “questioning and refuting what has not been said well”. **991c–d** “The precision of time”: one who has trusted “that soul is at once older and more divine than body” will think it well said “that all things are full of gods”. **991d–992a** “Every diagram, and system of number, and every combination of harmony, and the agreement of the revolution of the stars” must come to light as one: “for one bond of all these, by nature, will come to light to those who think about them”. ### XVI. The wise man and the nocturnal council (992a–e) **992a** “This is the way, this the nourishment, these the subjects of learning; whether hard or easy, one must travel this way.” **992b–c** “The most truly wisest”, “in play and in earnest at once”: “having become one out of many, will be happy, and at once wisest and blessed”. **992c–d** “It is not possible for human beings to become completely blessed and happy, except for a few”; to the divine and temperate who have taken up the blessed subject of learning “alone have all the things of the daimonic fallen as their lot”. **992d–e** The greatest offices to them in old age; “all of us … must most rightly summon the nocturnal council to this wisdom”. ## 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. ## Glossary of Key Terms The English words on which the argument depends, in alphabetical order, with the Greek they render and the places where they occur, by Stephanus page and section. Where a word has a longer entry in the Key Words of the Dialogue, the Glossary says so. **apprehend**, κατανοεῖν (*katanoein*); **apprehension**, κατανόημα (*katanoēma*). 987c–d, 990b; 987d. Kept apart from **understand**. **astronomy**, ἀστρονομία (*astronomia*); **astronomer**, ἀστρονόμος (*astronomos*); **do astronomy**, ἀστρονομεῖν (*astronomein*). 990a. See Key Words, *Astronomy and the subjects of learning*. **blessed**. See **happy**. **body**, σῶμα (*sōma*); **bodiless**, ἀσώματος (*asōmatos*). 975d, 979c, 980d–e, 981a–c, 981e, 983b–e, 988c–d, 990c (“numbers that have bodies”), 991d; “bodiless”, 981b. See **soul** and Key Words, *Soul, body; older*. **carry round**, περιφέρειν (*peripherein*). 983a, 988d. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **circuit**, περίοδος (*periodos*). 977b, 978e, 990a–b. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **combination**, σύστασις (*systasis*). 981a, 991e. **coming into being**, γένεσις (*genesis*); **generation of gods**, **of living beings**, θεογονία, ζῳογονία (*theogonia*, *zōiogonia*). 977e, 981a, 984d, 990c, 991b; 980c. **contemplate**, θεωρεῖν (*theōrein*); **contemplation**, θεωρία (*theōria*); **contemplator**, θεωρός (*theōros*). 990b; 977b; 986d. Kept apart from **observe** and **see**. **cosmos**, κόσμος (*kosmos*). 977b, 986c, 987a, 987b, 987d. See Key Words, *Heaven, cosmos*. **count**, ἀριθμεῖν (*arithmein*); **count out**, διαριθμεῖσθαι (*diarithmeisthai*); **able to count**, ἀριθμητικός (*arithmētikos*); **arithmetic**, ἀριθμητική (*arithmētikē*). 978b–d, 988b; 978a–b; 979a; 977e. See **number**. **course**, διέξοδος (*diexodos*). 977b, 986e. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **craft**, τέχνη (*technē*). 974b, 975b–c, 975e, 977d–e, 989a, 990d. As a verb, “craft” renders δημιουργεῖν (*dēmiourgein*): 975d, 981b, 984c. **cycle**, κύκλος (*kyklos*); **change their cycles**, μετακυκλεῖσθαι (*metakykleisthai*). 978e, 990a; 982d. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **daimon**, δαίμων (*daimōn*); **the daimonic**, τὸ δαιμόνιον (*to daimonion*). 977a, 984e; 992d. See Key Words, *Gods, daimons, the daimonic*. **deliberate**, βουλεύεσθαι (*bouleuesthai*); **deliberation**, βουλή (*boulē*); **deliberate anew**, μεταβουλεύεσθαι (*metabouleuesthai*). 982c–d. **ensouled**, ἔμψυχος (*empsychos*). 983a–b. **fortune**, τύχη (*tychē*); **good fortune**, εὐτυχία (*eutychia*); **fortunate**, **most fortunately**, εὐτυχής, εὐτυχέστατα (*eutychēs*, *eutychestata*). 976e, 979a (“by happy fortune”), 992a, 992c; 975e; 986c, 992b. **geometry**. See **stereometry**. **god**, θεός (*theos*); **divine**, θεῖος (*theios*). Throughout; Heaven the giver of number, 977a; “the visible gods”, 984d; “the gods who are really manifest to us”, 985d; “the divine is never unintelligent”, 988a. See Key Words, *Gods, daimons, the daimonic*. **happy**, εὐδαίμων (*eudaimōn*); **happiness**, εὐδαιμονία (*eudaimonia*); **blessed**, μακάριος (*makarios*). 