THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO docx

THE
REPUBLIC OF PLATO
THE
REPUBLIC
OF
PLATO
EDITED
WITH CRITICAL NOTES, COMMENTARY
AND APPENDICES
BY
JAMES ADAM
SOMETIME FELLOW
AND
SENIOR TUTOR
OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
SECOND EDITION
WITH
AN
INTRODUCTION
BY
D.
A.
REES
FELLOW
AND
TUTOR
OF
JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD
VOLUME

I
BOOKS
I—V
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
LONDON
• NEW
YORK
•
MELBOURNE
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Cambridge University Press 1902, 1963
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of
any
part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1902
Second edition 1963
Reprinted 1965, 1969, 1975
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is available from
the British Library
ISBN 978-0-521-05963-3 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-11876-7 paperback
TO
THE MEMORY OF
ROBERT ALEXANDER NEIL
I GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
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PREFACE.
T
HE Republic of Plato touches on so many problems of
human life and thought, and appeals to so many diverse
types of mind and character, that an editor cannot pretend to
have exhausted its significance by means of a commentary. In
one sense of the term, indeed, there can never be a definitive or
final interpretation of the Republic, for the Republic is one of
those few works of genius which have a perennial interest and
value for the human race; and in every successive generation
those in whom man's inborn passion for ideals is not quenched,

will claim the right to interpret the fountain-head of idealism
for themselves, in the light of their own experience and needs.
But in another sense of the word, every commentator on the
Republic
believes in the possibility of a final and assured inter-
pretation, and it is this belief which is at once the justification
and the solace of his labours. Without desiring in any way to
supersede that personal apprehension of Platonism through
which alone it has power to cleanse and reanimate the individual
soul, we cannot too strongly insist that certain particular images
and conceptions, to the exclusion of others, were present in the
mind of Plato as he wrote. These images, and these concep-
tions,
it is the duty and province of an editor to elucidate, in
the first instance, by a patient and laborious study of Plato's
style and diction, divesting
himself,
as far as may be, of every
personal prejudice and predilection. The sentiment should then
be expounded and explained, wherever possible, by reference to
other passages in the Republic and the rest of Plato's writings,
and afterwards from other Greek authors, particularly those who
wrote before or during the lifetime of Plato. The lines of
Goethe,
Wer den Dichter will verstehen
Muss in Dichters Lande gehen,
apply with peculiar force to the study of the
Republic,
a dialogue
which more than any other work of Plato abounds in allusions

viii
PREFACE.
both implicit and explicit to the history, poetry, art, religion and
philosophy of ancient Greece. By such a method of exegesis,
provided it is securely based on a careful analysis of the
language, we may hope to disentangle in some degree the
different threads which are united in Plato's thought, and thus
contribute something towards an objective and impersonal inter-
pretation of the
Republic,
as in itself one of the greatest literary
and philosophical monuments of any age, and not merely a
treasure-house of arguments in support of any school of thought
or dogma.
I have done what in me lies to make an edition of the
Republic in accordance with these principles. Although it has
sometimes appeared necessary, for the better exposition of
Plato's meaning, to compare or contrast the doctrine, of the
Republic with the views of later writers on philosophy, any
systematic attempt to trace the connexion between Platonism
and modern political, religious, or philosophical theory is foreign
to the scope of this edition. I am far from underestimating the
interest and importance of such an enquiry: no intellectual
exercise that I know of is more stimulating or suggestive: but it
is unfortunately fraught with danger for anyone whose object is
merely to interpret Plato's meaning faithfully and without bias.
The history of Platonic criticism from Proclus to the present
time has shewn that it is difficult for a commentator who is
constantly looking for parallels in contemporary thought to
maintain the degree of intellectual detachment which the study

of Plato's idealism demands; and although it is true that the
genius of Plato outsoars the limits of time and place, the best
preparation for following its flight is to make ourselves co-
heirs with him in his intellectual heritage, and transport ourselves
as far as possible into the atmosphere in which he lived. The
influence of Plato on succeeding thinkers from Aristotle down
to the present day is a subject of extraordinary range and
fascination, but it belongs to the history, rather than to the
interpretation, of Platonism. If ever that history is fully told,
we shall begin to understand the greatness of the debt we owe
to Plato, not only in philosophy, but also in religion. In the
meantime we can only rejoice that Platonism is still a living
force in both
:
en
f)\co<;
eirl TOI? opeai
/ecu ov7ro)
SiSvicev.
One of the most toilsome duties which an editor of the
Republic has to face is that of reading and digesting the
PREFACE. ix
enormous mass of critical and exegetical literature to which
the dialogue, particularly during the last century, has given
rise.
I have endeavoured to discharge this duty, so far as
opportunity allowed; and if the labour has sometimes proved
tedious and unremunerative, it is none the less true that in some
instances the perusal of obscure and half-forgotten pamphlets
and articles has furnished the key to what I believe to be the true

