---
title: "Lexicon of the Charmides"
subtitle: "Revised Entries, Block Three: Body to Common good"
author: "Diotimos Editions"
date: "2026"
lang: en-US
toc-title: "Contents"
---

# About these entries

These are the revised entries of the Lexicon of Plato's *Charmides* that accompanies the Diotimos Editions facing-page edition of the dialogue. Each entry gathers what a key word, person or theme means in the dialogue: what the word meant, how the *Charmides* uses it, the passages to read, and, where the material allows, its echoes elsewhere in Plato and in later readers. Quotations of the dialogue are from the edition's English; references are to the Stephanus pages and sections printed in its margins. The entries are grouped by the category under which each is filed, and within each category in alphabetical order. This block holds ten entries: Body; Builder and house-building; Calculation and geometry; Callaeschrus; Care; Chaerephon; Charmides; Clarity and obscurity; Cloak; Common good.


# Argument and inquiry

## Care

<!-- slug: care | categories: Argument and inquiry · Conduct character and emotion · Knowledge ignorance and self-knowledge -->

*Care and neglect · Charmides*

*κήδεσθαι, kēdesthai*, "cares for"; *ἐπιμέλεια, epimeleia*, "caring for", "study"; *ἀμελεῖν, amelein*, "neglect"; *παριέναι, parienai*, "let … go by"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Κήδεσθαι is to be concerned for someone; ἐπιμέλεια, from μέλει, "it is a care", is the pains given to a thing, and ἀμελεῖν is to neglect it.

**In the *Charmides*.** Socrates' Thracian teacher says, on the word of his god Zalmoxis, that the Greek doctors "neglect the whole, which is what they ought to be caring for", and that the soul must be treated first (156e–157a). At 162e ἐπιμέλεια is the study that Critias, Charmides' guardian, has given the question; at 173a Socrates turns care on the inquirer: one must look into what comes to light "if one cares for oneself even a little".

**In this edition.** Ἐπιμέλεια is "caring for" (156e) and "study" (162e), ἀμελεῖν "neglect", κήδεσθαι "cares for", and the doctors' θεραπεύειν "treat". "Neglect" follows Burnet's text; the manuscripts B and T say that the doctors do not know the whole.

**A place to read.** 156b–157c, where the doctors' care for the whole is carried to the soul, which must be treated first.

### Meaning

Κήδεσθαι (*kēdesthai*) is to be troubled on someone's behalf, and so to care for him. Ἐπιμέλεια (*epimeleia*) is built on the impersonal μέλει (*melei*), "it is a care to", and is taking pains over a thing; ἀμελεῖν (*amelein*), with the negative prefix, is to neglect. The words are few in the *Charmides*: κήδεσθαι once, ἐπιμέλεια twice, ἀμελεῖν once. In the charm passage the doctors' word for the work of care is θεραπεύειν (*therapeuein*), to tend or treat, which comes seven times in 156b–157b.

### Use in the book

Care is first a doctor's duty. Good doctors treat the part with the whole (156b–c; see Whole and part). The Thracian from whom Socrates learned the charm, a doctor of Zalmoxis, god and king of the Thracians (156d), carries the principle to the soul on Zalmoxis' word: one must not try to cure the body without the soul either. That, he says, is why most diseases elude the Greek doctors: "they neglect the whole, which is what they ought to be caring for, and when the whole is not in good condition the part cannot possibly be well" (156e). The soul is to be treated first, and no one's head before he hands over his soul to the charm (156e–157b; see Body). In the manuscripts B, the Bodleian Plato written in 895, and T, the Venice manuscript, the doctors' fault is ignorance, not neglect: τὸ ὅλον ἀγνοοῖεν, "they do not know the whole". The rest of the dialogue can be read as joining the two readings.

Ἐπιμέλεια returns once, as the pains a man has taken over a question. When Critias, cousin and guardian of the young Charmides, turns angrily on the boy (162c–d), Socrates tells him, "You, though, may reasonably be expected to know, both because of your age and because of the study you have given it" (162e; see Age and maturity). The rest of the dialogue tests that expectation, and Critias' study does not bring him to an account of temperance that survives the argument.

Care for oneself comes at the low point of the argument. Having granted Critias' definition for argument's sake (172c–d), Socrates says, "even if temperance is entirely of this kind, it does not seem at all clear to me that it does us any good" (172e–173a). Asked to explain, he answers, "I think I'm talking nonsense," and goes on: "All the same, one must look into what comes to light and not let it go by at random, if one cares for oneself even a little" (173a; see Babbling and self-deprecation). The word here is κήδεσθαι, not the ἐπιμέλεια the doctors owed the whole, and its object is oneself. The condition asks very little: care for oneself "even a little" is enough to oblige one to look. Socrates had given a like reason for refuting Critias, the one for which he would scrutinize even himself: "for fear that I might ever, without noticing, think I know something when I don't" (166c–d; see Common good). Set beside the Thracian's instruction, these passages can be read as giving the charm its content, and as joining the two readings of 156e: the soul is treated first, by looking into what one thinks one knows. The Greek doctors neglect the whole; whoever cares for himself even a little must not let a doubt go by.

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**156b–157c** Good doctors treat the part with the whole; the Thracian, on Zalmoxis' word, says that the Greek doctors neglect the whole they ought to care for and that the soul must be treated first, with charms, and he charges Socrates to treat no one's head before its owner hands over his soul to the charm.

**162d–e** Critias may be expected to know what temperance is, because of his age and the study he has given it, and he takes the argument over.

**166c–d** Socrates refutes Critias for the reason he would scrutinize himself, for fear of thinking, without noticing, that he knows what he does not, and examines the argument for his own sake above all.

**172e–173a** Doubting that temperance does us any good, Socrates says that one must look into what comes to light and not let it go by, if one cares for oneself even a little.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

In the *Apology*, Socrates' defence at his trial, care for the soul is the whole of his demand. He asks every Athenian he meets whether he is not ashamed to care for money, that he may have as much as possible, and for reputation and honour, while about wisdom and truth and his soul, how it may be as good as possible, he takes no care and gives no thought (29d–e). He urges young and old to care for neither bodies nor money before the soul, nor so intensely (30a–b): the soul first and most, as in the Thracian's "first and foremost" (157a). And proposing his own penalty, he says that he neglected what the many care for, and went to each Athenian in private, trying to persuade him to care for nothing of his own before he had cared for himself, how he might be as good and as wise as possible (36b–c): the care for oneself of *Charmides* 173a, in the verb of the Thracian's ἐπιμέλεια. The *Alcibiades I*, in which Socrates questions the young Alcibiades, Pericles' ward, argues the demand out. Socrates asks what caring for oneself is, lest perhaps, without noticing it, they are not caring for themselves when they think they are (127e–128a), the same fear, in the same turn of phrase, as his fear at *Charmides* 166d of thinking, without noticing, that he knows. He gets Alcibiades to agree that no doctor knows himself insofar as he is a doctor, and that whoever tends his body tends what is his own, not himself (131a–b), and concludes that we must care for the soul and hand over the care of bodies and money to others (132b–c). The *Laches*, where Socrates and two Athenian generals, Laches and Nicias, look for a definition of courage, puts the question in the doctors' word: Socrates tells Nicias that they must ask whether any of them has the craft of treating the soul (θεραπεία, *therapeia*) and can treat it well, and who has had good teachers in it (185e).

### Translation in this edition

The edition renders ἐπιμέλεια by sense: "caring for" in the Thracian's ἐπιμέλειαν ποιεῖσθαι (156e), and "study" for the pains Critias has given the question (162e). Ἀμελεῖν is "neglect" (156e), κήδεσθαι "cares for" (173a) and παριέναι "let … go by" (173a). "Care" in the English answers to two Greek words only, ἐπιμέλεια and κήδεσθαι. Θεραπεύειν is "treat" at all seven of its places (156b, 156c twice, 157a twice, 157b twice), though "treat" does not always render it: "treating human beings" at 157b supplies a verb the Greek lacks, and "treating" and "treatment" at 164b render ἰᾶσθαι (*iasthai*), which is "cure" at 156b and 156e and "heal" at 156c.

At 156e the edition prints Burnet's text, τοῦ ὅλου ἀμελοῖεν, "they neglect the whole", which no single manuscript or ancient quotation has as it stands. The manuscripts B and T read τὸ ὅλον ἀγνοοῖεν, "they do not know the whole"; T records ἀμελοῖεν as a variant; and Stobaeus, the anthologist of the fifth century AD, who quotes 156d–157b, reads τοῦ ἄλλου ἀμελοῖεν, "they neglect the rest". The genitive τοῦ ὅλου, which ἀμελεῖν needs for its object, is Burnet's own correction, as the edition's note at 156e says. Burnet records no variant in the clause "which is what they ought to be caring for", so the duty of care stands in every text. What the reading ἀμελοῖεν adds, against the ἀγνοοῖεν of B and T, is that the doctors fail through neglect rather than ignorance, with the echo of ἀμελεῖν in ἐπιμέλεια; what Burnet himself adds is that the thing neglected is the whole.

### ἀμελέω

Attested: ἀμελοῖεν (*ameloien*; 156e). To have no care for, to neglect. Zalmoxis teaches, as the Thracian reports him, that most diseases elude the Greek doctors because "they neglect the whole, which is what they ought to be caring for" (156e). The verb is the variant recorded in T and read by Stobaeus; B and T have ἀγνοοῖεν, "they do not know". Lemma: ἀμελέω.

### ἐπιμέλεια

Attested: ἐπιμέλειαν (*epimeleian*; 156e), ἐπιμελείας (*epimeleias*; 162e). Care, the pains taken over a thing. The whole is what the Greek doctors "ought to be caring for" (156e); and Socrates tells Critias, "You, though, may reasonably be expected to know, both because of your age and because of the study you have given it" (162e). Lemma: ἐπιμέλεια.

### κήδομαι

Attested: κήδεται (*kēdetai*; 173a). To be concerned for, to care for, with the person in the genitive. One must look into what comes to light and not let it go by, Socrates says, "if one cares for oneself even a little" (173a). Lemma: κήδομαι.

### παρίημι

Attested: παριέναι (*parienai*; 173a). To let pass, let go by, disregard. One must look into what comes to light "and not let it go by at random" (173a). B has παρεῖναι, the aorist of the same verb; Burnet prints T's present. Lemma: παρίημι.

### See also

Common good; Examination; Knowing oneself; Reputation and ambition; Whole and part.

## Clarity and obscurity

<!-- slug: clarity-and-obscurity | categories: Argument and inquiry -->

*Clear and obscure · Charmides*

*σαφής, saphēs*, "clear", "plain", "straight"; *δῆλος, dēlos*, "clear", "clearly", "plainly"; *δηλοῦν, dēloun*, "make clear"; *ἐναργής, enargēs*, "more clearly"; *καταφανής, kataphanēs*, "plain"; *αἴνιγμα, ainigma*, "riddle"; *αἰνίττεσθαι, ainittesthai*, "speak in riddles"; *αἰνιγματώδης, ainigmatōdēs*, "rather riddlingly"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Σαφής is clear, δῆλος evident, ἐναργής vivid, καταφανής in full view. Against them stands the αἴνιγμα, the riddle, a saying whose sense is not in its words.

**In the *Charmides*.** The saying that temperance is "doing one's own business" is called a riddle (161c–162b), and Critias, Charmides' cousin and guardian, has the god at Delphi speak "rather riddlingly" (164e). Socrates asks Critias for clear words (163d); Critias gives "a plain definition" (163e), grants that "nothing that we said was really clear" (165b), and later, perplexed, "said nothing clear" (169d). Each thing's becoming plain is agreed to be a common good (166d); later Socrates, even granting the definition, finds it not at all clear that temperance does us any good (172e–173a).

**In this edition.** "Clear" and "plain" render the words of clarity, with "straight" once (153c); "come to light" renders verbs of appearing; "riddle" and its kin render the riddle words.

**A place to read.** 163d–165b, from the request for a plainer definition to the admission that nothing was really clear.

### Meaning

Σαφής (*saphēs*) is distinct and sure, as a reliable report is: Chaerephon, Socrates' impetuous friend, says of the battle, "We still haven't got the whole story straight" (153c). Δῆλος (*dēlos*) is plain to see, δηλοῦν (*dēloun*) to make plain. Ἐναργής (*enargēs*) is vivid, palpable; καταφανής (*kataphanēs*), akin to φαίνεσθαι (*phainesthai*), "to appear", is in full view. The αἴνιγμα (*ainigma*), from αἶνος (*ainos*), a tale with a point, is a dark saying whose author is supposed to know what he means.