973c, 977d, 978b, 979a, 981e, 986c, 991b, 992a–c; 980b; 973c, 992b–d. **heaven**, **Heaven**, οὐρανός, Οὐρανός (*ouranos*, *Ouranos*). “Heaven”, the god, 977a; “heaven”, 977b, 978d, 981e, 982b, 983c, 983e, 984c, 985b, 986a, 991d. See Key Words, *Heaven, cosmos*. **honor**, τιμή, τιμᾶν (*timē*, *timan*); **honored**, τίμιος (*timios*). 977a, 980a–b, 980e, 984a, 984d–e, 985d–e, 986c, 987a, 988c, 989c. **intelligence**, φρόνησις (*phronēsis*); **intelligent**, φρόνιμος, ἔμφρων (*phronimos*, *emphrōn*); **intelligently**, φρονίμως (*phronimōs*); **unintelligent**, ἄφρων (*aphrōn*); **be intelligent**, φρονεῖν (*phronein*). 973a, 974b, 975a, 977a–b, 985a, 986d; 976c, 977c, 982b, 982d–e, 983d, 987a; 974c, 982b; 976d, 982a, 982d, 983d, 988a–b; 985a, 989c. See Key Words, *Intelligence, intelligent*. **interpretation**, ἑρμηνεία (*hermēneia*); **the art of interpretation**, ἑρμηνευτική (*hermēneutikē*); **interpret**, ἑρμηνεύεσθαι (*hermēneuesthai*). 984e; 975c; 985b. **knowledge**, ἐπιστήμη (*epistēmē*); **kinds of knowledge**, ἐπιστῆμαι (*epistēmai*); **one who has knowledge**, ἐπιστήμων (*epistēmōn*). 975a, 976c–d; 974b, 974d; 974e, 979d. **liken**, ἀπεικάζειν (*apeikazein*). 980a, 980c, 985b. **living being**, ζῷον (*zōion*). 973d, 975a, 976a, 976d, 977c, 978c, 978e, 979a, 981a–e, 982a–b, 983b, 984b–c, 984e, 985b–c. See Key Words, *Living being*. **manifest**, φανερός (*phaneros*); **manifestly**, φανερῶς (*phanerōs*). 973b, 984d, 985d, 987a, 990d; 986a. See **visible** and Key Words, *Manifest, visible*. **mold**, πλάττειν (*plattein*). 981b–c, 984b–c. **more ancient**. See **older**. **motion**, φορά (*phora*); **movement**, κίνησις (*kinēsis*). 978a, 982d, 986e, 987b, 988c–e; 978a, 988e. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **movement**. See **motion**. **number**, ἀριθμός (*arithmos*). 976e, 977a–e, 978a–b, 979a, 988b, 990c–d, 991a, 991e. See **count** and Key Words, *Number, count, reckoning*. **observe**, κατιδεῖν (*katidein*); **see**, **see into**, καθορᾶν, ἐγκαθορᾶν (*kathoran*, *enkathoran*). 976d–e, 984b, 986e, 991b–c; 986a, 987a; 990e. Kept apart from **contemplate**. “See” also renders ὁρᾶν and ἰδεῖν (*horan*, *idein*). **older**, πρεσβύτερος (*presbyteros*); **oldest**, πρεσβύτατος (*presbytatos*); **more ancient**, παλαιότερος (*palaioteros*). 980d–e, 991d; 988c; 980d. See Key Words, *Soul, body; older*. **opinion**, δόξα (*doxa*); **form an opinion**, δοξάζειν (*doxazein*); **reputation**, δόξα (976b); **be reputed**, δοξάζεσθαι (*doxazesthai*). 974a, 976a–b, 978b, 981e, 984b, 985c; 974d; 974e, 976c. **orbit**, πόλος (*polos*). 986c. See Key Words, *Motion and the heavens*. **passage**, διαπορεία (*diaporeia*). 982c, 984e. **path**, πόρος (*poros*). 982b. **piety**, εὐσέβεια (*eusebeia*); **the impious**, ἀσεβεῖς (*asebeis*); **the unholy**, ἀνόσιοι (*anosioi*). 989b; 980d; 988e. See **reverence toward the gods** and Key Words, *Reverence toward the gods, piety*. **play**, παιδιά (*paidia*); **celebrate in play**, προσπαίζειν (*prospaizein*); **in play**, παίζων (*paizōn*). 975d, 980a, 991b; 980b; 992b. See Key Words, *Play and earnest*. **portion**, μοῖρα (*moira*); **the Fates**, Μοῖραι (*Moirai*); **without a portion**, ἄμοιρος (*amoiros*). 981e, 985a, 986c, 990d, 992b; 982c; 985e. **procession**, πορεία (*poreia*). 982e. **prophecy**, μαντική (*mantikē*); **oracles**, μαντεῖαι (*manteiai*). 975c; 985c, 988a. **reckon**, λογίζεσθαι (*logizesthai*); **reckoning**, λογισμός (*logismos*); **without reckoning**, ἀλόγιστος (*alogistos*). 974a, 979a; 974a, 981c; 978a. See Key Words, *Number, count, reckoning*. **reverence toward the gods**, θεοσέβεια, τὸ θεοσεβές (*theosebeia*, *to theosebes*). 977e, 985c–d, 990a. See **piety** and Key Words, *Reverence toward the gods, piety*. **revolution**, περιφορά (*periphora*). 991e. **see**, **see into**. See **observe**. **sense**, νοῦς (*nous*); **senseless**, ἀνόητος (*anoētos*); **to the liking of**, κατὰ νοῦν (*kata noun*); **pay attention**, προσέχειν τὸν νοῦν (*prosechein ton noun*). 982b–c, 985c, 986e; 976d, 984a; 988c; 976b. See Key Words, *Sense*. **serious**, σπουδαῖος (*spoudaios*); **be in earnest**, σπουδάζειν (*spoudazein*). 975d; 992b. See **play**. **soul**, ψυχή (*psychē*). 