interpretation. In many other cases, where the thesis which a
writer seeks to prove is demonstrably false, the evidence which
he accumulates in its support has served to illustrate and enforce
a truer and more temperate view. But in spite of all the learn-
ing and ingenuity which have been expended on the Republic
during recent years, there still remain a large number of passages
of which no satisfactory explanation has hitherto been offered,
and a still larger number which have been only imperfectly and
partially explained. I have submitted all these passages to a
fresh examination, partly in the Notes and partly in the Appen-
dices,
and although I cannot hope to have placed them all
beyond the pale of controversy, I have spared no amount of
time and labour to discover the truth, and in many cases I have
been able to arrive at views which will, I hope, command the
assent of others as well as
myself.
Wherever I have consciously
borrowed anything of importance from previous commentators
and writers, I have made acknowledgement in the notes
;
but
a word of special gratitude is due to Schneider, to whom I am
more indebted than to any other single commentator on the
Republic. Since I began my task, the long-expected edition of
the Republic by Jowett and Campbell has made its appearance,
and I have found their scholarly and lucid commentary of ser-
vice even in those places where it has seemed to me inadequate
or inconclusive. Professor Burnet's text of the Republic was
not available until the larger part of this edition had been

printed off, but I have been able to make some use of his work
in the later books.
I have to thank a number of friends for assistance rendered
in various ways, and above all my former teacher, Dr Henry
Jackson, of Trinity College, who has read through all the proofs
and contributed many corrections and suggestions. Mr Archer-
Hind, of Trinity College, and Mr P. Giles, of Emmanuel College,
have also helped me with their criticisms on some portions of the
work. To Professor J. Cook Wilson, of New College, Oxford,
x PREFACE.
I owe a special debt of gratitude for undertaking in response
to my appeal an exhaustive discussion of the astronomical
difficulties in Book X, ai\d unreservedly placing at my disposal
the full results of his investigations. It is due to the kindness of
Professor Campbell that I have again been able to use Castellani's
collations of the Venetian MSS II and H, as well as Rostagno's
collation of Cesenas M. The late Mr Neil, of Pembroke College,
to whose memory I have dedicated the work, read and criticised
the notes on the first four books before his untimely death,
and often discussed with me many questions connected with the
interpretation of Plato in general and the Republic in particular.
Nor can I refrain from mentioning with affectionate gratitude
and veneration the name of my beloved friend and teacher,
Sir William Geddes, late Principal of the University of Aber-
deen, to whose high enthusiasm and encouragement in early
days all that I now know of Plato is ultimately due.
The coin which is figured on the title-page is a silver
didrachm of Tarentum, dating from the early part of the third
century B.C., and now in the British Museum. It represents
a naked boy on horseback, galloping and holding a torch behind

him
:
see the description by Mr A. J. Evans in the Numismatic
Chi'oiiicle,
Volume IX (1889), Plate VIII 14. I have to thank
Mr Barclay V. Head, of the British Museum, for his kindness in
sending me a cast of this appropriate emblem of the scene with
which the Republic opens.
My best thanks are due to the Managers and staff of the
University Press for their unremitting courtesy and care.
It is my hope to be able in course of time to complete this
edition by publishing the introductory volume to which occa-
sional reference is made throughout the notes. The introductory
volume will deal inter alia with the MSS and date of composition
of the dialogue, and will also include an essay on the style of
Plato,
together with essays on various subjects connected with
the doctrine of the Republic.
EMMANUEL COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
September 5, 1902.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
M
Y thanks are due to Mr D. A. Rees for kindly writing an
introduction to this reprinted edition of my father's
Republic; also to the Jowett Copyright Trust, and to a friend who
desires to remain anonymous, for generous contributions to the
cost; and to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for
so readily undertaking the work.
N. K. ADAM.