### Use in the book

Charmides, the youth under examination, offers a saying he has heard, that temperance is "doing one's own business", and Socrates answers, "it looks like a kind of riddle" (161c), since its author "surely did not mean it the way the words sound" (161d); taken literally it fails, and so, it seems, he "was speaking in riddles", "for surely he was not such a simpleton" (161d–162b; see Doing one's own business). Since the man was thought very wise, Socrates is "quite certain he put it forward as a riddle" (162b). Charmides adds, laughing slyly and looking across at Critias, "But perhaps there is nothing to stop even the man who said it from not knowing what he meant" (162b). Critias, whom Socrates suspects of being its source (162c), takes it over (162e), and later makes riddling the god's style: the inscription "Know thyself" at Delphi, the seat of Apollo's oracle, is, he says, the god's greeting "Be temperate!", spoken "as a prophet would, rather riddlingly" (164d–165a; see Advice and greeting).

Against the riddle Socrates sets a demand: "I allow you to assign each word as you please; only make clear what you are applying whatever word you use to. So now go back to the beginning and define it more plainly" (163d; see Action). Critias answers, "I give you a plain definition: temperance is the doing of good things" (163e). It soon runs into a doctor who may be temperate without knowing it (164a–c; see Agreement and concession), and Critias, starting again from knowing oneself, gives up everything said before: "nothing that we said was really clear" (165b). The admission can be read as bearing out Charmides' joke that the saying's author may not have known his own meaning.

When Socrates himself says "clear", it is to lay down the starting point of an examination. "For it is clear that if temperance is present in you, you have some opinion about it," he tells Charmides, since it "must give rise to some sense" (158e–159a; see Belief and opinion). Whether the boy can put that opinion into words is not called clear: Socrates asks it, and Charmides answers only "Perhaps" (159a). So with Critias: "If temperance is knowing something, then clearly it would be a kind of knowledge, and knowledge of something, wouldn't it?" (165c; see Art and craft).

Clarity is also the aim. "Or is it not a common good, do you think, for practically all men, that each of the things that are should become plain, as it really is?" Socrates asks, and Critias agrees (166d; see Attention). Yet Critias, who seemed to Socrates to catch his perplexity like a yawn, was ashamed and "said nothing clear, but kept covering up his perplexity" (169c–d; see Agreement and concession): unclear speech goes with concealment. Clarity returns, in a question, as a smaller good of temperance: perhaps to its possessor "everything will appear more clearly". "Perhaps that is how it is," says Critias (172b–c; see Benefit). Even granting the definition, "it does not seem at all clear to me that it does us any good," Socrates says (172e–173a). In the end the inquiry makes plain only a negative result: the definition they agreed on has been shown to be "of no benefit" (175d), though temperance, Socrates still thinks, is "a great good" (175e).

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**158e–159a** It is clear, Socrates says, that if temperance is present in Charmides he has some opinion about it, since it must give rise to some sense; he asks the boy to say what it is.

**161c–162b** "Doing one's own business" looks like a riddle: its author, no simpleton and thought very wise, spoke in riddles; Charmides suggests that he may not have known what he meant.

**163d–e** Socrates asks Critias to make clear what each word applies to and to define more plainly; Critias gives "a plain definition".

**164d–165a** Critias reads "Know thyself" at Delphi as the god's greeting "Be temperate!", spoken as a prophet would, rather riddlingly.

**165b–c** Critias gives up everything said before: nothing they said was really clear; Socrates asks whether, if temperance is knowing something, it is not clearly knowledge of something.

**166d** Socrates asks whether it is not a common good that each of the things that are should become plain, as it really is; Critias agrees.

**169c–d** Critias, who seemed to Socrates to catch his perplexity, says nothing clear and keeps covering it up.

**172b–c** Socrates asks whether temperance would make everything appear more clearly to the learner, a smaller good than the one they sought; Critias answers, "Perhaps that is how it is".

**172e–173a** Socrates, even granting the definition, finds it not at all clear that temperance does us any good.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

In the *Apology* the riddle is the god's. Chaerephon had asked at Delphi whether anyone was wiser than Socrates, and the Pythia, Apollo's priestess, answered that no one was (21a). Socrates asked himself, "What can the god be saying, and what is he hinting at in riddles? For I am aware of being wise in nothing, great or small"; and yet the god surely does not lie, for that is not lawful for him. After long perplexity he went, very reluctantly, to one of those reputed wise, to refute the oracle (21b–c). In both dialogues the speaker's standing, a god's in the *Apology* and a wise man's at *Charmides* 162a–b, is the reason for thinking that a saying which seems false means something else, and examination is the way to its meaning. The *Republic* reads a poet's saying the same way. Simonides of Ceos, the lyric poet of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, said that it is just to give back to each what is owed. Socrates finds it hard to disbelieve so wise and godlike a man, yet it is clear, he says, that Simonides did not mean that a deposit must be returned to a man who asks for it out of his senses (331e–332a); so, it seems, Simonides "spoke in riddles, poetically", about what justice is: he meant, it appears, that it is to give back to each what is fitting, and he called this "what is owed" (332b–c). When the *Republic* later makes doing one's own, in a certain way, the likely account of justice (433a–b), Socrates calls the rule that the born shoemaker should cobble and do nothing else "a kind of image of justice", justice in truth being the inward doing of one's own, not the outward (443c–d; see Action); the *Charmides*' riddle can be read as answered there.

The *Phaedrus* explains why written words, parted from their author, are no source of clarity. Whoever thinks he leaves behind an art in writing, Socrates tells Phaedrus, his young friend and lover of speeches, or whoever takes one over from writing as something clear (σαφές) and sure, would be brimming with simple-mindedness, εὐήθεια (*euētheia*), the quality Socrates denies to the author of "doing one's own business" when he says he was not "such a simpleton", εὐήθης (*euēthēs*; *Charmides* 162a–b). Like a painted figure, a written speech seems alive, but asked about what it says by one who wants to learn, it indicates one single thing, the same every time; and when it is mistreated and unjustly abused it is forever in want of its father to come to its rescue, unable to ward off attack or rescue itself (275c–e). In the *Charmides* "doing one's own business" arrives as a thing heard, without its author; Charmides wants Critias to answer for it (162c), and Critias seemed to Socrates as angry with him "as a poet is with an actor who makes a mess of the poet's own verses" (162d). If Critias is its author, as Socrates suspects and his simile implies (162c–d), the scene can be read as a father coming to the rescue of his speech.

### Translation in this edition

Every "clear" and "plain" in the edition's English renders a word of this group. Σαφ- is "straight" (σαφῶς, 153c), "more plainly" (σαφέστερον, 163d), "plain" in "a plain definition" (σαφῶς, 163e) and "clear" (σαφές, 165b, 169d). Δῆλος is "clear" (158e, 173a), "clearly" (165c) and, of Critias' visible agitation, "plainly" (162c); δηλοῦν is "make clear" (163d). Ἐναργέστερα is "more clearly" (172b), and γίγνεσθαι καταφανές "become plain" (166d). "Come to light" renders verbs of appearing: καταφαίνεσθαι, the verb of καταφανής (172c), and προφαίνεσθαι (172e, 173a). Αἴνιγμα is "riddle" (161c, 162b), αἰνίττεσθαι "speak in riddles" (162a), and the comparative αἰνιγματωδέστερον, used as an adverb, "rather riddlingly" (164e).

### αἴνιγμα

Attested: αἰνίγματι (*ainigmati*; 161c), αἴνιγμα (*ainigma*; 162b). A riddle, a dark saying. The formula "doing one's own business", Socrates says, "looks like a kind of riddle" (161c), and its author, who was thought very wise, "put it forward as a riddle, on the view that it is hard to know what on earth doing one's own business is" (162b). Lemma: αἴνιγμα.

### αἰνιγματώδης

Attested: αἰνιγματωδέστερον (*ainigmatōdesteron*; 164e). Riddling; the neuter comparative serves as an adverb. In Critias' account the god at Delphi says "Be temperate!" to everyone who enters, but "he says it, as a prophet would, rather riddlingly" (164e). Lemma: αἰνιγματώδης.

### αἰνίττομαι

Attested: ᾐνίττετο (*ēinitteto*; 162a). To speak in riddles, to hint. Socrates concludes, "Then, as it seems, the man who said that temperance was doing one's own business was speaking in riddles, as I said just now; for surely he was not such a simpleton" (162a–b). Lemma: αἰνίττομαι.

### δῆλος

Attested: δῆλον (*dēlon*; 158e, 165c, 173a), δῆλος (*dēlos*; 162c). Clear, evident. Impersonal δῆλον, "it is clear", marks two of Socrates' premises: that if temperance is present in Charmides he has some opinion about it (158e), and that if temperance is knowing something it is "clearly" a kind of knowledge, and of something (165c). Negated, it carries his doubt that temperance, even if it is wholly what they have defined it to be, does us any good: "it does not seem at all clear to me" (172e–173a). With a participle, in Socrates' narration, it is "plainly": "Critias had plainly been on edge for some time" (162c). Lemma: δῆλος.

### δηλόω

Attested: δήλου (*dēlou*; 163d). To show, to make plain. Socrates lets Critias assign each word as he pleases, and tells him, "only make clear what you are applying whatever word you use to" (163d). Lemma: δηλόω.

### ἐναργής

Attested: ἐναργέστερα (*enargestera*; 172b). Vivid, palpable, plain to see. Socrates asks whether this is the good that temperance has: that whoever has it "will learn more easily whatever else he learns, and everything will appear more clearly to him", since with each thing he learns he has a view of the knowledge as well (172b). Lemma: ἐναργής.

### καταφανής

Attested: καταφανές (*kataphanes*; 166d). In full view, manifest. Socrates asks whether it is not a common good "that each of the things that are should become plain, as it really is" (166d). Its verb, καταφαίνεσθαι, is a separate lemma, and occurs once, as "come to light": "some strange things come to light about temperance" (172c). Lemma: καταφανής.

### σαφής

Attested: σαφῶς (*saphōs*; 153c, 163e), σαφέστερον (*saphesteron*; 163d), σαφές (*saphes*; 165b, 169d). Clear, distinct, sure. Chaerephon has not yet got "the whole story straight" (153c); Socrates asks Critias to "define it more plainly" (163d), and Critias answers, "I give you a plain definition" (163e); Critias then grants that "nothing that we said was really clear" (165b); and, caught by perplexity, he "said nothing clear", in Socrates' narration (169d). Lemma: σαφής.

### See also

Definition; Learning and teaching; Perplexity; Truth and falsehood.

## Common good

<!-- slug: charmides-common-good | categories: Argument and inquiry · Authority politics and social relations · Virtue and ethical value -->

*κοινὸν ἀγαθόν, koinon agathon*, "a common good"; *κοινῇ, koinēi*, "together"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Κοινός is common, shared by several alike, as against what is one's own; its dative κοινῇ, used as an adverb, is "in common", "together".

**In the *Charmides*.** The word comes twice, both times of inquiry. Socrates proposes that he and Charmides look into the boy's temperance "together" (158d); and, accused by Critias of trying to refute him, he asks whether it is not "a common good … for practically all men" that each thing should become plain (166d). Critias agrees. The larger good once hoped for household and city is later withdrawn (172d–173a); this one never is.

**In this edition.** Κοινῇ is "together"; κοινὸν … ἀγαθόν is "a common good", and σχεδόν τι "practically".

**A place to read.** 166c–e, where the common good of each thing's becoming plain is set against the question of who is refuted.

### Meaning

Κοινός (*koinos*) is what belongs to several at once, as against what is one's own, ἴδιος (*idios*); in a city τὰ κοινά (*ta koina*) are its public affairs. In the *Charmides* the word is used only of inquiry: of its manner, done "together" (158d), and of its aim, that each thing should become plain, καταφανές (*kataphanes*), "as it really is" (166d; see Clarity and obscurity). That is a good of knowledge, and can be read as one that no man has less of because another has it.

### Use in the book

Joint inquiry is first offered as a way out of a difficulty of reputation. Charmides, the young son of Glaucon, cannot deny that he is temperate without showing up Critias, his cousin and guardian, nor affirm it without praising himself (158c–d; see Belief and opinion). Socrates answers, "And it seems to me … that we ought to look into it together, whether or not you possess what I am asking about, so that you won't be forced to say what you don't want to, and I in turn won't set about my doctoring without looking into things" (158d–e). The offer, "I am willing to look into it with you" (158e), comes back twice with Critias: "I would much rather look into it with you" (162e), and "I inquire with you, each time, into whatever is proposed, because I myself do not know" (165b–c; see Inquiry).

