A Day in Athens with Socrates/Notes
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS.
Note 1, p. 3.
Every Athenian youth at the age of eighteen was enrolled upon the list of citizens, and admitted to the rights and duties of manhood.
Note 2, p. 3.
This passage occurs in the description of Hermes, when he meets Odysseus and gives him the charmed herb “moly” as a protection from the wiles of Circe: —
"But while through the glorious woodland I wended my way,
Ere I reached the wide dwelling of Circe, in simples well versed,
As I took my way thither, a wand in his hand, made of gold,
There encountered me Hermes: a stripling with beard of first growth
Even such did he seem, for a youth with most charm then is graced.”
—Odyssey, x., 275 ff.
By this allusion to the youth of Alcibiades, Plato seems to suggest that the dialogue took place in the year 433 B.C., when Alcibiades was eighteen years old. But no date can be assigned which does not involve grave chronological inaccuracies, since it is impossible that all the characters should have appeared together at the respective ages here ascribed to them.
Note 3, p. 4.
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC.
Note 41, p. 65.
The Peiraeus was the chief port of Athens. It was the ome of the mefics — this term including all resident Greeks not of Athenian parentage — and of the foreign residents, as at this day are the ports of Galata and Pera in Constantinople.
Note 42, p. 65.
Plato and his two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, claimed descent on their father’s side from Codrus, the last king of Athens; while through their mother, Perictione, they were nephews of Critias, the leader of the violent faction of the Thirty Tyrants, and were also connected with the great law-giver Solon. Glaucon is said to have written a number of dialogues, none of which, however, are extant. A conversation between him and Socrates is given in the Memorabilia of Xenophon (iii. 6) in which Glaucon is cured of a wild ambition to put himself at the head of public affairs, by being led to perceive and acknowledge his own ignorance and incapacity.
Adeimantus, who is shortly to be introduced, is known to us only by the representation of him in the Republic.
Note 43, p. 65.
The worship of Bendis, the Thracian Artemis, was first celebrated in Athens by a public festival at the time when Plato represents this dialogue as opening. Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/169 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/170 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/171 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/172 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/173 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/174 Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/175