[1]: Polygnotus, the famous painter who decorated public buildings in Athens from about 470 B.C.
[2]: The regular phrase of a Homeric hero in boasting of his valor, parentage, etc.; cf. Hom. Il. 6.211, Hom. Il. 14.113.
[3]: Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. viii., gives four lines of the (anonymous) song: ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνατῷ, δεύτερον δὲ φυὰν καλὸν γενέσθαι, τὸ τρίτον δὲ πλουτεῖν ἀδόλως, καὶ τὸ τέταρτον ἡβᾶν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.
[4]: i.e. knowledge and belief.
[5]: Built about 440 B.C. between the two walls built in 456 B.C., one connecting the Piraeus, and the other Phalerum, with Athens. The middle wall ran parallel to the former, and secured from hostile attack a narrow strip of land between Athens and the Piraeus. Socrates was born in 469 B.C.
[6]: i.e. that he must know what is just, and that he who knows this must be just (see ¤¤ A and B above).
[7]: This favorite oath of Socrates was derived from Egypt, where the god Anubis was represented with a dog’s head; cf. Plat. Gorg. 482b.
[8]: The defective construction of this sentence is probably intended to mark the agitated manner of Polus in making his protest.
[9]: i.e.an unreal image or counterfeit: Quintilian (ii. 15.25) renders simulacrum.
[10]: Socrates alludes to the meaning of πῶλος (a colt).
[11]: i.e. in the concise mathematical manner, such as that which later appeared in the writings of Euclid
[12]: Administrative justice is here specially meant.
[13]: i.e. sophistry and rhetoric.
[14]: The assonance in ὦ λῷστε Πῶλε is a mocking allusion to the nicely balanced clauses and jingling phrases which Polus imitated from his master Gorgias. Something of this style appears in Polus’s speech above, 448c.
[15]: Archelaus usurped the throne of Macedonia in 413 B.C., and ruled till his death in 399 B.C. Euripides, Agathon, and other distinguished Athenians were guests at his court; Socrates was also invited, but declined to visit him (Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23. 8), and this is probably the point of Socrates’ next remark.
[16]: These tripods were prizes won by dramatic performances supported as a public service by Nicias and his brothers, and they were placed in the precincts of the temple of Dionysus. The persons here mentioned are selected as instances of public men who won high reputation in their time through the pursuit of material wealth and influence.
[17]: Socrates refers humorously to his noble act in refusing to put to the vote an illegal proposal against the generals who fought at Arginusae, 406 B.C. By saying last year he fixes the supposed date of this conversation at 405 B.C.
[18]: As was agreed above, Plat. Gorg. 474d, Plat. Gorg. 474e.
[19]: The parenthesis humorously anticipates an objection that might be made, in a particular case, to this theory of what a really thorough enmity would be: if our enemy has robbed us of gold, of course we cannot, as is presently urged, take care that he shall not refund it.
[20]: Pyrilampes’ son was named Demus, and was famous for his beauty; cf. Aristoph. Wasps 97. Demus was the ordinary word for the people of a city.
[21]: The distinction between natural, or absolute, and conventional, or legal, right, first made by the Ionian Archelaus who taught Socrates in his youth, is developed at length in the Republic (Plat. Rep. 1.388 ff.), and was a constant subject of discussion among the sophists of Plato’s time.
[22]: Callicles boldly applies the word νόμος, which so far has been used in the sense of man-made law or convention, in its widest sense of general rule or principle.
[23]: Pind. Fr. 169 (Bergk)
[24]: Pind. Fr. 169 (Bergk)
[25]: Eur. Antiope Fr.
[26]: Zethus and Amphion, twins born to Zeus by Antiope, were left by her on Mt. Cithaeron, where Zethus grew up as a man of the field, and Amphion as a musician. Here probably Amphion is speaking in defence of the quieter life; further on, in the quotations given in Plat. Gorg. 489b, Plat. Gorg. 489c, Zethus reproaches him with his effeminacy.
[27]: Hom. Il. 9.441.
[28]: Andron is one of the wise men who meet in the house of Callias, Plat. Prot. 315; Nausicydes may be the wealthy meal-merchant mentioned in Aristoph. Eccl. 426, and Xen. Mem. 2.7.6. Of Tisander nothing is known.