The second time, the good itself is common. Critias complains, "You are trying to refute me, and letting go of what the argument is about" (166c). Socrates answers that he refutes him only for the reason for which he would scrutinize even himself, for fear of thinking, without noticing, that he knows what he does not (166c–d; see Attention), and goes on: "this is what I am doing: examining the argument for my own sake above all, but perhaps also for the sake of my other friends. Or is it not a common good, do you think, for practically all men, that each of the things that are should become plain, as it really is?" "Very much so, Socrates," Critias answers (166d). The good widens from Socrates himself to his friends and then to practically all men. "Then take heart, my dear fellow," Socrates replies, "answer the question as it seems to you, and say goodbye to whether it is Critias or Socrates who is being refuted" (166d–e; see Refutation). A good that is common can be read as one the man refuted shares as fully as the man who refutes him. Critias does not hold to this long: in Socrates' telling he is soon "ashamed in front of the company" and keeps "covering up his perplexity" (169c–d; see Reputation and ambition).

Later Socrates recalls a larger shared good: if temperance were what they first supposed, "we would live our lives without error, both we ourselves who had temperance and all the others who were ruled by us", and households and cities would be well run (171d–172a). He withdraws the agreement that this would be a great good (172d–173a; see Benefit). The good once hoped for household and city is left in doubt; the common good of 166d is never withdrawn.

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**158c–e** Charmides can neither affirm nor deny that he is temperate; Socrates proposes that they look into it together, if the boy is willing.

**162e** Socrates would much rather look into the definition with Critias, who takes the argument over.

**165b–c** Socrates inquires with Critias each time, because he does not himself know.

**166c–e** Accused of trying to refute Critias, Socrates examines the argument for his own sake above all and perhaps for his friends', and asks whether it is not a common good for practically all men that each thing should become plain; it does not matter who is refuted.

**171d–172a** If temperance were what they supposed, the temperate and all they ruled would live without error, and household and city would be well run.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

The *Gorgias* has the same phrase, and the thought behind it. Socrates hesitates to refute Gorgias of Leontini, the Sicilian teacher of rhetoric, for fear that Gorgias may suppose him to be contending not about the matter, that it should become plain (καταφανὲς γενέσθαι, *kataphanes genesthai*, nearly the words of *Charmides* 166d), but against Gorgias himself (457e). He is one of those, he says, who would gladly be refuted if they said something untrue and gladly refute anyone else who did, and would be refuted no less gladly than refute; for he holds being refuted the greater good, by as much as it is a greater good to be rid of the greatest evil oneself than to rid another of it, and no evil is as great for a man as a false opinion about what they are discussing (458a–b). Later, when Callicles, the Athenian at whose house Gorgias is staying, refuses to answer and Socrates must carry the argument alone, Socrates says that all of them should vie with one another to know what is true and what is false in what they discuss, "for it is a common good for all that it should become plain" (φανερὸν γενέσθαι, *phaneron genesthai*, 505e); and he adds, "I do not say what I say as one who knows, but I inquire together with you" (506a): Socrates' "I inquire with you" of *Charmides* 165b, with the κοινῇ, "together", of 158d.

In the *Phaedo*, on the day of his death, Socrates warns his friends against misology, the hatred of arguments (89d), and fears that on the question before them he may argue not as a philosopher but contentiously, like the wholly uneducated, who in a dispute give no thought to how the matter stands, ὅπῃ ἔχει (*hopēi echei*, the "as it really is" of *Charmides* 166d), but care only that their own positions should seem true to those present (91a). He will be eager, he says, not that what he says should seem true to those present, except incidentally, but that it should seem so above all to himself; and Simmias and Cebes, his two Theban friends, are, if they will take his advice, to give little thought to Socrates and much more to the truth (91a–c). As at 166d, Socrates examines for his own sake above all, and the person of the speaker gives way to the truth.

### Translation in this edition

Κοινῇ is "together" (158d), and the "with you" that follows renders μετὰ σοῦ (*meta sou*; 158e), as in "look into it with you" (162e) and "I inquire with you" (165b). Κοινὸν … ἀγαθόν is "a common good" (166d), and γίγνεσθαι καταφανὲς … ὅπῃ ἔχει (*gignesthai kataphanes … hopēi echei*) "should become plain, as it really is". Σχεδόν τι (*schedon ti*) is "practically" at 166d, "nearly" in "nearly everyone of that age" (154b) and "almost" in "I would almost say" (164d); σχεδόν alone is "almost" (163d). "My other friends" renders τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιτηδείων (*tōn allōn epitēdeiōn*), those close to him.

### κοινός

Attested: κοινῇ (*koinēi*; 158d), κοινόν (*koinon*; 166d). Common, shared; the dative κοινῇ, used as an adverb, is "together". It gives the manner of inquiry at 158d, where Socrates and Charmides are to look into the boy's temperance "together", and its aim at 166d, that each thing should become plain, "a common good … for practically all men". Lemma: κοινός.

### See also

Examination; Friendship and companionship; Good and bad; Refutation; Reputation and ambition.

# Crafts expertise and products

## Builder and house-building

<!-- slug: builder-and-house-building | categories: Crafts expertise and products -->

*οἰκοδομική, oikodomikē*, "house-building"; *οἰκοδομεῖν, oikodomein*, "build"; *οἴκησις, oikēsis*, "house"; *τὸ οἰκοδομικόν, to oikodomikon*, "what belongs to house-building"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Οἰκοδομεῖν is to build, and first of all to build a house; οἰκοδομική is the builder's craft, house-building, and οἴκησις a dwelling, a house.

**In the *Charmides*.** Socrates, narrating, calls himself a white measuring-line on white stone (154b). Building houses is among the activities that "are surely doing something" (161e). At 165d house-building is Socrates' example of a craft with both an object and a work: it is "knowledge of how to build", and it produces houses. Critias objects that calculation and geometry have no such work, and Socrates grants it (165e–166a). Later, what belongs to house-building is known "by house-building and not by temperance" (170c), and a temperance that is only knowledge of knowledge cannot reach it.

**In this edition.** Οἰκοδομική is "house-building" at every place, and "house" is kept for the product. Οἰκοδομεῖν is "building houses" (161e) and "how to build" (165d), where the edition follows Burnet's text; the Bodleian manuscript there has "what belongs to house-building", the phrase of 170c.

**A place to read.** 165c–166a, where house-building and its houses set the standard that temperance is asked to meet.

### Meaning

Οἰκοδομεῖν (*oikodomein*) joins οἶκος (*oikos*), "house", to the root of δέμειν (*demein*), "to build". Οἰκοδομική (*oikodomikē*), an adjective with "craft" understood, is the builder's art; its neuter τὸ οἰκοδομικόν (*to oikodomikon*) is what belongs to that art, its field. Οἴκησις (*oikēsis*), from οἰκεῖν (*oikein*), "to dwell", is a dwelling.

Critias' word for the house that building produces, οἰκία (*oikia*, 165e), is also the Greek for "household": the household that Socrates imagines "run by temperance" (171e), and whose management, they had agreed, temperance would guide (172d; see Household and city).

### Use in the book

Before any argument, the builder's trade gives Socrates, narrating, an image for himself: "Where the beautiful are concerned I am simply a white measuring-line on white stone: nearly everyone of that age looks beautiful to me" (154b). A mason's line (στάθμη, *stathmē*) was coloured so as to mark the stone; a white one on white marble marks nothing, and Socrates, by his own account, marks off no beautiful youth from another.

In the argument building is first a kind of doing. Charmides has offered the definition that temperance is "doing one's own business" (161b), and Socrates takes "doing" in its widest sense: "Yes, and healing, my friend, and building houses and weaving, and producing, by any craft whatever, any of the works of craft, are surely doing something." Charmides answers, "Certainly" (161e). A city under a law that made each man weave his own cloak and cobble his own shoes would not, Charmides thinks, be well managed, and so, Socrates concludes, doing one's own business in that sense would not be temperance (161e–162a; see Action).

House-building comes into its own once Critias has made temperance knowing oneself (164d). Socrates goes on from medicine and its health: "And if you asked me about house-building, which is knowledge of how to build, what work I say it produces, I would say, 'Houses'; and the same with the other crafts" (165d). The sentence gives house-building both things a craft can be asked for, what it is knowledge of and what work it produces, and it is the work that Socrates demands of temperance: "what fine work does it produce for us, worthy of its name?" (165e). Critias turns the house against him, asking what work calculation or geometry has "in the way that a house is the work of house-building, or a cloak of weaving"; Socrates grants that they have none, points instead to what each knowledge is of, and asks what temperance is knowledge of (165e–166b; see Art and craft).

When building returns, the house is gone and only the field remains. One knows, Socrates says, "the healthy by medicine and not by temperance, the harmonious by music and not by temperance, what belongs to house-building by house-building and not by temperance, and so on for everything." "So it appears," Critias answers; and asked how, by temperance, "if it is only knowledge of kinds of knowledge", anyone will know "that he knows the healthy, or what belongs to house-building", he says, "In no way" (170c). The man who has only temperance will know "only that he knows", not what, and will not be able to tell a true doctor from a pretender (170c–171c; see Art and craft).

House-building can thus be read as framing both demands made of temperance. At 165d it shows what a knowledge can be expected to produce, and Critias denies that every knowledge has a work; at 170c it shows what a knowledge is of, and temperance, if it is only knowledge of knowledge, cannot reach the builder's field. The house drops out of the argument; what belongs to house-building remains, and only house-building knows it.

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**154b** Socrates, narrating, calls himself a white measuring-line on white stone where the beautiful are concerned.

**161e–162a** Healing, building houses and weaving are doing something; a city whose law made each man make his own things would not be well managed.

**165c–166a** House-building is knowledge of how to build and produces houses, and Socrates asks what fine work temperance produces; Critias objects that calculation and geometry have no work in the way that a house is the work of house-building, and Socrates grants it.

**170b–d** What belongs to house-building is known by house-building and not by temperance; a man with knowledge only of knowledge would know that he knows, not what.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

The *Republic* builds a city in speech from its needs, and the builder is in it from the start. Food comes first, Socrates tells Adeimantus, Plato's brother, then housing (οἴκησις, Socrates' word at *Charmides* 165d for the houses that building produces), then clothing; so the barest city has a farmer, a builder, a weaver, and a cobbler or someone else who tends the body, four or five men in all. Socrates then asks which way is better. Should each put his own work at the service of all, so that the farmer grows food for four? Or should the farmer spend a quarter of his time on food for himself and the rest on providing himself a house, a cloak and shoes, and "do his own things by himself"? The first way, Adeimantus answers, is perhaps easier; Socrates adds that men are born unlike one another, each fitted for a different work, and Adeimantus agrees that one man does better practising one craft than many (369d–370c). The farmer of the second way, who builds his own house and makes his own cloak and shoes, can be read as the man the law Socrates imagines at *Charmides* 161e–162a would require, and both dialogues set him aside. The phrase of the definition Charmides offers, "doing one's own business" (τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν), here names that self-sufficient man; later in the *Republic* it becomes the definition of justice (433a–b; see Action).

In the *Gorgias* house-building is the first case on which competence is tested. If he and Callicles, his chief opponent in that dialogue, were urging each other to take on the city's buildings, walls, docks or temples, Socrates says, they ought first to examine themselves: whether they know the craft, house-building, and from whom they learned it, and whether either has ever built anything privately, for a friend or for himself, and whether it is fine or ugly; only with good teachers and many fine buildings to show would it be sensible to go on to public works. He then turns the test on doctors and on Callicles, who has just begun to manage the city's affairs: whom has he made better (514a–515b)? The *Gorgias* judges a builder by marks the two partners could examine for themselves, his teachers and his buildings; the *Charmides* can be read as asking for more, since what belongs to house-building is known only by house-building (170c), and the temperate man, if temperance is only knowledge of knowledge, could judge, like any craftsman, only a "fellow craftsman" (171c).

In the *Statesman* the unnamed visitor from Elea, in southern Italy, who leads the conversation counts the master builder, like calculation, among the kinds of knowledge that supply knowing, not handiwork, but parts the two: calculation only judges, while the master builder, having judged, must direct the workmen until the work is done (259e–260b; see Calculation and geometry). Set against *Charmides* 165e, this can be read as moving the master builder, though not his workmen, to the side of calculation.

