From the book
Alcibiades I
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe catalogue attributes orderliness (kosmiotēs), readiness or facility (euchereia), easy temper (eukolia), good discipline (eutaxia), endurance (karteria), love of toil (philoponia), love of victory (philonikia), and ambitions for honour (philotimiai) to the Spartans, alongside temperance, high-mindedness and courage.
- In Alcibiades IEach item contributes a different feature of trained conduct.
- In this editionThe edition’s “readiness” and “easy temper” keep the adjacent terms distinct.
- A place to readThe Spartan catalogue makes Alcibiades a child by comparison.
Meaning
The catalogue attributes orderliness (kosmiotēs), readiness or facility (euchereia), easy temper (eukolia), good discipline (eutaxia), endurance (karteria), love of toil (philoponia), love of victory (philonikia), and ambitions for honour (philotimiai) to the Spartans, alongside temperance, high-mindedness and courage.
Use in the book
Each item contributes a different feature of trained conduct. Orderliness describes a decorous or regulated manner; good discipline stresses ordered collective conduct rather than merely looking respectable. Readiness concerns ease or facility in meeting demands; easy temper is a disposition that does not make those demands needlessly difficult. Endurance is the capacity to hold out, while love of toil makes arduous effort something actively embraced rather than only suffered. Love of victory gives training an explicitly competitive direction; love of honour looks toward valued recognition. These are contextual glosses of a catalogue, not definitions formally argued by Socrates one by one.
Socrates says that considering these qualities would make Alcibiades think himself a child. The comparison answers his claim that natural superiority over untrained politicians makes practice unnecessary. Spartan competitors possess not simply noble ancestry but sustained forms of behaviour. The catalogue also balances the immediately preceding Persian display of luxury: Alcibiades is outmatched in refinement on one side and discipline on the other. The later inquiry still has to establish what virtue and political preparation require, so the list should not be treated as the dialogue’s exhaustive, final taxonomy of excellences.
Places to read
- 122c–122dThe Spartan catalogue makes Alcibiades a child by comparison.
Translation in this edition
The edition’s “readiness” and “easy temper” keep the adjacent terms distinct. The attested spelling φιλονικίαν concerns victory; it should not silently be replaced with a different spelling and then glossed solely as contentiousness. The ending of φιλοτιμίας is plural within the catalogue.
εὐκολία
Attested: εὐκολίαν (eukolian; 122c). Easy temper or manageable disposition, distinct from readiness. Lexical identification: lemma: εὐκολία. See Spartan disciplines.
εὐταξία
Attested: εὐταξίαν (eutaxian; 122c). Good discipline or well-ordered conduct, especially collective order. Lexical identification: lemma: εὐταξία. See Spartan disciplines.
εὐχέρεια
Attested: εὐχέρειαν (euchereian; 122c). Readiness or facility in meeting demands, a Spartan strength in the comparison. Lexical identification: lemma: εὐχέρεια. See Spartan disciplines.
καρτερία
Attested: καρτερίαν (karterian; 122c). Endurance, the ability to persist under difficulty. Lexical identification: lemma: καρτερία. See Spartan disciplines.
κοσμιότης
Attested: κοσμιότητα (kosmiotēta; 122c). Orderliness or decorous regulated conduct in the Spartan catalogue. Lexical identification: lemma: κοσμιότης. See Spartan disciplines.
φιλονικία
Attested: φιλονικίαν (philonikian; 122c). Love of victory, giving the Spartan disciplines a competitive aim. Lexical identification: lemma: φιλονικία. See Spartan disciplines.
φιλοπονία
Attested: φιλοπονίαν (philoponian; 122c). Love of toil, an active appetite for sustained effort rather than merely enduring it. Lexical identification: lemma: φιλοπονία. See Spartan disciplines.
φιλοτιμία
Attested: φιλοτιμίας (philotimias; 122c). Love of honour or honour-seeking ambitions, included among Spartan strengths. Lexical identification: lemma: φιλοτιμία. See Honour, fame and worth; Spartan disciplines.