SOUTHAMPTON.
April 1962.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION
by D. A.
Rees
xv
NOTE
ON
THE
TEXT
lv
BOOK
I i
APPENDICES
TO
BOOK
I 62
BOOK
II 65
APPENDICES
TO
BOOK
II 126
BOOK
III 130
APPENDICES
TO

BOOK
III 201
BOOK
IV 205
APPENDICES
TO
BOOK
IV .269
BOOK
V 274
APPENDICES
TO
BOOK
V 345
INTRODUCTION.
i.
ADAM'S WORK
ON
THE'REPUBLIC'
James Adam died
on 30
August 1907
at the age of
forty-seven.
The major part
of his
scholarly activity
had
been devoted

to
Plato,
and, apart from his editions
of
the Republic, he had edited,
with introduction
and
commentary,
the
Apology (1887), Crito
(1888),
Euthyphro (1890),
and (in
conjunction with
his
wife,
Mrs Adela Marion Adam) Protagoras (1893).
His
preliminary
publications
on the
Republic, alluded
to
from time
to
time
in the
two-volume
editio
maior

of
1902, were almost entirely superseded
by
the
latter; they
had
comprised
a
monograph,
The
Nuptial
Number
of
Plato:
its
Solution
and
Significance (1891),
a
number
of articles
in the
Classical Review}
and a
text with apparatus
(1897),
the
second edition
of
which (1909)

Mrs
Adam brought
into conformity with
her
husband's later views.
His
further dis-
cussion
of
textual problems will
be
mentioned below.
In
addi-
tion,
he
touched
on the
Republic
in his
posthumously published
Gifford Lectures
on
The Religious
Teachers
of
Greece,
delivered
at
Aberdeen

in
1904-6
and
published
in
1908 with
an
introductory
memoir
by Mrs
Adam, while
the
preface
to Mrs
Adam's
own
Plato:
Moral
and
Political Ideals (1913) states:
'In the
earlier
1
These
are as
follows:
'On
Some Passages
in
Plato's Republic'

(sc. vn, 516D,
532B,
533c;
VIII,
543B, 547B, 559E, 562B;
x,
606c),
C.R. iv
(1890), 356-7;
'Mr
Adam
and
Mr Monro
on the
Nuptial Number
of
Plato',
ibid, vi
(1892), 240-4 (Adam
on pp.
240-2);
'Note
on
Plato, Republic
x,
607c',
ibid, x
(1896),
105;
'Plato, Republic 11,

368A
and
Symposium 174B',
ibid. pp.
237-9;
'On
Some Difficulties
in the
Platonic Musical
Modes',
ibid. pp.
378-9;' Four Conjectures
on the
Republic'
(sc.
TTJS
aTrXrjs hirjyrjoecjs
at
in, 396 E,yu/zvcurriK<7J>,$s
at in,
407
B,SrjfitovpyovfM€VT]
In,
17817
8c
at in,
414
D-E,
Xecopyovs
at

iv,
421
B),
ibid. pp.
384-6; 'Emendations
of
Plato, Republic
ix,
580D
and in,
390A'
(sc. hevrepav
Be
t8e rrjvSe, edv
n
80^17
elvcu
and
irapa
TTXCICU
(nXeai) taox Tpa7rc£cu | airov
Kal
Kpettov
KTX.),
ibid, xi
(1897), 349-50; 'Plato, Republic
vn,
529B,
C'
(reading

veW, and
referring
to
Aristoph.
Nub.
171-3),
ibid, xni
(1899), 11-12; 'Plato, Republic
vi,
5070
and
507B'
(reading
Iv
avrols),
ibid. pp.
99-100;
'On
Plato, Republic
x,
616E',
ibid, xv
(1901), 391-3,
and ibid. p. 466, 'A
Correction';
'The
Arithmetical Solution
of
Plato's
Number',

ibid, xvi
(1902), 17-23. Adam also reviewed Wohlrab, Platons Staat
in C.R.
VIII
(1894), 261-2;
T. G.
Tucker,
The
Proem
to the
Ideal Republic
of
Plato,
ibid, xv
(1901), 317-18;
and
Burnet's text
of the
Republic,
ibid, xvi
(1902), 215-19.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
chapters I have made much use of MS. notes for lectures by my
husband.' Two essays in The Vitality of Platonism and Other
Essays (ed. A. M. Adam, 1911) touch upon Plato and, among
other works, upon the Republic,
'
The Vitality of Platonism' and
' The Doctrine of the Celestial Origin of the Soul from Pindar to
Plato';