### Translation in this edition

Οἰκοδομική is "house-building" at all three of its places (165d, 165e, 170c), and "house" is kept for the product, both for Socrates' οἰκήσεις, "Houses" (165d), and for Critias' οἰκία, "a house" (165e). Οἰκοδομεῖν is "building houses" in Socrates' list of doings (161e) and "how to build" in "knowledge of how to build" (165d). The neuter τὸ οἰκοδομικόν is "what belongs to house-building" both times (170c). At 165d Burnet prints τοῦ οἰκοδομεῖν, "of building", with T and W, the Venice and Vienna manuscripts; B, the Bodleian manuscript written in 895, has τοῦ οἰκοδομικοῦ, which would make house-building knowledge "of what belongs to house-building", the phrase of 170c. The edition follows Burnet.

### οἴκησις

Attested: οἰκήσεις (*oikēseis*; 165d). A dwelling, a house. It is Socrates' answer when he imagines being asked what work house-building produces: "Houses" (165d). Critias, taking up the example, uses the common word οἰκία, "a house" (165e). Lemma: οἴκησις.

### οἰκοδομέω

Attested: οἰκοδομεῖν (*oikodomein*; 161e, 165d). To build, to build houses. "Building houses" is among the activities that, Socrates says, "are surely doing something" (161e); and house-building is "knowledge of how to build" (165d). Lemma: οἰκοδομέω.

### οἰκοδομική

Attested: οἰκοδομικήν (*oikodomikēn*; 165d), οἰκοδομικῆς (*oikodomikēs*; 165e), οἰκοδομικῇ (*oikodomikēi*; 170c); the neuter οἰκοδομικόν (*oikodomikon*; 170c twice), "what belongs to house-building". House-building, the builder's craft. Its work is houses (165d), and Critias asks what work calculation or geometry has "in the way that a house is the work of house-building"; Socrates grants that they have none (165e–166a). Its field, "what belongs to house-building", is known "by house-building and not by temperance" (170c). Lemma: οἰκοδομική; οἰκοδομικός.

### See also

Craft and expertise; Household and city; Knowledge of knowledge; Product and object of knowledge.

## Calculation and geometry

<!-- slug: calculation-and-geometry | categories: Crafts expertise and products · Knowledge ignorance and self-knowledge -->

*λογιστική, logistikē*, "calculation"; *γεωμετρική, geōmetrikē*, "geometry"; *τοῦ ἀρτίου καὶ τοῦ περιττοῦ, tou artiou kai tou perittou*, "of the even and the odd"; *πλῆθος, plēthos*, "in quantity", "numbers"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Λογιστική is the art of calculation and γεωμετρική geometry; the even and the odd are the two kinds of number, and πλῆθος is number or quantity.

**In the *Charmides*.** Critias names calculation and geometry as kinds of knowledge with no work like a house (165e). Socrates grants it, and answers that calculation is of the even and the odd, as weighing is of the heavier and the lighter, each "something other than" the knowledge (166a–b). The objects of both return among the cases where nothing can have its power in relation to itself (168c–e), and calculation is not, Critias says, the knowledge that makes the all-knowing man happy (174b). Temperance, on Critias' account, is like calculation in having no work and unlike it in having no object but knowledge (168a).

**In this edition.** Λογιστική is "calculation", and Critias' λογιστικὴ τέχνη "the art of calculation" (165e); γεωμετρική is "geometry" and στατική "weighing"; πλῆθος is "in quantity" in the definition of calculation (166a) and "numbers" at 168e.

**A place to read.** 165e–166b, where calculation, a knowledge without a product, proves to have an object of its own.

### Meaning

Λογιστική (*logistikē*), an adjective with "craft" understood, is the art of λογίζεσθαι (*logizesthai*), reckoning or calculating; γεωμετρική (*geōmetrikē*), from γῆ (*gē*), "earth", and μετρεῖν (*metrein*), "to measure", is geometry. Ἄρτιος (*artios*), literally "fitted" or "complete", is even, said of numbers, and περιττός (*perittos*), literally "over and above", is odd. Πλῆθος (*plēthos*) is a multitude, and so number or quantity.

### Use in the book

Calculation enters when Socrates asks what work temperance produces, as medicine produces health and house-building houses (165c–e). Critias, Charmides' cousin and guardian, protests that temperance is not by nature like the other kinds of knowledge, and asks in turn: "what work does the art of calculation have, or geometry, in the way that a house is the work of house-building, or a cloak of weaving ...?" "That's true," Socrates says, granting that they have none (165e–166a; see Art and craft).

But he can say what each is knowledge of: "Calculation, for instance, is surely of the even and the odd, how they stand in quantity to themselves and to each other, isn't it?" "Certainly," says Critias, and he grants that the odd and the even are "something other than calculation itself" (166a). "To themselves" can be read as within each class, even with even and odd with odd, beside the two classes with each other; calculation does not make a number more than itself, which Socrates will later find impossible (168c–e). For geometry Socrates names no object. His second example is weighing, "the weighing of the heavier and the lighter weight", whose objects, the heavy and the light, are likewise "something other than weighing itself" (166b). Asked the same of temperance, Critias answers that it alone is knowledge "both of the other kinds of knowledge and of itself" (166c; see Knowledge of knowledge).

Neither calculation nor weighing is named in the argument about self-relation, but the objects of both return there. What is double of itself would also be half of itself; and Socrates asks whether "what is more than itself will also be less", and "what is heavier lighter", in the words that named weighing's objects (168c; see Double and half; Greater and smaller). Then he asks, "For with magnitudes and numbers and such things it is altogether impossible, isn't it?" and Critias answers, "Certainly" (168e). "Numbers" renders πλήθη, the word rendered "in quantity" in the definition of calculation (166a), and "magnitudes", μεγέθη (*megethē*), may stand for the objects of geometry, for which Socrates named none. The arts that showed a knowledge to be of something other than itself can thus be read as supplying, a little later, the plainest cases of a power that cannot be turned on itself.

Calculation returns once more near the end of the search, when Socrates asks which knowledge makes the man who knows everything happy. "Is it perhaps the one by which he knows draughts?" "Draughts?" says Critias. "What draughts?" "The one, then, by which he knows calculation?" "Not at all." Of the one by which he knows what is healthy Critias says, "More so"; and the one that does it most of all, he says, is the one by which he knows "good ... and bad" (174b; see Knowledgeable living).

In the *Charmides* calculation is the standing example of a knowledge that has no product but has an object of its own, other than itself. Critias' temperance is like it, on his own argument, in having no work, and unlike it in having no object but knowledge: it is knowledge "of no subject of learning" (168a), and so, without medicine, it cannot tell whether a man knows the healthy (170c–d).

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**165e–166a** Critias asks what work calculation and geometry have, as a house is the work of house-building or a cloak of weaving; Socrates grants that they have none.

**166a–c** Calculation is of the even and the odd, weighing of the heavier and the lighter, each something other than the knowledge itself; Critias answers that temperance alone is knowledge of the other kinds of knowledge and of itself.

**168b–e** What is greater, double, more, heavier or older than itself would also be smaller, half, less, lighter or younger; with magnitudes and numbers it is altogether impossible.

**174a–b** Which knowledge makes the all-knowing man happy? Not draughts, not calculation; the knowledge of the healthy more so, the knowledge of good and bad most of all.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

Critias' objection rests on a division Plato draws elsewhere. In the *Gorgias* Socrates divides the crafts into those that are mostly work and need little speech, like painting and sculpture, and those that achieve everything through speech and need little or no work, like arithmetic, calculation, geometry and draughts (450c–e); draughts and calculation come together again at *Charmides* 174b. Arithmetic is about the even and the odd, how many each is; calculation is about the same things, but examines how the odd and the even stand in quantity to themselves and to each other (451b–c), almost the words of *Charmides* 166a. What sets calculation apart is the question it asks, not a difference between practice and theory.

The unnamed visitor from Elea, in southern Italy, who leads the *Statesman*, divides all knowledge on the same line: arithmetic and its kindred arts are bare of action and supply only knowing, while carpentry and all handicraft have their knowledge bound up with their actions and bring into being bodies that did not exist before (258d–e). Calculation, once it knows the difference among numbers, has no further work (ἔργον, *ergon*, the word Critias uses at 165e) than to judge what it knows (259e; see Builder and house-building).

The *Republic* can be read as giving calculation and geometry a work after all, though in the soul. Those who are to share in the city's greatest affairs, Socrates tells Glaucon, Plato's brother, must pursue calculation until they see the nature of numbers by thought itself, not for buying and selling, as merchants do, but for war and to ease the soul's turning from becoming to truth and being (525b–c). Geometers speak like men at work, of "squaring" and "adding"; yet the study is pursued for the sake of knowing what always is, and so would draw the soul toward truth and be "productive of a philosopher's thought" (527a–b). The word for "productive", ἀπεργαστικόν (*apergastikon*), comes from the verb by which the *Charmides* asks what medicine, house-building and temperance "produce" (165c–e).

### Translation in this edition

Λογιστική is "calculation" at 166a, both times, and so is τὸ λογιστικόν at 174b; Critias' τῆς λογιστικῆς τέχνης is "the art of calculation" (165e), the one place where the edition renders τέχνη as "art". Γεωμετρική is "geometry", and στατική "weighing" (166b). Πλῆθος is "in quantity" in the definition (166a) and "numbers" beside "magnitudes" (168e). At 165e B, the Bodleian manuscript written in 895, reads λογικῆς, an adjective from λόγος, "word" or "reason", that Plato's dialogues nowhere use; Burnet prints λογιστικῆς, "of calculation", with T and W, the Venice and Vienna manuscripts, and Socrates' answer at 166a, where the word stands without variant, bears the printed reading out by speaking of λογιστική.

### ἄρτιος

Attested: ἀρτίου (*artiou*; 166a twice). Even, of numbers. With the odd it is the object of calculation, which considers how the two "stand in quantity to themselves and to each other" (166a). The adverb ἄρτι, "just now", is another word and is not listed. Lemma: ἄρτιος.

### γεωμετρική

Attested: γεωμετρικῆς (*geōmetrikēs*; 165e). Geometry. Critias pairs it with calculation as a knowledge with no work like a house or a cloak (165e); Socrates, in reply, names an object for calculation and for weighing, but none for geometry (166a–b). Lemma: γεωμετρική.

### λογιστική

Attested: λογιστικῆς (*logistikēs*; 165e, 166a), λογιστική (*logistikē*; 166a). Calculation. Critias asks what work "the art of calculation" has (165e), where the Bodleian manuscript reads λογικῆς; Socrates answers with its object, the even and the odd, which are "something other than calculation itself" (166a). Lemma: λογιστική.

### λογιστικός

Attested: λογιστικόν (*logistikon*; 174b). Belonging to calculation; with the article, calculation as a field of knowledge. It is Socrates' second suggestion for the knowledge that makes the all-knowing man happy, after draughts, and Critias answers, "Not at all" (174b). In the *Republic* the same neuter names the part of the soul by which it reasons (439d). Lemma: λογιστικός.

### περιττός

Attested: περιττοῦ (*perittou*; 166a twice). Odd, of numbers. With the even it is the object of calculation, and is "something other than calculation itself" (166a). Lemma: περιττός.

### πλῆθος

Attested: πλήθους (*plēthous*; 166a), πλήθη (*plēthē*; 168e). Number, quantity, multitude. Calculation considers how the even and the odd "stand in quantity to themselves and to each other" (166a); and with "magnitudes and numbers and such things", Socrates asks and Critias agrees, it is "altogether impossible" for a thing to have its power in relation to itself (168e). Lemma: πλῆθος.

### See also

Double and half; Greater and smaller; Knowledgeable living; Product and object of knowledge; Weighing.

## Cloak

<!-- slug: cloak | categories: Crafts expertise and products · Drama and conversational tone · Objects and everyday practices -->

*ἱμάτιον, himation*, "cloak"; *ἀμπεχόνη, ampechonē*, "clothing"; *ἠμφιέσθαι, ēmphiesthai*, "well clothed"; *ὑφαίνειν, hyphainein*, "weave"

### At a Glance

**The word.** An ἱμάτιον is a cloak, the loose woollen mantle Greeks wore over the tunic; ἀμπεχόνη is clothing.

**In the *Charmides*.** Socrates sees inside Charmides' cloak and is on fire (155d). In the argument it is the plainest thing a craft makes: Charmides grants that a city would not be well managed if each man had to weave and wash his own (161e–162a), Critias names it as the work of weaving (165e), and without the knowledge of good and bad, weaving would clothe us no less, but not well and beneficially (174c–d).

**In this edition.** Ἱμάτιον is "cloak" at all three places, ἀμπεχόνη "clothing" (173b), and ἠμφιέσθαι "well clothed" (174c).