[29]: Above, Plat. Gorg. 486a.
[30]: Eur. Polydus
[31]: Eur. fr. 638.
[32]: The sage was perhaps Philolaus, a Pythagorean philosopher contemporary with Socrates. The phrase σῶμα σῆμα, suggesting a mystical similarity between body and tomb, was part of the Orphic doctrine.
[33]: Sicilian may refer to Empedocles; Italian to one of the Pythagoreans.
[34]: The play is with πιθανόν and πίθον:πειστοκόν is added to explain that πιθανόν is not used in its ordinary active sense of impressive.
[35]: The σοφός seems to have falsely derived ἀμυήτους from μύω (= close), with the meaning unclosed, in order to connect it with the notion of cracked or leaky.
[36]: Probably of Pythagoras.
[37]: Referring to this bird’s habit of drinking water and then ejecting it.
[38]: Cf. Plat. Gorg. 482d, where Callicles blamed Polus for not saying what he really thought.
[39]: Socrates means that one cannot hope to know great things without first learning the truth about little things.
[40]: The saying—καὶ δὶς γὰρ ὃ δεῖ καλόν ἐστιν ἐνισπεῖν—was attributed by some to Empedocles.
[41]: The proverb usually has τίθεσθαι instead of ποιεῖν; cf. Lucian, Necyom. 21.
[42]: Cf. Plat. Gorg. 468c
[43]: Cf. Plat. Gorg. 464-5.
[44]: A dithyrambic poet whose extravagant style was ridiculed by Aristophanes (Aristoph. Frogs 153; Aristoph. Cl. 333; Aristoph. Birds 1379).
[45]: 429 B.C. We saw at Plat. Gorg. 473e that the supposed date of the discussion is 405 B.C., so that recently here is hardly accurate.
[46]: Epicharmus of Cos produced philosophic comedies in Sicily during the first part of the fifth century. The saying is quoted in full by Athenaeus, vii. 308 τὰ πρὸ τοῦ δύ’ ἄνδρες ἔλεγον εἶς ἐγὼν ἀποχρέω.
[47]: Cf. Plat. Gorg. 485 above.
[48]: The argument here makes use of a more literal meaning of σώφρων—sound-minded (verging on conscientious, as in what immediately follows).
[49]: As the various meanings of σωφροσύνη have been brought out to suggest that one side of virtues involves the others, so here the apparent quibble of εὖ πράττειν (act well and fare well) is intended to suggest a real dependence of happiness upon virtue.
[50]: Κόσμος (order) was the name first given to the universe by the Pythagoreans.
[51]: Socrates proceeds to recall the reproaches of Callicles, above, Plat. Gorg. 486.
[52]: Cf. Callicles’ warning (Plat. Gorg. 486b) against the danger of being put to death on the false accusation of some paltry rascal.
[53]: About fourpence.
[54]: About two shillings
[55]: Socrates alludes to the popular theory that the practice of witchcraft is a serious danger or utter destruction to the practicer.
[56]: Cf. above, Plat. Gorg. 481d.
[57]: That is, instead of a small pot involving little waste in case of failure.
[58]: This refers especially to the payment of dicasts or jurors, introduced by Pericles in 462-1 B.C.
[59]: i.e. people who show their Spartan sympathies by an addiction to boxing; cf. Plat. Prot. 342b.
[60]: Our text of Homer contains no such saying. The nearest is that in Hom. Od. 6.120, and Hom. Od. 9.175—ἤ ῥ’ ὁίγ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι, οὐδὲ δίκαιοι, Wanton and wild are they, not just.
[61]: The Mysians, like the Carians (cf. Euthydemus 285 C), were regarded as the lowest of the low. Callicles heatedly taunts Socrates with putting the matter in its worst light.
[62]: Socrates retorts the phrase of Euripides, which Callicles applied (above, Plat. Gorg. 486c) to philosophic debate, upon the practical pursuits which Callicles recommended.
[63]: Cf. Plat. Gorg. 464d.
[64]: Hom. Il. 15.187 ff.
[65]: Hom. Od. 11.569
[66]: i.e. in return for Callicles’ invitation to him to pursue the life of rhetoric and politics, Plat. Gorg. 521a.
[67]: Aegina, daughter of the river-god Asopus, was the mother of Aeacus by Zeus.