the latter Adam had delivered as a Praelection in his
candidature for the Greek chair at Cambridge in 1906, and it had
been published in that year in the volume of
Cambridge
Prae-
lections. While, however, these essays still deserve to be read in
their own right, besides giving a vivid insight into Adam's
general view of Plato, I doubt if they provide contributions to
the detailed interpretation of the Republic which are not to be
found elsewhere.
As is shown by the preface to the edition of 1902, and also by
numerous allusions in the commentary, Adam at one time
planned an introductory volume, to deal with the manuscripts,
date of composition, dramatic date, characters and similar topics.
Of this, however, Mrs Adam writes as follows: 'In the original
scheme, Adam had intended to write an introductory volume of
essays and a translation; but after he had finished the commen-
tary, he became less and less inclined to attack this remaining
part of the work. He became interested in other subjects, par-
ticularly in the connexion of the Stoics with Christianity, and he
felt that he had said nearly all he had to say about the Republic
in the notes and Appendixes' {The Religious
Teachers
of
Greece,
p.
xlv). Their son, Professor N. K. Adam, of the University of
Southampton, tells me that he knows nothing of any remains
relating to these schemes, and inquiries I have made in Cam-
bridge have been similarly fruitless.

2.
TEXTUAL PROBLEMS
The text of Plato is one of the best preserved that have come
down to us from antiquity.
1
'
2
Nevertheless, various nineteenth-
century scholars (who certainly suffered in some degree from an
imperfect knowledge of the manuscripts, though this is far from
1
For certain points in this survey I am indebted to discussions with Mr T. M.
Robinson, of Jesus College, Oxford, formerly of the University of Durham. He is in
no way responsible for the errors.
2
For recent work on all aspects of Plato the reader may, here and now, be referred
to the vast bibliography by H. F. Cherniss, in vols. iv and v of Lustrum (1959-60,
published 1960-1).
INTRODUCTION. xvii
being an adequate explanation of their speculative urge) indulged
in conjectural restorations which were for the most part uncalled
for and either certainly mistaken or highly implausible; large
numbers are mentioned, only to be rejected, in Adam's com-
mentary, and the student of the present day, when classical
scholarship is no longer afflicted with the
cacoethes
emendandi,
may well feel it a pity that he found it necessary to devote so
much attention to this task—though even an implausible or
erroneous conjecture may not infrequently call attention to a

real difficulty in the interpretation of the text.
Adam's treatment of the text, already on the conservative
side in his edition of 1897, became more markedly so in that of
1902.
His general approach to conjectural emendation \yas one
he shared with the edition of Jowett and Campbell, which had
appeared in 1894.
x
He shared it also with Burnet, whose edition
of the Republic in the series of Ox{ord Classical Texts appeared
almost simultaneously with Adam's editio maior. The result is
that the text Burnet prints differs on the whole very little from
that of Adam, the manuscript tradition being what it is; but in
their views on the interrelations of the manuscripts and their
relative importance they are somewhat at variance. Burnet set
out his views both in the preface to his text and in an article on
the MS. Vind. F entitled 'A Neglected
MS.
of Plato', in which he
was critical of Adam.
2
Adam, however, maintained his own
position forcibly in a review of Burnet.
3
He thought that Burnet
overestimated Vind. F, and that he was mistaken in dismissing E
and q as unworthy of attention; there was reason, he held, 'for
thinking that their readings were selected with some care, and
that more than one MS. of Plato went to their formation'.
Stuart Jones joined in the discussion, using citations from the

Republic in Galen and Iamblichus (and also in Eusebius and
Stobaeus) as showing that Burnet's view of F could not be up-
held,
4
but Burnet continued to defend his position.
5
1
But Jowett's own essay in vol. n of that work is excessively sceptical of conjectural
emendation in general. On the whole the major nineteenth-century editors of the
Republic were less free with conjectures than other Platonic scholars.
2
C.R. xvi (1902),
98-101.
3
Ibid.
pp. 215-19.
4
H. Stuart Jones, 'The "Ancient Vulgate" of Plato and Vind. F', C.R. xvi (1902),
388-91.
5
*
Vindobonensis F and the Text of Plato', C.R. xvn (1903), 12-14; ' Platonica. I',
C.R.
XVIII
(1904), 199-204.
A. P 2
xviii
INTRODUCTION.
Some years afterwards a full study of the manuscripts of Plato
was undertaken by H. Alline, who on the whole followed the

views of Burnet.
1
Burnet, Alline argued, had shown that in the
Clitophon
and Republic Vind. F represented a tradition indepen-
dent of A and D (Venetus 185, Bekker's and Adam's II).
2
D (II),
in the
Clitophon
and Republic, is independent of A, and the Mala-
testianus or Cesenas (M) independent of both.
3
S (Venetus 184,
Burnet's E) he rejected, like Burnet, as useless.
4
Discussing the
family of manuscripts which includes Parisinus A and Venetus
T, he concluded that it went back to the ninth century, and was
the product of a careful and scholarly recension originating in
the circle of Photius.
5
A. C. Clark
6
studied A, D (II), T and F,
concluding that D (II) was derived from B, but was not a direct
copy.
7
He hesitated to draw conclusions about the origin of F.
8