**A place to read.** 161e–162a, the law that would make each man weave and wash his own cloak.

### Meaning

Ἱμάτιον (*himation*), in form a diminutive of εἷμα (*heima*), "garment", was a loose woollen mantle worn over the tunic; εἷμα shares its root with ἀμφιέννυμι (*amphiennymi*), "to put clothes about someone", whose perfect ἠμφιέσθαι is to have clothes on. Ἀμπεχόνη (*ampechonē*), from ἀμπέχειν (*ampechein*), "to put round", is a wrap, and so clothing; πλύνειν (*plynein*), the "wash" of the law at 161e, is to wash clothes. Making cloaks, from the raw wool on, was women's work in an Athenian house.[^cloak-1]

### Use in the book

The cloak first hides the body. With Charmides, Plato's young uncle, beside him and everyone in the wrestling-school swirling round them, Socrates tells the friend to whom he narrates the dialogue, "I saw inside his cloak, and I was on fire, and was no longer in my own possession" (155d). The Greek says "the things inside the cloak": the boy's body, and one sentence joins the sight to its effect.

In the argument, against "doing one's own business", Socrates asks whether a city would be well managed "under a law that ordered each man to weave and wash his own cloak, cobble his own shoes, and make his own oil-flask and strigil" (an athlete's scraper). Charmides thinks not, and grants that a temperately managed city would be well managed; so, Socrates concludes, doing one's own business "in things of this kind and in this way" would not be temperance (161e–162a; see Action). Asked what work temperance produces, Critias, Charmides' cousin and guardian, objects that calculation and geometry have none "in the way that a house is the work of house-building, or a cloak of weaving" (165e; see Art and craft). In Socrates' dream of rule by temperance our "clothing" too would be "expertly made for us" (173b–c); and in the last test Critias grants that, without the knowledge of good and bad, weaving would leave us no less "well clothed", but that our being clothed would no longer come about "well and beneficially" (174c–d; see Art and craft). The garment that hid what set Socrates on fire becomes the plainest of products, and only the question put to it changes: who should make it (161e), whose work it is (165e), and whether it does its wearer good (174c–d).

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**155d** Socrates sees inside Charmides' cloak, is on fire, and is no longer in his own possession.

**161e–162a** Socrates asks whether a city would be well managed under a law that ordered each man to weave and wash his own cloak, cobble his own shoes and make his own oil-flask and strigil; Charmides thinks not.

**165e** Critias: calculation and geometry have no work as a house is the work of house-building, or a cloak of weaving.

**173b–c** In the dream, our equipment, clothing and footwear would be expertly made by genuine craftsmen.

**174c–d** Without the knowledge of good and bad, weaving would leave us no less well clothed, but our being clothed would no longer come about well and beneficially.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

Socrates' law has a counterpart in the *Hippias Minor*. Hippias of Elis, the sophist from the western Peloponnese, once boasted in the market-place, Socrates reminds him, that he was the wisest of men in the greatest number of crafts, and that he had come to Olympia, the sanctuary of Zeus where the games were held, wearing nothing that was not his own work. There was a ring he had engraved and a seal, a strigil and an oil-flask he had made himself, shoes he had cobbled, a cloak and a tunic he had woven, and, what struck everyone as strangest and the greatest display of wisdom, a belt like the costly Persian ones that he had plaited himself (368b–c). Cloak, shoes, strigil and oil-flask are the items of the law at *Charmides* 161e, and the verbs for weaving the cloak and cobbling the shoes are the same in both; Hippias can be read as the citizen that law would make.

In the *Republic* the farmer who would spend three quarters of his time providing himself a house, a cloak and shoes would "do his own things by himself", in the words of the *Charmides*' formula (τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν), and Socrates sets that life aside before the formula becomes the definition of justice (369d–370c, 433a–b; see Builder and house-building).

### Translation in this edition

Ἱμάτιον is "cloak" at all three places (155d, 161e, 165e), and ἀμπεχόνη "clothing" (173b). In the last test the perfect infinitives ὑποδεδέσθαι and ἠμφιέσθαι, "to have shoes on" and "to have clothes on", are "well shod" and "well clothed" (174c). That "well" belongs to the English idiom; the Greek says only that we would have shoes and clothes on, and the "well" that is lost at 174c–d is the εὖ (*eu*) of "well and beneficially". Ὑφαίνειν is "weaving" in the list of things that are "doing something" (161e) and "weave" in the law (161e), and ὑφαντική, the craft, "weaving" (165e, 174c); πλύνειν is "wash" (161e).

### ἀμπεχόνη

Attested: ἀμπεχόνην (*ampechonēn*; 173b). Clothing, a wrap worn about the body. In the dream "our equipment and clothing and our footwear, all of it, and all our possessions would be expertly made for us … because we would be using genuine craftsmen" (173b–c). Lemma: ἀμπεχόνη.

### ἀμφιέννυμι

Attested: ἠμφιέσθαι (*ēmphiesthai*; 174c). To put clothes about someone; the perfect, to have clothes on. Socrates asks whether, without the knowledge of good and bad, medicine will make us any less healthy, "or cobbling any less well shod, or weaving any less well clothed"; "No less," Critias answers, and he grants Socrates' reply, that each of these things being done "well and beneficially" will be gone (174c–d). Lemma: ἀμφιέννυμι.

### ἱμάτιον

Attested: ἱματίου (*himatiou*; 155d), ἱμάτιον (*himation*; 161e, 165e). Cloak, a loose woollen mantle. Socrates sees inside Charmides' cloak and is on fire (155d); a city would not be well managed, Charmides grants, under a law that ordered each man to weave and wash his own cloak (161e–162a); and Critias names it as the work of weaving, as a house is of house-building (165e). Lemma: ἱμάτιον.

### ὑφαίνω

Attested: ὑφαίνειν (*hyphainein*; 161e twice); the craft-name ὑφαντικῆς (*hyphantikēs*; 165e), ὑφαντική (*hyphantikē*; 174c), "weaving". To weave. Weaving, with healing and building, is among the things that "are surely doing something" (161e); the law Socrates imagines would order each man "to weave and wash his own cloak" (161e); a cloak is the work of weaving (165e); and without the knowledge of good and bad, weaving would leave us no less well clothed, though our being clothed would no longer come about well and beneficially (174c–d). Lemma: ὑφαίνω; ὑφαντική.

### See also

Body; Craft and expertise; Doing one's own business; Erotic attraction.

[^cloak-1]: Xenophon, *Oeconomicus* 7.5–6: in this dialogue on running a household by Socrates' companion Xenophon, Ischomachus, a gentleman farmer, says that his wife came to him, not yet fifteen, knowing only how to take over the wool and present a finished cloak; on clothing made from wool as the wife's indoor charge, 7.21–22 and 7.36.

# Drama and conversational tone

## Body

<!-- slug: body | categories: Drama and conversational tone · Education and learning · Medicine soul and body -->

*σῶμα, sōma*, "body"; *ἀποδύειν, apodyein*, "strip"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Σῶμα is the body, the living frame of a man as against his soul, ψυχή.

**In the *Charmides*.** Socrates proposes to strip the boy's soul and look at it before his figure (154d–e). In his account of the charm the eyes are not to be cured without the head, nor the head without the body, nor, as a Thracian doctor taught, the body without the soul, which comes first (156b–157c). In the argument the body gives the plain cases against quietness (159c–160b), and its health is left to medicine (174c–175a).

**In this edition.** Σῶμα is "body" at every place; εἶδος, the admired shape, is "figure" (154d–e), and ἰδέα "looks".

**A place to read.** 156b–157c, the good doctors' rule of the whole and the Thracian's teaching that the body is not to be cured without the soul.

### Meaning

Σῶμα (*sōma*) is the body. In Homer it is always a dead body, the carcass a lion falls on, or the body that the Trojan Hector asks to be given back for burning;[^body-1] by Plato's time it is the living body, set against ψυχή (*psychē*), the soul. The *Charmides* sets it against its parts, against its admired form, the εἶδος (*eidos*) or "figure", and against the soul.

### Use in the book

When Charmides, Plato's young uncle, comes into the wrestling-school, Chaerephon, Socrates' devoted friend, says that if the boy were willing to strip he would seem to have no face, "his figure is so perfectly beautiful"; Socrates turns the verb on the soul: "Then why don't we strip that very part of him … and take a look at it before we look at his figure?" (154d–e; see Beauty). With the boy beside him, Socrates recalls, he "saw inside his cloak" and was on fire (155d; see Cloak).

Critias, the boy's cousin and guardian, has passed Socrates off as a doctor with a remedy for his heavy head (155b–c), a leaf that goes with a charm (155e). Socrates explains the charm by the good doctors' rule: no cure for the eyes without the head, nor for the head "apart from the whole body" (156b–c; see Acceptance and taking over). The Thracian who taught him the charm, a doctor of Zalmoxis, god of the Getae (a Thracian people of the lower Danube), granted the Greeks this much. "But Zalmoxis, he said, our king, who is a god, says that just as one must not try to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so one must not try to cure the body without the soul either" (156d–e); the Greek doctors neglect the whole, and so most diseases elude them. "For everything, he said, bad and good alike, for the body and for the whole human being, starts from the soul and flows from there, as it flows from the head into the eyes" (156e–157a). The soul must be treated "first and foremost", with charms that are "beautiful words"; once temperance has come to be in it, "it is easy then to provide health for the head and for the rest of the body too" (157a–b). Bound by oath to the Thracian, Socrates will give the remedy only if Charmides first hands over his soul to the charm (157b–c).

Along the chain, what counts as the whole moves outward. For the good doctors the body is the whole and the head a part; for the Thracian it is itself a part of "the whole human being", whose good and bad start from the soul. He also adds an order: where the good doctors treat the part along with the whole, he treats the soul first. The dialogue can be read as keeping that order: Charmides' soul is questioned, and his head is never treated. After 158c neither head nor remedy is mentioned again; the charm returns at the end (175e–176b), the remedy never.

In the argument the body gives the plain cases against quietness, "all the actions of the body", where the quickest is finest; the soul follows, until "in the soul and in the body alike" quickness appears finer (159c–160b; see Athletics). In Socrates' dream we would be "healthier in body than we are now" (173b). But take away the knowledge of good and bad, and medicine would make us no less healthy, though its work would no longer be done "well and beneficially"; and Critias agrees that health belongs to another craft than temperance (174c–175a; see Art and craft). The prologue made temperance in the soul the way to health in the body (157a–b); the argument leaves health to medicine. Socrates' closing lament still joins the boy's looks and soul: "I am very aggrieved, if you, being such as you are in your looks and, besides, most temperate in soul, are to get no profit from this temperance" (175d–e).

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**154d–e** Chaerephon: stripped, the boy would seem to have no face, his figure is so beautiful; Socrates proposes to strip his soul and look at it before his figure.

**156b–c** Good doctors will not treat the eyes without the head, nor the head apart from the whole body, and treat the part along with the whole.

**156d–157c** The Thracian doctor's teaching from Zalmoxis: the body is not to be cured without the soul, from which everything flows into the body and the whole human being; the soul is treated first, with charms, and then health is easy to provide for head and body.

**159c–d** In writing, lyre-playing, wrestling, running "and all the actions of the body", the quick and nimble are finest.

**160b** In the soul and in the body alike, quickness and sharpness appear finer than slowness and quietness.

**173b** In the dream, under temperance we would be healthier in body.

**174c–175a** Medicine would make us no less healthy without the knowledge of good and bad, but not well and beneficially; health belongs to another craft, and temperance is not its craftsman.

**175d–e** Socrates is aggrieved for the boy, such as he is in his looks and most temperate in soul, if temperance brings him no profit.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

In the *Alcibiades I* Socrates leads the young Alcibiades, the future statesman and general, to agree that a man is not his body. The user is other than what he uses, and a man uses his whole body; so, Alcibiades agrees, a man is different from his own body. Man, Socrates tells him, is "what uses the body", and nothing uses and rules it but soul (129e–130a). Since man is what rules the body, and neither the body nor the two together rules it, what remains, Socrates thinks, "is either that man is nothing, or, if he is anything, that man turns out to be nothing other than soul" (130c). So, as Socrates puts it, "Socrates, using speech, talks with Alcibiades, addressing his words not to your face, it seems, but to Alcibiades; and that is the soul" (130e). The *Charmides* can be read as making the same turn in a scene: the boy's face and figure are praised, and Socrates proposes to look at his soul by talking with him (154d–e).

