Phaedrus: With a Selection of Early Greek Poems and Fragment (Hackett Classics) by Plato & Paul Woodruff & Alexander Nehamas

Author:Plato & Paul Woodruff & Alexander Nehamas [Woodruff, Paul & Nehamas, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Published: 1995-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

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1. Cephalus was prominent in the opening section of Plato’s Republic, which is set in his home in Piraeus, the port of Athens. He had come there from Syracuse and was successful in the manufacture of shields. His sons Lysias, Polemarchus, and Euthydemus were known for their democratic sympathies. Polemarchus, who was interested in philosophy (cf. 257b4) and is shown taking an active part in the discussion of the Republic, was killed by the Thirty Tyrants. After the restoration of democracy, Lysias (ca.459–ca. 380) was given the rights of a citizen of Athens.

2. Acumenus, a relative of the doctor Eryximachus who speaks in the Symposium, was a doctor himself (Protagoras 315c; see the exchange between Phaedrus and Eryximachus in Symposium 176b–e).

3. “I take it”: hōs eoiken. The Greek verb is directly related to to eikos, “what is likely,” “what is plausible,” “what seems to be the case.” Since to eikos is the main notion to which rhetoricians such as Lysias appeal in their speeches, Plato’s use of this expression here and elsewhere in the dialogue is not accidental. We have tried to translate instances of these terms and their derivatives with expressions involving the notions of “likeness” and what is “likely,” though this has not always been possible. For more discussion of to eikos, cf n. 170 below.

4. Morychus is mentioned on a number of occasions by Aristophanes for his luxurious ways.

5. Pindar, Isthmian 1.2, adapted by Plato.

6. Herodicus was a medical expert whose regimen Socrates criticizes in Republic 406a–b.

7. Socrates’ speech (228a–c) parodies the style of courtroom oratory, from his opening appeal to impossibility to his prosecution-style version of events. In the manner of Tisias (273a, below) Socrates rests his case on what is likely (eikos).

8. “His frenzied dance”: Socrates refers to the rites of the Corybantes, who danced themselves into an ecstatic state. Such allusions to ecstasy-producing religious practices are common in the Phaedrus. Cf. 234d (Bacchic frenzy), 241e (possession by Nymphs), 244b and 248d–e (ecstasy of the oracles), 245a and 262d (possession by the Muses), and 250b–d (the ultimate vision after initiation into a cult). Cf. the language of initiation throughout Diotima’s speech in the Symposium.

9. A plane tree is a European sycamore or buttonwood tree.

10. According to legend, Oreithuia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, was abducted by Boreas while she was playing with Nymphs along the banks of the Ilisus River. Boreas personifies the north wind.

11. One of the demes of classical Athens.

12. “The Hill of Ares (god of war),” located northwest of the Acropolis; it was, from very ancient times, the seat of a civic council which was itself called “Areopagus."

13. Demythologizing such accounts will not be easy: a Hippocentaur is half man, half horse; the Chimaera has a lion’s head, goat’s body, and serpent’s tail; a Gorgon was a woman with snakes for hair; and Pegasus was a winged horse. Socrates is about to invent his own such figure, the winged team and chariot driver which we meet in his second speech below.

14.

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