Other scholars have attempted-to argue from our manuscript
evidence to the early history of the text. Among these is Im-
misch,
9
who used the evidence of Proclus on Rep. x, 616
E,
10
while
E. Deneke devoted a study to Vind.
F,
11
which he thought, while
not representing a single tradition, to have as its main source a
manuscript of the first century B.C. which belonged to Pom-
ponius Atticus. He argued that its text was not of exactly the
same provenience in all the dialogues it contains. G. Pasquali, in
his general study of the textual criticism of Greek authors, deals
among others with Plato,
12
and maintains the existence already in
antiquity of a considerable number of variants, perhaps recorded
by Aristophanes of Byzantium.
13
G. Jachmann's study of the
text of
Plato,
14
in some respects similar to that of Pasquali, argues
1
H. Alline, Histoire du

texte de
Platon (Paris, 1915; Bibliotheque de l'ecole des hautes
etudes, 218).
2
Ibid.
p. 243.
3
Ibid.
pp. 288-9.
4
Ibid.
pp. 313-14.
5
Ibid.
p. 217.
8
The Descent of Manuscripts (1918), pp. 383-417.
7
Ibid.
pp. 405 ff.
8
'Without further knowledge it is impossible to say whether F is substantially
independent, or whether it is of vulgar origin, but corrected by means of marginalia
derived from an excellent source',
ibid.
p. 415. F has since been examined more closely
(see below).
• O. Immisch,
Philologische
Studien zu Plato. II. De

recensionis Platonicae
praesidiis
atque rationibus (Leipzig, 1903).
10
As did later G. Pasquali, Storia delta tradizione e critica del
testo
(Florence, 1934),
pp.
268-9.
11
E. Deneke, De Platonis Dialogorum Libri V indobonensis F Memoria (Gottingen,
1922).
12
Pasquali, op. cit. pp. 247-69.
13
Ibid.
pp. 258-9.
14
G. Jachmann, Der Platontext. Nachrichten v. d. Akad. d. Wiss. in Gottingen, Phil
hist. Klasse, 1941 [published 1942], pp. 225-389. See H. Langerbeck's critical notice in
Gnomon, xxn (1950), 375-80. Jachmann deals most fully with the Phaedo and Laches.
INTRODUCTION. xix
to an Alexandrian edition with critical marks; it is, however, on
the bold side in its suggestion of interpolations.
Burnet's view of F is partially, though not entirely, followed
by Chambry in the Bude edition.
1
Burnet had based his text on
A, D (II) (supported by
M)

and F. Chambry
J
s basis consists of A,
F and (as far as in, 389
D)
T (Marcianus 4. 1, ignored by Adam
and Burnet); but of these the third seems to add very little of
importance. He discards D (II) and M. He mentions also four
small papyri, all published in the Oxyrhynchus
series:
(1) in, 455
(third century
A.D.), containing in,
406A-B;
(2) in, 456 (second-
third centuries
A.D.), containing iv, 422C-D; (3) xv, 1808 (end of
second century
A.D.), containing fragments of vin, 546B-547D;
(4) 1, 24 (third century
A.D.), containing x, 607E-608A. The
fourth of these was already known to Adam. None provides
anything of importance for the establishment of the text, except
by way of general confirmation of the manuscript tradition.
There is a further papyrus, also from Oxyrhynchus, unknown
when Chambry was preparing his edition and published by A.
Vogliano in Papiri delta Regia Universitd di Milano, 1 (1937),
where it is no. 10 (p. 16). Dating from the third century
A.D.,
it

gives tiny fragments of vi,
485 C-D, 486 B-C
;
textually it has little
or no importance. No further papyri of the Republic are listed in
R. A. Pack, The
Greek
and Latin Literary Texts from
Greco-Roman
Egypt (Ann Arbor, 1952), and none has come to my notice
otherwise. Further help in the establishment of Plato's text is
provided by the quotations in Stobaeus; for these a proper text
was provided for the first time by the Wachsmuth-Hense edition
(1884-1912), which was incomplete when Adam and Burnet
were preparing their texts but is employed in its complete form
by Chambry.
2
Two recent scholars who have been primarily concerned with
other works of Plato, E. R. Dodds with the
Gorgias
3
and R. S.
Bluck with the Meno* have discussed T and F. Caution is
Compare
also E. Bickel, 'Geschichte und Recensio des Platontextes',
Rhein.
Mus. N.F.
XCII
(1944),
97-159.