The *Republic* can be read as giving the Thracian's order without the charm. Turning from music to gymnastics, Socrates tells Glaucon, Plato's brother, that a sound body does not by its own excellence make the soul good, but the reverse: a good soul by its own excellence makes the body as good as it can be. Glaucon agrees, and agrees too that if they tended the mind well enough, they would do right to hand over to it the detailed care of the body, giving only the outlines themselves (403d–e).

In the *Phaedo*, on the day of his death, Socrates and Simmias of Thebes agree that death is nothing other than the release of the soul from the body (64c). Whenever the soul tries to examine anything with the body, Socrates says, it is deceived by it (65b); and genuine philosophers must say to one another that if we are ever to know anything purely we must be rid of the body and look at things with the soul by itself (66b–e). The *Phaedo* and the Thracian agree that the soul comes first, and go opposite ways from there. The Thracian treats the soul first if the head and the rest of the body are to be in good condition, and promises them health; the *Phaedo*'s philosopher turns the soul away from the body as far as he can.

### Translation in this edition

Σῶμα is "body" at every place, in phrases such as "the whole body" for ὅλου τοῦ σώματος (156c), "the rest of the body" for τὸ ἄλλο σῶμα (157a–b), "all the actions of the body" (159c) and "healthier in body" for ὑγιέσιν … τὰ σώματα εἶναι μᾶλλον, literally "to be more healthy in our bodies" (173b). At 160b τὰ περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸ σῶμα, literally "the things concerning the soul and those concerning the body", is "in the soul and in the body alike". "The whole human being" renders παντὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ (156e). What the company admires has its own words. Εἶδος (*eidos*) is "figure" at both 154d and 154e, so that Socrates' "before we look at his figure" answers Chaerephon's "his figure is so perfectly beautiful"; ἰδέα (*idea*) is "looks" (157d, 158b, 175d); and Chaerephon's εὐπρόσωπος is "lovely face" and ἀπρόσωπος "no face at all" (154d).

### ἀποδύω

Attested: ἀποδῦναι (*apodynai*; 154d), ἀπεδύσαμεν (*apedysamen*; 154e). To take off one's clothes, to strip; athletes exercised naked, and in a wrestling-school stripping was nothing strange. Chaerephon uses the verb of the boy's body, "if he were willing to strip" (154d); Socrates turns it on the soul, proposing to strip "that very part of him" and look at it before his figure (154e). Lemma: ἀποδύω.

### σῶμα

Attested: σώματος (*sōmatos*; 156c, 156e, 157a, 159c), σῶμα (*sōma*; 156c, 156e, 159d twice, 160b), σώματι (*sōmati*; 156e, 157b), σώματα (*sōmata*; 173b). The body. In the charm's teaching it is the whole of which head and eyes are parts, and itself a part of "the whole human being", not to be cured without the soul (156c–157b); in the argument it is the field of "all the actions of the body", where quickness appears finer than quietness (159c–160b); in the dream we would be "healthier in body" (173b). Lemma: σῶμα.

### See also

Athletics; Face and bodily appearance; Health and disease; Soul; Whole and part.

[^body-1]: Homer, *Iliad* 3.23 (the lion), 7.79 and 22.342 (Hector); the other places are *Iliad* 18.161 and 23.169 and *Odyssey* 11.53, 12.67 and 24.187.

## Chaerephon

<!-- slug: chaerephon | categories: Drama and conversational tone · People and families -->

*Χαιρεφῶν, Chairephōn*, "Chaerephon"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Chaerephon of Sphettus, a district of Attica, was Socrates' friend from youth. In Plato's *Apology* he is the man who asked the oracle at Delphi whether anyone was wiser than Socrates; in Aristophanes' comedies he is Socrates' pale, half-dead follower, nicknamed "the bat".

**In the *Charmides*.** While the crowd greets Socrates from across the room, Chaerephon, "madman that he is" in Socrates' telling, jumps up and runs to him, asks how he came out of the battle alive, and seats him beside Critias, Charmides' cousin and guardian (153b–c). When Charmides, the most admired boy of the moment, comes in, Chaerephon praises his face and figure (154d), and is not heard again.

**In this edition.** "Madman that he is" renders ἅτε καὶ μανικὸς ὤν, Socrates' own explanation of the leap.

**A place to read.** 153b–c, the welcome.

### Meaning

Χαιρεφῶν (*Chairephōn*) is Chaerephon of Sphettus, who died before Socrates' trial in 399 BC. Μανικός (*manikos*), which occurs nowhere else in the dialogue, comes from the root of μαίνεσθαι (*mainesthai*), "to rage, to be mad"; the edition's note at 153b takes it as an affectionate label for a man who did everything at a run (see Madcap and madness).

### Use in the book

Socrates, just back from the siege of Potidaea in the north Aegean, finds a crowd at a wrestling-school. They greet him "from across the room, from every side", but, as Socrates tells it, "Chaerephon, madman that he is, jumped up from the middle of them all, came running over to me, and seized me by the hand" (153b; see Athletics). "Madman" is Socrates' word for his friend, and what it names is affection in a hurry. Chaerephon's first words are about the war: "Socrates … how did you come out of the battle alive?" Socrates answers drily, "Like this, as you see." "Well, the word here," Chaerephon goes on, "is that the fighting was very heavy, and that many people we know were killed in it" (153b–c). Socrates was there, and Chaerephon tells him, "Then come over here … sit down, and tell us all about it"; and, Socrates narrates, "with that he takes me over and sits me down beside Critias, the son of Callaeschrus" (153c; see Callaeschrus). Socrates gives the news, then asks his own questions, about philosophy and the young men (153c–d).

Chaerephon speaks once more, when Charmides has come in: "Well, Socrates, what do you think of the young man? Hasn't he a lovely face?" "Extraordinarily," Socrates answers, and Chaerephon caps him: "And yet if he were willing to strip … you'd think he had no face at all, his figure is so perfectly beautiful." The others all agree (154d). Socrates turns the praise to the boy's soul, and proposes to strip that first (154d–e; see Beauty). Chaerephon is not named again.

The two scenes can be read as one pattern: Chaerephon sets the subject and Socrates turns it, from the battle to philosophy and from the body to the soul. Chaerephon is then the dialogue's doorkeeper, who brings Socrates in and leaves the conversation to others.

### Places to read

Both passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**153b–c** Chaerephon jumps up, runs to Socrates and takes his hand, asks how he came out of the battle alive, and seats him beside Critias to tell the news.

**154d** Chaerephon asks Socrates what he thinks of the young man and whether he hasn't a lovely face, and says that stripped the boy would seem to have no face at all; the others agree.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

In the *Apology* Socrates names the god at Delphi as the witness to his wisdom, and tells how Chaerephon put his question to the Pythia, Apollo's prophetess there. "Chaerephon you know, I take it. He had been my friend since we were young, and he stood with your people's party: he fled with you in this exile and came home again with you. You know too what Chaerephon was like, how vehement in anything he went after. One day he went to Delphi and dared to put this to the oracle (and, as I said, gentlemen, no uproar): he asked whether there was anyone wiser than I. The Pythia's answer was that no one was wiser." Since Chaerephon himself has died, his brother, who is in court, will bear witness to the answer (20e–21a). The answer sends Socrates to question those reputed wise, to find who knows and who only thinks he knows (21b–22e). That is the very power the *Charmides*, on Critias' definition, credits to temperance (167a), and which the argument then shows such a temperance could not have (170d–171c), as the edition's note at 170d observes.

In the *Gorgias* Chaerephon again sets the talk going. Socrates blames him for their late arrival, since he kept them in the market-place, and Chaerephon promises to put it right: Gorgias, the Sicilian teacher of rhetoric, is his friend and will give them a display (447a–b). At Socrates' prompting he puts the first questions, to Gorgias and then to Polus, who offers to answer in Gorgias' place (447c–448c). Later he speaks for the audience who want to hear the argument out (458c), and when Callicles, Gorgias' Athenian host, asks him whether Socrates means all this seriously or is playing, he answers that Socrates seems to him extraordinarily serious, "but you had best ask the man himself" (481b). In the *Gorgias*, as in the *Charmides*, he starts the talk and then gives way to others.

### Other ancient sources

Comedy made Chaerephon Socrates' shadow. In Aristophanes' *Clouds* of 423 BC Pheidippides, the horse-mad son of old Strepsiades, knows the men of Socrates' school as "the impostors, the pale ones, the barefoot ones", "among them the wretched Socrates and Chaerephon"; a student reports that "Chaerephon of Sphettus" asked Socrates whether gnats hum through the mouth or through the rump; and when Strepsiades asks which of the students he will come to look like if he studies hard, Socrates tells him, "In your nature you'll be no different from Chaerephon", and he groans, "I'll be half-dead". In the *Birds* of 414, where Athenians are given the names of birds, Chaerephon's is "bat", and the bat Chaerephon comes up from below to the blood of a sacrifice at the lake where Socrates calls up souls.[^chaerephon-1]

Xenophon, the Athenian soldier and writer who also knew Socrates, names Chaerephon and his brother Chaerecrates among the friends who kept company with Socrates, not to become speakers in the assembly or the courts, but to become "beautiful and good" and able to deal well with house and servants, kin and friends, city and citizens; none of them, he says, did any wrong or faced any charge. The list answers the accuser's charge that Critias and Alcibiades, the Athenian general, had kept company with Socrates and done the city very great harm. Elsewhere Socrates tries to reconcile the brothers, urging Chaerecrates, the younger, to make the first move, though Chaerecrates complains that Chaerephon is more harm than help to him wherever he is.[^chaerephon-2] In Xenophon's own *Apology* the oracle Chaerephon brought back is fuller: with many standing by, Apollo answered that no man was more free in spirit than Socrates, or more just, or more temperate.[^chaerephon-3] The friend who greets Socrates at the start of the dialogue on temperance is, on Xenophon's account, the man to whom the god said that no one was more temperate than Socrates.

Two more things can be read into the opening scene. The man who seats Socrates beside Critias was, a quarter of a century later, among the democrats who fled Athens under the Thirty, the oligarchy Critias led, and came back with the people in 403 (*Apology* 21a; edition's note at 153c).[^chaerephon-4] And Plato's Chaerephon, who jumps up and runs, can be read as an answer to the comic one, pale, half-dead and a bat.

### Translation in this edition

"Madman that he is" renders ἅτε καὶ μανικὸς ὤν. Ἅτε with a participle gives a cause that the speaker vouches for himself: the leap is explained by Socrates, the narrator, and the English sets the explanation off as an aside. At 153c the English keeps the present tense of the Greek in the middle of the past narration: "he takes me over and sits me down" renders καθίζει ἄγων, literally "he seats me, leading me". At 154d Chaerephon's two adjectives answer each other in the Greek, εὐπρόσωπος (*euprosōpos*), "fair of face", and ἀπρόσωπος (*aprosōpos*), "faceless", and the English gives them as "Hasn't he a lovely face?" and "you'd think he had no face at all". Socrates answers him in his own terms: "strip" renders ἀποδῦναι in Chaerephon's mouth (154d) and ἀπεδύσαμεν in Socrates' (154e), and εἶδος (*eidos*) is "figure" both in Chaerephon's "his figure is so perfectly beautiful" (154d) and in Socrates' "before we look at his figure" (154e; see Body).

### ἄγω

Attested: ἄγων (*agōn*; 153c). To lead or bring. In Socrates' narration, Chaerephon "takes me over and sits me down beside Critias" (153c); the participle is "takes me over". Lemma: ἄγω.

### ἀναπηδάω

Attested: ἀναπηδήσας (*anapēdēsas*; 153b). To leap up. While the others greet Socrates from across the room, Chaerephon "jumped up from the middle of them all" (153b). Lemma: ἀναπηδάω.

### λαμβάνω

Attested: λαβόμενος (*labomenos*; 153b), λαβεῖν (*labein*; 171a). To take; in the middle with a genitive, to take hold of. In Socrates' narration, Chaerephon "seized me by the hand" (153b). In πεῖραν λαβεῖν, "to take a trial", it is "test": the temperate man will know that the doctor has some knowledge, "but when he has to test what knowledge it is, won't he look into what it is of?" (171a). Lemma: λαμβάνω.

### Χαιρεφῶν

Attested: Χαιρεφῶν (*Chairephōn*; 153b, 154d), Χαιρεφῶντι (*Chairephōnti*; 154d). Chaerephon, Socrates' friend, who welcomes him home and seats him beside Critias (153b–c), and praises Charmides' face and figure; "The others all said the same as Chaerephon" (154d). Lemma: Χαιρεφῶν.

### χείρ

Attested: χειρός (*cheiros*; 153b). Hand: in Socrates' narration, Chaerephon "seized me by the hand" (153b). Lemma: χείρ.