974b, 977c, 979c, 980d–e, 981a–b, 981e, 982b, 982d, 983c–e, 984b–c, 988c–e, 989b, 991d. See Key Words, *Soul, body; older*. **stereometry**, στερεομετρία (*stereometria*); **geometry**, γεωμετρία (*geōmetria*). 990d (note). See Key Words, *Astronomy and the subjects of learning*. **subjects of learning**, μαθήματα (*mathēmata*); **subject of learning**, μάθημα (*mathēma*). 990c, 992a; 992d. See Key Words, *Astronomy and the subjects of learning*. **travel**, πορεύεσθαι (*poreuesthai*). 982b, 983c, 986b, 987b, 992a. **understand**, συννοεῖν (*synnoein*); **understanding**, σύννοια (*synnoia*). 978c, 990c–d; 987c. With a participle, “notice” (976b). “Understand” also renders συνιέναι (*synienai*), 979b. **virtue**, ἀρετή (*aretē*). 975c, 977c–d, 986d, 987d, 989a–b, 989d, 992c. **visible**, ὁρατός (*horatos*); **invisible**, ἀόρατος (*aoratos*). 982a, 984b, 984d, 986c, 991b; 981c. See **manifest**. **way**, τρόπος (*tropos*); **in the right way**, κατὰ τρόπον (*kata tropon*). 973b, 973d, 974b, 979c, 983a, 987a (note), 990a, 991d, 992a; 989d, 991d–e, 992a. **wisdom**, σοφία (*sophia*); **kinds of wisdom**, σοφίαι (*sophiai*); **wise**, σοφός (*sophos*); **wisest**, σοφώτατος (*sophōtatos*). 974b–c, 976a–d, 977d, 979c, 980a, 981a, 987c, 989a, 992d; 979d; 973b, 973d, 974b, 974d–e, 975b–d, 976a, 976c–d, 977d, 979c–d, 980a, 988e; 990a, 992b. See Key Words, *Wisdom, wise*. **wonderful**, θαυμαστός (*thaumastos*); **wonder**, θαῦμα (*thauma*); **wonderfully**, θαυμαστῶς (*thaumastōs*); **wonder at**, θαυμάζειν (*thaumazein*). 982c, 983a, 985a, 988c, 990b, 990e; 985b, 988d–e, 990d; 980c, 985a; 986c. ## 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 photograph of each page, 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 worked out from the Stephanus divisions rather than copied, and were then compared with Burnet’s margin, page by page, across the 710 lines of the dialogue. The dialogue was made in three blocks (Burnet pages 1–9, 10–17 and 18–25). Each block was checked by four independent reviewers: two, dividing its pages between them, 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. Each finding was examined again against the evidence before it was adopted, and not all were adopted. What those checks caught is recorded at the end of this Note. The volume was then read through again as one text, since a check made block by block cannot see some kinds of error: a word rendered one way in one block and another way in the next, a recapitulation that states a step in other words than the step itself, a sentence whose sense drifts across a page turn. The translator read the whole, and four further reviewers read it independently: one for the consistency of terms across the whole book and with the earlier volumes of the series, 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 English, and three more reviewers checked them, claim by claim and citation by citation, together with the corrections made in the final reading. ### What the final reading caught It found some seventy points in the English and its notes, most of them small, that the block checks had passed or, in three places (977c, 977d and the page join at 981e), that their corrections had brought in; and a few in the Editorial Note, in On reading this edition and on the title page. They fall into a few classes. The largest class was renderings that had drifted from one English word for one Greek word, most often across the boundary between two blocks. The verb the Athenian uses for the lawgiver’s account of the gods, *apeikazein*, was “making his likeness” in the first block (980a) and “liken” in the second (980c, 985b), where it picks up the same act; it is now “liken” in all three places. *Phaneros* is “manifest” at 973b too, where the draft had “clear”; *theōros*, the happy man after death, is “contemplator” (986d), with *theōria* and *theōrein* “contemplation” and “contemplate”; *phainesthai* is “appear” (976c, 983c), kept apart from *anaphainesthai* “come to light” and from “be seen”; *poreuesthai* is “travel” at 982b and 983c, as at 986b and 987b; *morphē*, the living being’s “shape” (981a–b), is kept apart from *eidos*, “form”; *axioun* is “claim” (988d), kept apart from *nomizein* “hold”; *presbytatos* keeps its family as “oldest” (988c, and the note at 992e), where the draft had “eldest”; *schedon* is “very nearly” at 978a