1
So also by Bickel, op. cit. p. 144. See also the edn of J. M. Pabon and
M.
1\ Galiano
(3
vols.,
Madrid,
1949).
2
On Stobaeus' evidence see E. R. Dodds's edition of the
Gorgias
(1959),
p. 65, and
R. S. Bluck's edition of the Meno
(1961),
p. 146.
3
See his edition of 1959, and also his earlier
article,
'Notes on Some Manuscripts of
Plato',
/. Hell. Stud,
LXXVII
(1957),
24-30.
4
See the introduction to his edition
(1961).
xx INTRODUCTION.
necessary in drawing conclusions relative to the text of the

Republic, since a manuscript may not be based on the same source
or sources throughout, but Dodds writes that 'in the eighth
tetralogy,
1
where T overlaps with A, there are strong reasons for
thinking T a copy of A',
2
and that 'full collation of F tends
strongly to confirm Deneke's view that it is a direct or almost
direct transcript from an uncial MS/
3
The date of F is uncertain;
it may be of the thirteenth century or of the fourteenth.
L. A. Post, The Vatican Plato and its
Relations*,
is primarily
concerned with Vat. gr. i
(O),
which contains the Laws and some
minor works of Plato, but not the Republic. The author gives,
however, a full list and description of the surviving manuscripts
of Plato.
5
3.
SCHOLIA
A thorough edition of the scholia to Plato was provided for the
first time by W. C. Greene,
6
with an introduction and notes. The
scholia vetera

on the Republic, which are found in A and W, and
also,
as far as in, 389
D,
in T, occupy pp. 187-276; they are on
the whole fairly evenly distributed in bulk over the ten books,
though there are fewer on Books iv, x and especially ix than on
the other seven, and Greene comments 'Scholia ad doctrinam
Platonicam pertinentia in Reipublicae libris 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10 nulla
fere inveniuntur' (p. xxvii). Though of some interest, the
scholia are scarcely of great importance; Greene investigates
their sources in Hesychius, Proclus, a Neoplatonic 'com-
mentarius recens' and elsewhere. They trace, or attempt to
trace, allusions, and provide notes on rare words, but their
philosophical interest is only slight, even when (e.g.) they
comment on the close of Book vi. One may, however, note the
comment on v, 473
C-D,
which mentions Marcus Aurelius as an
example of a philosopher ruler.
1
And thus in the Republic.
2
Gorgias,
in trod. p. 37.
3
Ibid.
p. 45.
4
Middletown, Connecticut, 1934; Philological Monographs published by the Ameri-

can Philological Association, no. iv.
5
The most recent study of the manuscript tradition is in the composite volume,
Geschichte der
Textuberlieferung der antiken und
mittelalterlichen
Litcratur (Zurich, 1961),
1,
258-62.
6
Scholia Platonica, ed. W. C. Greene (Haverford, Pa., 1938); Philological Mono-
graphs published by the American Philological Association, no. vin. Cf. also W. C.
Greene, 'The Platonic Scholia', Trans. Atner. Philol. Assoc.
LXVIII
(1937), 184-96.
INTRODUCTION. xxi
4. PLATO'S LANGUAGE
Adam devotes considerable attention to Plato's use of particles,
and to the other niceties of his language.
1
Such minutiae had, in
fact, been studied intensively by scholars of the later nineteenth
century, such as Lewis Campbell, Lutoslawski and Constantin
Ritter, but their principal aim had been to use such linguistic
materials for determining the relative chronology of the dia-
logues, whereas Adam's interest was first and foremost in the
shades of meaning themselves.
2
The chief aid to the lexico-
graphical study of Plato is still Ast's Lexicon Platonicum (1835-8)

which has not been superseded,
3
though we have the ninth
edition of Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, edited by H. Stuart Jones
and R. McKenzie (1940), and also from another angle the work of
C. D. Buck and W. Petersen, A
Reverse
Index of
Greek
Nouns and
Adjectives (Chicago, 1944). Plato's use of particles can be studied
in the general work of J. D. Denniston, The
Greek Particles
(1934;
2nd ed. 1954), while the same scholar notes aspects of Plato's
sentence-construction in his posthumously published
Greek Prose
Style (1952). On the other hand, the use of particles in Plato in
particular was the subject of a study by E. des Places.
4
To turn
to another field, C. Mugler has collected and sifted material of
which a not inconsiderable proportion is relevant to Plato in his
large Dictionnaire historique de la terminologie geometrique des
Grecs,
5
while in the field of philosophical terminology the terms
ethos
and iSea have been studied by various scholars: Constantin
Ritter devoted a lengthy essay to them,