### See also

Delphi and Apollo; Face and bodily appearance; Madcap and madness; Socrates.

[^chaerephon-1]: Aristophanes, *Clouds* 12–16 (Pheidippides and his horses), 102–104, 156–158, 501–504 (see also 144–147, 830–831 and 1464–1466); *Birds* 1290–1296, 1553–1564.
[^chaerephon-2]: Xenophon, *Memorabilia* 1.2.48, answering the charge set out at 1.2.12; 2.3.1–19 (Chaerecrates' complaint, 2.3.6; "the younger", 2.3.15).
[^chaerephon-3]: Xenophon, *Apology of Socrates to the Jury* 14; at 16 Socrates explains the first word, ἐλευθεριώτερον, by his taking neither gifts nor pay from anyone.
[^chaerephon-4]: Xenophon, *Hellenica* 2.3.2 (Critias among the Thirty), 2.4.1–19 (the flight of the democrats; the exiles under Thrasybulus at Phyle and the Piraeus; Critias killed at Munychia), 2.4.38–39 (the reconciliation, and the men from the Piraeus going up to the Acropolis).

## Charmides

<!-- slug: charmides | categories: Drama and conversational tone · Education and learning · People and families -->

*Χαρμίδης, Charmidēs*, "Charmides"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Χαρμίδης is Charmides son of Glaucon, after whom the dialogue is named: cousin and ward of Critias and, outside the dialogue, brother of Plato's mother and later one of the Thirty's ten in the Piraeus, killed in 403 BC.

**In the *Charmides*.** Called over to Socrates on the pretext of a cure for his headache (155b), he cannot say whether he is temperate (158c–d), and gives three answers to what temperance is: quietness, modesty and "doing one's own business", the last of which, with a sly laugh, he leaves Critias to answer for (159b–162e). At the end, not knowing whether he has temperance, he asks to be charmed daily and, on his guardian's order, promises force (176a–d).

**In this edition.** One verb, πείθεσθαι (*peithesthai*), is "persuaded" in what Charmides says to Socrates and "obey" in what he says to his guardian (176b–c), and one Greek construction gives both "Count on it" and "Count on force".

**A place to read.** 175d–176d, where the persuasion of 156a gives way to force.

### Meaning

Χαρμίδης (*Charmidēs*) is Charmides son of Glaucon. His father is the uncle of Critias son of Callaeschrus, Charmides' cousin and guardian (154b, 155a, 176c). His uncle on his mother's side is Pyrilampes, ambassador to the Great King of Persia (158a), and his father's house is that of an earlier Critias, son of Dropides, whose family was kin to Solon, the Athenian lawgiver and poet of the early sixth century BC (155a, 157e; see Dropides and ancestral Critias).

### Use in the book

Charmides is looked at and talked about before he speaks. He comes in behind "the advance guard and the lovers" (154a–b), and Socrates finds him "a marvel of stature and beauty" (154c; see Beauty). Critias is sure he will be willing to converse, "seeing that he is a philosopher and, in other people's opinion as well as his own, quite the poet" (154e–155a).

Critias calls him over on a pretext: his head has been heavy in the mornings, and Socrates is to pretend that he knows "a remedy for the head" (155b). Told that the remedy is a leaf, useless without a charm, the boy says, "Then I'll copy the charm down from you", and Socrates asks, "If you persuade me, … or even if you don't?" He laughs: "If I persuade you, Socrates" (155e–156a). It is the boy, not Socrates, who chooses persuasion. He is offered the remedy if he will first hand over his soul to the charm (157c; see Charm).

Critias reports that he is thought "far and away the most temperate of anyone nowadays" (157d), and Socrates, saying that if he is temperate enough he needs no charm, asks whether he agrees (158b–c). He blushes (158c; see Age and maturity) and finds neither answer easy: to deny it would be odd and would make liars of Critias and many others, and to affirm it "will probably seem obnoxious"; "So I don't know what answer to give you" (158d).

Asked what temperance is in his opinion, he hangs back, then gives three answers in turn: two of his own, and a third heard from someone else. First, temperance is "a kind of quietness" (159b), refuted at 159c–160d (see Quietness). Told to "look within yourself" (160d), he says that temperance "makes a person feel shame and makes him bashful, and that temperance is the same thing as modesty" (160e), and Homer's line on modesty disposes of it (160e–161b; see Modesty and shame). The narrator has already called him bashful ("his bashfulness was becoming at his age", 158c), and the two answers can be read as describing the well-brought-up boy he is. The third is something he "once heard someone say": "that temperance would be doing one's own business" (161b).

Socrates names Critias as its source, and Critias denies it (161b–c); when Charmides asks what difference it makes whom he heard it from, Socrates agrees that the question is "whether what is said is true or not" (161c). Yet once the formula proves a riddle, the boy who asked what the author mattered turns to the author. He cannot say what it means, and adds, "But perhaps there is nothing to stop even the man who said it from not knowing what he meant"; and, Socrates narrates, "he laughed slyly and looked across at Critias" (162b). The boy, wanting Critias to answer for the definition, keeps prodding him (162c–d; see Anger); Socrates says it is no wonder the boy does not know, "at his age", and Critias takes the argument over (162d–e; see Acceptance and taking over). Charmides is silent until the end.

When the inquiry has failed, Socrates, aggrieved on his account, advises him, if he has temperance, to count Socrates a babbler (175d–176a; see Advice and greeting). Charmides answers, "But by Zeus, Socrates, I don't know whether I have it or whether I don't. For how could I know, when not even you two are able to discover what it is, as you say?" (176a–b). He asks to be charmed every day until Socrates says it is enough (176b). Critias says he will take it as "proof" of the boy's temperance if he lets Socrates charm him and does not desert him (176b; see Adequacy and deficiency), and Charmides promises to follow Socrates and to obey his guardian (176b–c). It is Socrates who names force, asking, "So you'll use force, … and won't even give me a preliminary hearing?", and Charmides takes it up: "Count on force, … since this man here gives the orders" (176c). Socrates yields (176d).

The end answers the beginning. At 156a the boy would have the charm only by persuading Socrates; at the end, "not altogether persuaded" by Socrates and obedient to his guardian, he will have it by force (176b–c). At 158d he did not know what answer to give; at 176a he does not know whether he has temperance, and says he needs the charm. That change can be read as the one thing the inquiry has taught him.

### Places to read

The chief passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**154a–155a** Charmides comes in, watched by lovers, men and boys; Critias calls him a philosopher and, in his own and others' opinion, quite the poet.

**155b–156a** Critias' pretext of a cure for the head; Charmides is called over, and will copy the charm if he persuades Socrates.

**156b–157c** He accepts the doctors' rule of part and whole, and is offered the remedy if he first hands over his soul to the charm.

**157d–158e** Critias reports that he is thought the most temperate of anyone; asked whether he is temperate, he blushes and finds neither answer easy, and Socrates proposes they look into it together.

**159a–161b** His first two answers, quietness and modesty, and their refutation.

**161b–162b** His third answer, heard from someone: doing one's own business; whom he heard it from makes no difference; it proves a riddle.

**162b–e** He laughs slyly and looks across at Critias, who takes the argument over.

**175d–176b** Socrates is aggrieved on his account; Charmides cannot know whether he has temperance, asks to be charmed every day, and Critias makes it the proof of his temperance.

**176b–d** He promises to obey his guardian; asked whether he will use force, he bids Socrates count on it, and Socrates yields.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

Charmides appears by name in four other works that come down under Plato's name. In the *Protagoras* he is one of those walking beside the sophist Protagoras of Abdera in the porch of Callias son of Hipponicus, the rich host of the sophists, with Callias himself and Callias' half-brother Paralus, son of Pericles (315a). In the *Symposium* Alcibiades, the Athenian general and Socrates' companion, ends his speech by warning the host, the tragic poet Agathon, that Socrates deceives the young as a lover and then makes himself the beloved instead, and has done so not only to Alcibiades but to Charmides son of Glaucon, to Euthydemus son of Diocles, another young Athenian, and to very many others (222b). The *Charmides* can be read as the start of such a reversal: at the sight inside the boy's cloak Socrates feels he has been "caught by just such a creature" as the lion in the lines of the poet Cydias (155d–e), and at the end the boy promises to follow him (176b). In the *Theages*, whose authorship has been doubted, Socrates tells how Charmides son of Glaucon, who has turned out beautiful, once consulted him when he meant to train for the sprint at the Nemean games, in the northeastern Peloponnese. As Charmides began to speak, the divine sign came to Socrates, the sign that turns him back from what he is about to do, and he told Charmides not to train; Charmides answered that even if the sign meant he would not win, the exercise would do him good, and trained; it is worth asking him, Socrates says, what came of it (128d–129a). In the *Axiochus*, a short dialogue on death already counted spurious in antiquity,[^charmides-1] Socrates sees the young Clinias son of Axiochus running toward the spring Callirrhoe with two companions: Damon the musician, his teacher in music, and Charmides son of Glaucon, who from their companionship was at once his lover and his beloved (364a). The *Seventh Letter*, whose authenticity is disputed, does not name Charmides, but recalls the revolution in which he held office: in 404 BC fifty-one men took power, eleven in the city and ten in the Piraeus, the port of Athens, and thirty over all with full powers; some of them, the writer says, were his own relatives and acquaintances, and at once invited him to join them (324c–d).

### Other ancient sources

Xenophon, the Athenian writer and companion of Socrates, says that Socrates was well disposed toward Glaucon son of Ariston, Plato's brother, for the sake of Charmides son of Glaucon and of Plato;[^charmides-2] Diogenes Laertius, the biographer of the philosophers (probably third century AD), names Charmides and Perictione, Plato's mother, as Glaucon's children in a line he traces back to Dropides, Solon's brother.[^charmides-3] Xenophon also gives Charmides a conversation of his own. Socrates, seeing that Charmides was a man of note, more capable than those then in politics, yet shrank from coming before the people, urges him to take part. Charmides answers that talking in private is not the same as contending before a crowd, and that modesty and fear are inborn in men and come over them far more in crowds than in private company. Socrates asks whether it is the fullers, cobblers, carpenters, smiths and farmers who make up the Assembly that he is ashamed before, and ends, "My good friend, do not be ignorant of yourself".[^charmides-4] The modesty Charmides pleads is αἰδώς (*aidōs*), the word of his second answer in the dialogue (160e), and Socrates' last words can be read beside Critias' claim that "Know thyself" and "Be temperate" are the same (164e–165a; see Knowing oneself). In Xenophon's *Symposium*, at a banquet given by Callias, Charmides is proud of his poverty: rich, he feared housebreakers, courted informers and paid whatever the city ordered; now that his property is gone, he sleeps soundly, the rich give up their seats to him, and he is "like a tyrant", he says, where before he was plainly a slave, and no one minds any longer that he keeps company with Socrates.[^charmides-5] A later anecdote in Diogenes Laertius has him offer Socrates slaves, so that Socrates might live on the income from them, and Socrates refuse.[^charmides-6]

After Athens' defeat by Sparta, the Thirty, the oligarchy that ruled the city in 404–403 BC, chose for themselves, as the *Constitution of the Athenians* ascribed to Aristotle reports, ten rulers of the Piraeus, eleven keepers of the prison and three hundred attendants armed with whips, and held the city in their own power.[^charmides-7] Critias, his guardian in the dialogue, was one of the Thirty, and Charmides one of the ten. In 403 the democratic exiles under their leader Thrasybulus, about a thousand men, came by night into the Piraeus and gathered on Munychia, the hill above the harbour; the Thirty marched against them with the Spartan garrison, the cavalry and the hoplites, and were beaten. Xenophon names the dead: "of the Thirty, Critias and Hippomachus, and of the ten rulers in the Piraeus, Charmides son of Glaucon, and of the others about seventy".[^charmides-8] The dialogue's last lines, in which Charmides promises force because his guardian gives the orders (176c), are heard by many readers in that light, the edition's note at 176c observes, as the dialogue's darkest irony.