and 979b, where the draft had “more or less”; and *tithenai*, *phrazein*, *prosagoreuein* and *themis* were brought into line with their rulings (973b, 978e, 984b, 984d; 979e; 987b; 986b). Some renderings changed the sense or missed the Greek. At 977d the negation now covers the whole clause: the man without wisdom “would no longer ever become completely good, and so happy”. At 976e the god, “having given” number, preserves us. At 979a the reckoning is of “all things in relation to one another”. At 985b the demigod of water is likened “as having come into being from it, and as being sometimes seen”; at 986c–d the happy man’s wonder and love of learning are a general statement, in the present; at 986e the one with sense “must lead these, which are three”; at 988d the sentence that answers “But now, when we say” ends where Burnet ends it; at 990b the moon comes “first”, before the sun; and at 991b–c the emphatic denial “no one … will ever pray to take over with ease” now reads as the Greek construes it. Small words that Burnet prints had gone untranslated (973c, 976c, 979d, 983a, 989a, 989d, 991a), words with no Greek behind them were removed (976b, 978c, 980a, 982c, 984b, 991c), two page joins were redrawn (980b, 981e), and phrases that followed a published translation more closely than the Greek requires were reworded (973b, 975e, 976b, 976e, 978d, 980a, 982c, 984b, 986d, 986e, 987b). In the notes, the note on the daimons at 977a now describes them in the words of 984e, and the notes at 987a, 988c, 990a and 991c use the text’s own renderings. On the title page the copy is now described as “issued 1936–1945”, as the Editorial Note dates it, and the title block reads “the complete dialogue”. The Vatican manuscript 1029 is now dated, the Editorial Note says that a sign that did not print is supplied as well as one that is broken (992d6), and the places at which Theon of Smyrna quotes the dialogue were confirmed in Hiller’s text. ### What remains undone The manuscript that Burnet cites as “cod. Voss.” has not been identified with certainty; the Editorial Note describes it as Burnet’s siglum does. The line numbers of Theon’s quotations in Hiller’s edition are not given, since they could not be checked on the printed page; the pages are given. Dindorf’s text of Eusebius reads λόγον at 980d1, where Burnet reports λέγων; the later edition of Eusebius has not been consulted, and Burnet’s report is printed as it stands. Grou’s French translation was not seen, and his conjecture at 985e3 rests on Burnet’s report. At a few places the construal of the Greek is disputed and the English takes one side. At 984b the words “according to the fair opinion, have most clearly come into being” are taken with the coming into being of the three middle kinds, as the Block II reviewers took them, and as a published translation does; a reviewer in the final reading held that “most clearly” goes with “speak”, and a reader may take it so. “Shape” for *morphē* (981a–b) and “claim” for *axioun* (988d) also agree with a published translation; they are the ordinary senses of the words. At 979a the English keeps the god as the subject of “began to see every number together in relation to number”, where “all things” may be the subject instead. The mathematical passage (990c–991b) is rendered word for word, and the notes give the usual interpretation of it, marked as interpretation, and work out the arithmetic of the means (991b). The apparatus is Burnet’s alone. It has not been collated against the manuscripts, and readings proposed since 1907 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 they label the more doubtful interpretations as such. The question of who wrote the dialogue is set out in the Introduction but not argued; a reader who wants the scholarly debate 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 when each block was finished, and are kept as a record of what its check found. Where the final reading changed something they report, the text above says so. ### Block I: 973a–980b (Burnet pages 1–9) **How it was made.