6
while their pre-Platonic
connexions were studied over a wide range of authors by A. E.
Taylor,
7
with whose conclusions, however, C. M. Gillespie
expressed a considerable measure of disagreement,
8
rightly
1
There is an extensive bibliography (to 1926) for the study of Plato's style in
Uberweg-Praechter,
Grundriss der
Geschichte
der Philosophic, 1. Teil, Philosophic des
Altertums
(1926), pp.
7i*-73*.
2
A later addition to the stylometric literature is C. Ritter, Neue Vntersuchmigcn
liber
Platan
(Munich, 1910), esp. pp. 183-227. See also his Platon, 1 (1910),
232-83.
Cf.
Adam
on Lutoslawski in C.R. xn (1898),
218-23.
3
J. Ziircher added the proper names in his Lexicon Academicum (Paderborn, 1954).

4
Etudes sur
quelques
particules de liaison chez Platon (Paris, 1929).
5
Paris, 2 vols. 1958-9: Etudes et commentaires,
XXVIII-XXIX.
6
Neue Vntersuchungen
u'ber
Platon (Munich, 1910), pp. 228-326.
7
'The Words dbos, tSea in Pre-Platonic Literature', in Varia Socralicu (Oxford,
1911),
pp. 178-267.
8
'The Use of
ethos
and
Ibea
in
Hippocrates',
Class.
Quart,
vi (1912),
179-203.
Gillespie
thought
Taylor had been misled as to Plato by a mistaken view of Pythagorean
conceptions.

xxii
INTRODUCTION.
finding them unduly speculative; a quarter of a century later
Plato's own uses of these terms, as also of neuter adjectives
employed substantially, and of the metaphors used to convey
the relation of Forms to particulars, were, together with their
pre-Platonic antecedents, the subject of an article by H. C.
Baldry.
1
In addition, Plato's use of the word
Oetos
has been the
subject of an exhaustive inquiry by J. van Camp and P. Canart,
2
who go through the dialogues in what they take to be their
chronological order, studying the occurrences of
Oelos
in each.
They list twenty-three occurrences in the Republic, classifying
them (like those elsewhere) as 'religious' ('mythological') or as
' hyperbolic'; one of their principal aims is to show the word as
expressive of Plato's attitude to the Forms.
3
5. THE BACKGROUND TO THE 'REPUBLIC'
We must on the whole count it prudent of Adam that he scarcely
committed himself at all on the controversial questions of
Platonic chronology: on the one hand there remain matters
which are still today in dispute, and on the other the whole range
of issues was at the beginning of the century in a more fluid state
than it is now. The result is that his exposition, though suffering

thereby a certain limitation of scope, nowhere depends for its
acceptance on the maintenance of some particular chronological
scheme, which would in all probability have appeared, both then
and now, open to considerable doubt. It may be noted that he
adheres tentatively to the view advanced by Henry Jackson
4
against Zeller that the Republic is earlier than the
Philebus ;
5
this,
however, would now be universally regarded as certain. But the
correctness or incorrectness of Adam's more controversial theses
of interpretation, as on the objects of mathematical study and
the subject-matter of astronomy, or the astronomy of the myth
of Er (let alone the 'nuptial number' of Book VIII), will not,
I think, be in any way affected by the maintenance of any
chronological ordering among the dialogues that is at all
plausible.
1
'Plato's "Technical
Terms'",
Class.
Quart, xxxi
(1937),
141-50.
2
Le sens du mot
deios chez
Platon (Louvain,
1956).

3
Op. cit. p. 164 (on
Republic);
pp. 409-23 (general conclusions).
4
'Plato's Later Theory of
Ideas,
VII. The Supposed Priority of the Philebus to the
Republic
1
,
J. Philol. xxv
(1897),
65-82.
5
Note on Book ix,
583
B
it.
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
Similarly we need not concern ourselves here with Plato's
relations to earlier thinkers, though (to say the least) a proper
discussion of the politics of the Republic would require a survey
of the sophistic movement; of its metaphysics a discussion of
Parmenides (to say nothing of Euclides of Megara); of its mathe-
matics, astronomy and harmonics an extended treatment of
Pythagoreanism and not least of Philolaus; and of its dialectic
some reference to Zeno. All these are, and are likely to remain,
highly controversial topics. Adam, we may note, brought out
his edition before the appearance of the first edition of Hermann