### Translation in this edition

The name stays "Charmides"; with φίλε, "dear", it is "my dear Charmides" (157c, 158b), and ὦ φίλε παῖ Γλαύκωνος is "dear son of Glaucon" (158b). In Critias' praise ἔστιν φιλόσοφος is rendered without qualification, "he is a philosopher", while ὡς δοκεῖ ἄλλοις τε καὶ ἑαυτῷ, "in other people's opinion as well as his own", qualifies only "quite the poet" (154e–155a). At 156a both the boy's πείθω and Socrates' πείθῃς are "persuade"; at 157b–c no one is to "persuade" Socrates, and, bound by his oath, he "must obey" and "shall obey"; at the end the middle πείθεσθαι is "persuaded" in "I'm not altogether persuaded by you", said to Socrates (176b), and "obey" in "if I didn't obey you, my guardian" (176c). What the Greek does with one verb, the English does with two. Ὡς with a future participle in the genitive, its subject "me" understood ("be sure that I shall"), is rendered as a phrase of its own: ὡς ἀκολουθήσοντος καὶ μὴ ἀπολειψομένου is "Count on it … I'll follow him and not desert him" (176b), and ὡς βιασομένου is "Count on force" (176c). Γελάσας is "He laughed" (156a), and ὑπεγέλα, from ὑπογελᾶν, "to laugh under one's breath", is "he laughed slyly" (162b).

### ἀκολουθέω

Attested: ἀκολουθήσοντος (*akolouthēsontos*; 176b). To follow, to go along with. Charmides' promise to Critias, "Count on it … I'll follow him and not desert him" (176b): the one he will follow is Socrates, named in Critias' condition just before. The noun ἀκόλουθος, "attendant", used of Critias' servant at 155b, and the compound ἐπακολουθῆσαι, "follow", at 171b are not listed. Lemma: ἀκολουθέω.

### ἀπολείπω

Attested: ἀπολελοιπός (*apoleloipos*; 174d), ἀπολείπῃ (*apoleipēi*; 176b), ἀπολειψομένου (*apoleipsomenou*; 176b). To leave behind, to desert; of a thing, to be gone. Without the knowledge of good and bad the crafts still do their work, but its being done well and beneficially, Socrates says, "will be gone from us" (174c–d). At 176b Critias makes it the proof of Charmides' temperance that he should let Socrates charm him and not desert him, "great or small", and Charmides promises, "I'll follow him and not desert him". Lemma: ἀπολείπω.

### γέλως

Attested: γέλωτα (*gelōta*; 155b). Laughter. Charmides' arrival "caused a great deal of laughter" (155b–c), as each man sitting there squeezed up and shoved to make room for the boy beside himself, until one at the end was made to stand up and another tipped off sideways (155c). His own laughs, γελάσας as he chooses to copy the charm by persuasion (156a) and ὑπεγέλα as he looks across at Critias (162b), are verbs and are not listed; κατεγέλασεν, "made such a mockery", is said of the inquiry (175d). Lemma: γέλως.

### ἔρχομαι

Attested: ἐλθέτω (*elthetō*; 155b), ἐλθών (*elthōn*; 155c), ἐλθόντα (*elthonta*; 155d), ἐλήλυθεν (*elēlythen*; 173a). To come, to go. Socrates' "Only let him come" (155b); his narration, "He came and sat down between me and Critias" (155c); in the lines of Cydias, a lyric poet otherwise almost unknown, the fawn "coming" into the lion's presence (155d); and Socrates' dream, "whether it has come through horn or through ivory" (173a). Compounds, such as εἰσέρχεται, "in comes" (154b), προσέλθῃ, "comes to them" (156b), and συνελθοῦσαι, in "whose union" (157e), are not listed. Lemma: ἔρχομαι.

### ὄχλος

Attested: ὄχλον (*ochlon*; 154a). A crowd, a throng. Critias sees the young men coming in, "with another crowd following on behind" (154a), ahead of Charmides; "crowd" at 153a and 154c renders other words. Lemma: ὄχλος.

### πρόδρομος

Attested: πρόδρομοι (*prodromoi*; 154a). Running ahead; as a noun a forerunner, and in war a scout of the advance guard. The young men coming in are "the advance guard and the lovers" of the boy thought most beautiful (154a). Lemma: πρόδρομος.

### πρόσειμι

Attested: προσιών (*prosiōn*; 154a). To go toward, to approach (from εἶμι, "go"). Critias imagines that Charmides "must be close by himself, on his way in" (154a). Lemma: πρόσειμι.

### σπουδή

Attested: σπουδῇ (*spoudēi*; 155c), σπουδῆς (*spoudēs*; 175e). Haste, eagerness, effort. Each man sitting there "shoved his neighbor hard", σπουδῇ, to have Charmides sit beside him (155c); and Socrates says, "And I am still more aggrieved on account of the charm I learned from the Thracian, if I took great pains to learn a charm for a thing worth nothing" (175e). Lemma: σπουδή.

### Χαρμίδης

Attested: Χαρμίδης (*Charmidēs*; 154b, 157d, 158c, 161c, 162c, 176a, 176c), Χαρμίδην (*Charmidēn*; 154b, 155b, 162c twice), Χαρμίδη (*Charmidē*; 156b, 156d, 157c, 157d, 158b, 158d, 159b, 160b, 160d, 162b, 162d, 175d, 176b). Charmides son of Glaucon. Critias first names him, "Charmides, our uncle Glaucon's son. My cousin" (154b), and sends for him, "Boy, call Charmides" (155b). The nominative is the narrator's, as in "in comes Charmides" (154b) and "Charmides blushed" (158c), except at 157d, where Critias says he is thought "to surpass those his age"; the vocative is Socrates' address eleven times, and Critias' at 162d and 176b. Lemma: Χαρμίδης.

### See also

Charm; Critias; Force and compulsion; Glaucon; Guardian and cousin; Modesty and shame; Quietness; Youth and age.

[^charmides-1]: Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of the Philosophers* 3.62, among the dialogues "agreed to be spurious".
[^charmides-2]: Xenophon, *Memorabilia* 3.6.1.
[^charmides-3]: Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of the Philosophers* 3.1.
[^charmides-4]: Xenophon, *Memorabilia* 3.7.1–9 (the plea of modesty and fear, 3.7.5; "do not be ignorant of yourself", 3.7.9).
[^charmides-5]: Xenophon, *Symposium* 4.29–32; his pride in poverty is first announced at 3.9.
[^charmides-6]: Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of the Philosophers* 2.31.
[^charmides-7]: [Aristotle], *Constitution of the Athenians* 35.1.
[^charmides-8]: Xenophon, *Hellenica* 2.3.2 (Critias among the Thirty), 2.4.10–19 (Munychia; the dead, 2.4.19).

# People and families

## Callaeschrus

<!-- slug: callaeschrus | categories: People and families -->

*Κάλλαισχρος, Kallaischros*, "Callaeschrus"

### At a Glance

**The word.** Callaeschrus, of an old Athenian family akin to Solon, the lawgiver and poet of the early sixth century BC, was the father of Critias, Charmides' cousin and guardian. He is known almost only as his son's father.

**In the *Charmides*.** He never appears. His name comes twice, as Critias' patronymic: once in Socrates' narration, "Critias, the son of Callaeschrus" (153c), and once in Socrates' address to Critias, "So you, son of Callaeschrus", when he calls on him to show that knowledge of knowledge is possible and beneficial (169b–c).

**In this edition.** The name is the same genitive at both places, but the phrase is not: at 153c "son" is supplied, and at 169b it renders παῖ (*pai*), "child", in the address ὦ παῖ Καλλαίσχρου (*ō pai Kallaischrou*).

**A place to read.** 169b–c, where Socrates, using the father's name, hands Critias the burden of proof.

### Meaning

Κάλλαισχρος (*Kallaischros*) is a man's name, and its genitive, Καλλαίσχρου (*Kallaischrou*), serves as a patronymic: a Greek man was identified by his own name followed by his father's in the genitive, with "son" understood. In the *Charmides* it marks off the Critias of the dialogue from his ancestor of the same name, Critias son of Dropides (157e; see Anacreon; Dropides and ancestral Critias).

### Use in the book

Critias enters the story by his father's name. Socrates is just back from the siege of Potidaea, the rebel city in the north Aegean, and his friend Chaerephon, eager for news of the battle, "takes me over and sits me down beside Critias, the son of Callaeschrus", Socrates narrates (153c; see Chaerephon). Critias soon names the boy on his way in: "Charmides, our uncle Glaucon's son. My cousin" (154b). He is also the boy's guardian (155a), and Socrates traces Charmides' gift for poetry to the family's kinship with Solon (155a).

The father's name returns at the turn of the argument. Critias has said that temperance alone of all the kinds of knowledge is knowledge of itself and of the others (166c, 166e), and has granted that it is knowledge of the lack of knowledge too (166e). Socrates will not accept it as temperance until he has looked into whether it would benefit us (169a–b; see Benefit), and turns to Critias: "So you, son of Callaeschrus, since you lay it down that temperance is this, knowledge of knowledge and indeed of the lack of knowledge, first show this: that what I just mentioned is possible; and then, besides its being possible, that it is beneficial too" (169b–c). Critias cannot. "Used to being admired on every occasion", he is ashamed in front of the company and keeps covering up his perplexity (169c–d; see Agreement and concession).

Socrates has used the address by the father's name once before in the dialogue, to the boy: "dear son of Glaucon" (158b). At 169b it can be read as calling Critias to account in his family's name, before the company whose admiration he is used to, at the moment the burden of proof passes to him.

### Places to read

Both passages, in the order of the dialogue.

::: {.places custom-style="Places"}
**153c** Chaerephon seats Socrates beside "Critias, the son of Callaeschrus".

**169b–c** Socrates, addressing Critias as "son of Callaeschrus", asks him to show first that knowledge of knowledge is possible and then that it is beneficial.
:::

### Elsewhere in Plato

Plato names Callaeschrus once more, in the *Protagoras*, and again only as a father: Socrates tells how, just after he and his friend Hippocrates had come into the house of Callias, the host of the visiting sophists, "Alcibiades the beautiful", the future general, and "Critias son of Callaeschrus" came in behind them (316a). In the *Timaeus* the Critias who speaks calls Dropides "our great-grandfather" and an elder Critias "our grandfather" (20e), without naming his father; if he is the son of Callaeschrus, which the dialogue does not say, then Callaeschrus was the son of that elder Critias and the grandson of Dropides. The address by the father's name that Socrates uses at 169b is one he uses often, to boys and grown men alike: it opens the *Alcibiades I*, "son of Cleinias" (103a), and in the *Symposium* he says it to the doctor Eryximachus, "son of Acumenus" (198a).

### Other ancient sources

Outside Plato, too, Callaeschrus is chiefly a father's name. Athenaeus, whose *Deipnosophists* (*The Learned Banqueters*) of about AD 200 is a vast miscellany of quotations, cites verses from the *Elegies* of "Critias son of Callaeschrus".[^callaeschrus-1] Diogenes Laertius, the biographer of the philosophers, probably of the third century AD, sets out the family at the start of his life of Plato. Plato's mother Perictione traced her descent to Solon, "for his brother was Dropides, whose son was Critias, whose son was Callaeschrus, whose sons were Critias, the one of the Thirty, and Glaucon, whose children were Charmides and Perictione", and so Plato was "sixth from Solon".[^callaeschrus-2] The Thirty were the oligarchy that ruled Athens in 404–403 BC, and their Critias is the Critias of the dialogue. Read as it stands, Diogenes' sentence makes Glaucon a son of Callaeschrus and a brother of Critias, and so makes Charmides Critias' nephew; in the dialogue Critias calls Glaucon "our uncle" and Charmides "My cousin" (154b). It also makes Critias son of Dropides the grandfather of the Critias of the Thirty, where on the modern reconstruction that the edition's note at 157e follows he was his great-great-grandfather. Diogenes' line disagrees with the dialogue about the cousins and with the modern reconstruction about the generations, but it agrees with the dialogue on the one fact the dialogue gives: Callaeschrus was Critias' father.

### Translation in this edition

"Critias, the son of Callaeschrus" renders Κριτίαν τὸν Καλλαίσχρου (153c), literally "Critias, the one of Callaeschrus"; the Greek has no word for "son", which English needs. At 169b "So you, son of Callaeschrus" renders σὺ οὖν, ὦ παῖ Καλλαίσχρου, and here "son" does render a Greek word, παῖ, "child", as it does in "dear son of Glaucon" (158b; see Age and maturity).

### Κάλλαισχρος

Attested: Καλλαίσχρου (*Kallaischrou*; 153c, 169b). Callaeschrus, father of Critias, named only in his son's patronymic: in Socrates' narration, "Critias, the son of Callaeschrus" (153c), and in Socrates' address to Critias, "son of Callaeschrus" (169b). Lemma: Κάλλαισχρος.

### See also

Critias; Dropides and ancestral Critias; House, lineage and nobility.

[^callaeschrus-1]: Athenaeus, *Deipnosophists* 15.666b; he also names "Critias son of Callaeschrus" among the eminent Athenians who learned the pipes, citing Chamaeleon (4.184d).
[^callaeschrus-2]: Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of the Philosophers* 3.1.