** Burnet pages 1–9 (scan pp. 157–165), 259 lines, from Clinias’ reminder of the question the *Laws* left open to his wish, at 980b, for the goal of the Athenian’s laws. The Greek was set line for line from the photographs of Burnet’s page, with his apparatus, and the English written and annotated; independent reviewers then checked the Greek and the apparatus against the photographs letter by letter, the English against the Greek clause by clause, and every note and the Editorial Note against their sources. **What the reviewers caught.** The Greek text and the apparatus were confirmed letter by letter, and the doubtful marks settled on the page: the rough breathings of αὑτούς, αὑτόν and αὑτῷ (974c5, 977b3–4), which print like acute accents; the broken brackets round ἃς at 978d2, which are square brackets; a speck, not a point, in the apparatus at 975a8. In the English, two constructions had been misread: at 978d1 heaven “does not cease rolling” these things round, the participle completing the verb, and at 980b Clinias’ wish is for the Athenian himself, as the dative requires. Small words that Burnet prints against another reading had gone untranslated (τότε at 974b3 and 976b6; ἔτι at 977c3, 977d4 and 978a1; the article at 977d7, “the present account”), and the two members of 974e1 had been divided at the wrong place. Four Stephanus letters were moved to the first word of their section, and the first page join now keeps “from” with the Greek page that has ἐξ. Renderings were brought into line with the earlier volumes (“my dear Clinias”, “concur”, “think”, “fortune”, “reasonably”, “advantageous”, “good enough”, “what suits”), and phrases that followed a published translation more closely than the Greek requires were reworded. In the notes, the first place of *sophia* was corrected (974b); the note on routine now says of what Socrates speaks in the *Gorgias*, and adds the pairing of memory and routine at 501a; the story of men once eating one another is no longer said to come from the *Laws*, which reports it; and the notes on the father (978c) and on the readings at 978d1 were made exact. Two notes were added where Burnet’s reading changes the sense, at 978a1 (*an tis* for *mantis*) and 980a9 (*paidia*, “play”, for *paideia*, “education”). In the Editorial Note, the third bracketed word (979c) was added; Theon’s quotation was located; the correcting hands L² and O², the history of O and the dates of Humphrey Milford, which set an upper limit to the impression, were stated exactly; and the spaced points, the angle brackets and *et* were explained. **Not applied.** A reviewer’s identification of “cod. Voss.” with a particular manuscript at Leiden, and a date for the Vatican manuscript 1029, are not printed until they can be confirmed. ### Block II: 980b–986e (Burnet pages 10–17) **How it was made.** Burnet pages 10–17 (scan pp. 166–173), 245 lines, from the close of Clinias’ wish at 980b, through the Athenian’s account of the generation of gods and living beings from soul and the five bodies, the stars as intelligent gods, the daimons and the demigods, and the honors the lawgiver owes the visible gods, to the eight powers of the heaven and the barbarian who first observed them (986e). It was made as Block I was: the Greek set line for line from the photographs, with the apparatus; the English written and annotated; then independent reviewers checked the Greek and the apparatus in two halves, the English clause by clause, and the notes and the Editorial Note against their sources. **What the reviewers caught.** The Greek text was confirmed letter by letter. In the apparatus one breathing was wrong: at 985d5 Burnet reports αὑτὸς, with the rough breathing, as what A really has, and the entry had been transcribed with the smooth; the note at that place, which had said that A has the other form, was rewritten. In the English, several constructions had been misread: at 981a1–2 the comparative belongs to a perfect passive (“would … have been begun by us more plausibly”); at 981c7 Burnet’s ἕκαστον agrees with “living being”; at 982e5 it is the stars, not their nature, that accomplish what is needed; at 984b2–6 “most clearly” belongs to the coming into being of the three middle kinds, not to the speaking; at 984e1 Burnet’s δέ, against Stallbaum’s γε, sets “the kind of air” beside the daimons; at 985a1 it is the two living beings that are quick to learn; and at 985d6 the Athenian speaks of “other gods”. Small words had gone untranslated (γε at 981a1, ἅμα at 985a3 and 985e1, δή at 985b1, ποτέ at 985e1), παλαιότερον had been rendered “older” beside πρεσβύτερον, and πιθανόν and πιστῶς had shared one English word. Five Stephanus letters were moved to the first word of their section (981c, 982e, 983e, 984b, 986d), and two page joins (pages 11–12 and 12–13) now keep with each Greek page the words it has. Renderings were brought into line with the series and within the block (“my good sir”, “set down”, “really”, “cycles”, “visible”, “reverence toward the gods”), and phrases that followed a published translation more closely than the Greek requires were reworded. A note was added on the words “the one” at 984b3, which Burnet does not print and the English supplies. In the notes, Burnet’s deletion at 986b2 is now said to be of a word all three manuscripts have; the passages of the *Laws* that the dialogue answers were added at 980d (885b) and 982c (960c–d); the places in the *Timaeus* were made exact; and a phrase that followed a published translation of the *Timaeus* was replaced. In the Editorial Note, the places at which Eusebius quotes the dialogue were corrected and completed, Grou was named, the round brackets at 986b2 and the remark *sed ί in ras.* were explained, and the signatures were described. **Not applied.** A reviewer found that Dindorf’s text of Eusebius reads λόγον at 980d1, where Burnet reports λέγων. Burnet’s apparatus is reproduced as it stands; the difference is recorded above, under What remains undone. ### Block III: 987a–992e (Burnet pages 18–25) **How it was made.** Burnet pages 18–25 (scan pp. 174–181), 206 lines, from the barbarians who first observed the planets (987a) through the Greeks’ care for the gods, the soul as cause of every motion, the best natures and the subjects they must learn — number, geometry, stereometry, the means of music, astronomy — to the wise man’s portion after death and the summons to the nocturnal council (992e). It was made as the earlier blocks were: the Greek set line for line from the photographs, with the apparatus; the English written and annotated; then independent reviewers checked the Greek and the apparatus in two halves, the English clause by clause, and the notes and the Editorial Note against their sources. **What the reviewers caught.** The Greek text was confirmed letter by letter, with the three places where a scaffold word had to be divided or joined at a dash (991e5, 992a1–2, 992d1–2). In the apparatus one breathing was wrong: at 988b5 Burnet reports αὑτὸ, with the rough breathing, as the word a corrector of O adds. In the English, several constructions had been misread: at 987a5 the subject of “have reached” is the things about the stars; at 987a8 Burnet’s τὰ δὲ τίμια is “the others honored”; at 987b4 the neuter “fitting” belongs to the whole statement; at 988d3 soul is the subject of “disbelieve”; at 989a4 the Athenian says that we seem to be without judgment; at 990c4–5 it is the pupil who is a boy and a young man; at 990e4 nature stamps out form and kind; at 991b4 the gift of rhythm and harmony is made by the dance of the Muses; and at 992a7 “fortunate” is said of the report. One English word had stood for two Greek words, or two for one, in several places (the titles and the names of 987a–b; “way” for both τρόπος and ὁδός; “take up” for both λαμβάνειν and παραλαμβάνειν; “better” for both ἄμεινον and κρεῖττον), and καθορᾶν is now “see” here and at 986a; Block I’s “in harmony” at 974c became “concordantly”, leaving “harmony” to ἁρμονία. Small words had gone untranslated (δή at 986e9 and 988e6, ἅμα at 988a2, καί at 987a6 and 992b2, οἷον at 990a6), two Stephanus letters were moved (988c, 992d), the spelling “Cronus” was brought into line with the series, and phrases that followed a published translation more closely than the Greek requires were reworded. In the notes, the places in Hesiod and the *Laws* were made exact, the reading of A at 987c4 and the reading *stereometria* at 990d8 were added, and the nocturnal council’s knowledge is now stated in the *Laws*’ own terms. In the Editorial Note, every place at which Theon of Smyrna quotes the dialogue was located, and the round brackets at 988d2, the remark ὠβέλισται and the abbreviations of this block were explained. **Not applied.** The line numbers of Theon’s quotations in Hiller’s edition are not given, since they could not be checked on the printed page; the pages are given.