Diels's Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903), which among
other things collects together what little there is to be known of
Thrasymachus.
1
But for the rest one may, perhaps, simply allude
briefly, from among a multitudinous literature, to G. Milhaud,
Les philosophes-geometres de la Grece: Platon et ses predecesseurs,
of which the first edition came out as long ago as 1900 and the
second in 1934; to J. Burnet,
Greek
Philosophy: From Thales to
Plato (1914), and to E. Frank, Plato und die
sogenannten
Pytha-
goreer
(Halle, 1923), and on the astronomical side to Sir Thomas
Heath, Aristarchus ofSamos: the Ancient
Copernicus
(1913). The
relevant aspects of the history of Greek mathematics are also
covered in the first volume of Sir Thomas Heath's great
Greek
Mathematics (2 vols. 1921). But the history of Greek mathe-
matical and scientific ideas has been prosecuted intensively in
recent years, through such work as that of Neugebauer, van der
Waerden and Sambursky, and it is impossible here to go into
details.
We need to say a little, however, about the relation of
Socrates to Plato, which has been a matter of unending dispute
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Adam him-

self wrote at some length on Socrates in The Religious
Teachers of
Greece,
2
and he had touched on the issue earlier in the introduc-
tions to his editions of the Apology and
Crito,
while on pp. xxxii-
xxxiii of the introduction to his and Mrs Adam's
Protagoras
the
form of hedonism attributed to Socrates in that dialogue is
regarded as authentic. This deserves to be noted, although there
is,
I think, nothing in the edition of the Republic that turns upon
1
See now the 6th and 7th editions, edited by W. Kranz (1951-2 and 1954), and
K. Oppenheimer, s.v.
*
Thrasymachus', in Pauly, RE (1936).
2
Pp. 320-55.
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
the historical relations of the two thinkers. However, it is clear
from The Religious Teachers of
Greece
that Adam attributed to
Socrates the view expressed in Rep. I,
335 A
ff.

that the just man
will harm no one } he held (rightly) that the Apology expressed
no clear belief in immortality,
2
but maintained that Socrates was
shown by the Memorabilia (over and above anything in Plato) to
have argued that the universe exhibited evidence of design.
3
It
was a few years after Adam's death that the learned world was
startled by the simultaneous presentation by A. E. Taylor and
John Burnet of the thesis that Plato had in his dialogues recorded
the views of the historical Socrates with a far greater degree of
fidelity than had hitherto been thought; this occurred in 1911,
with the appearance of Burnet's edition of the Phaedo and of
Taylor's Varia
Socratica,
followed up by various publications of
both scholars, such as the former's Greek Philosophy: From
Thales to Plato (1914) and his lecture on 'The Socratic Doctrine
of the Soul',
4
and the latter's Socrates (1932). Burnet, indeed,
writes of Plato as follows: 'he seems to have been one of those
men whose purely intellectual development was late and con-
tinued into old age. At first the artistic interest was paramount;
the purely philosophical does not gain the upper hand till his
artistic gift declined. It is only in certain parts of the Republic
and the Phaedrus that I can detect anything so far that seems to
be Platonic rather than Sokratic, and I attribute that exception

to the fact that Plato was about to open the Academy. The higher
education of the Guardians seems to be a programme of the
studies that were to be pursued there. '
;
5
the Idea of the Good,
on the other hand, he assigns to the influence not of Socrates but
of Euclides of Megara.
6
However, the view of these two scholars
that a major portion of Plato's positive philosophy (in particular
the Theory of Forms and the metaphysics of the soul) can be
assigned to Socrates has met with very little acceptance; in fact,
some recent writers have gone to extreme limits of scepticism as
1
I'p- 343-4.
2
Pp. 344-6. On this, see R. Hackforth, The Composition of Plato's Apology (Cam-
bridge, 1933), p. 171. Cf. Apol. 29A-B, 40c ff.
3
Esp. Xen. Mem. i, 4. For a more recent discussion, see W. Theiler, Zur
Geschichtc
der
teleologischen
N
aturbetrachtung
bis auf
Aristotelcs
(Zurich and Leipzig, 1925), part 1.
4

Proc. Brit.
Acad.
(1915-16); reprinted in J. Burnet, Essays and Addresses (London,
1929),
pp. 126-62. Cf. his Platonism (1928), chs. 2-3.
5
From Thales to Plato, pp. 212-13.
6
Ibid.
pp.
230-3.