Excerpt from The Dialogues of Plato, Translated Into English, Vol. 5 of 5
The typical Athenian apologizes for the tendency of his countrymen "to spin a very long discussion out of slender materials," and in a similar spirit the Lacedaemonian Megillus also apologizes (cp. Thucyd. iv. 17) for the Spartan brevity; he admits that long discourses may be sometimes necessary. The family of Megillus is the proxenus of Athens and Sparta; and he pays a beautiful compliment to the Athenian, significant of a certain Athenian element which is discernible in the Laws. A good Athenian, he says, is more than ordinarily good, because he is inspired by nature and not manufactured by law. The love of listening which is attributed to the Timocrat in the Republic (viii. 548 E)is also exhibited in him (in. 683 C).The Athenian on his side has a pleasure in speaking to the Lacedaemonian of the struggle in which their ancestors were jointly engaged against the Persians. A connection with Athens is likewise intimated by the Cretan Cleinias. He is the relative of Epimenides, whom, by an anachronism of seventy or eighty years, he describes as coming to Athens, not after the attempt of Cylon, but ten years before the Persian war. The Cretan and Lacedaemonian can hardly be said to contribute to the argument of which the Athenian is the expounder; they only supply information when asked about the institutions of their respective countries. A kind of simplicity or stupidity is ascribed to them (x. 885 ff, 888 E). At first, they are dissatisfied with the free criticisms which the Athenian passes upon the laws of Minos and Lycurgus, but they acquiesce in his greater experience and knowledge of the world. They admit that there can be no objection to the enquiry; for in the spirit of the legislator himself, they are discussing his laws when there is no one present to hear them. They are unwilling to allow that the Spartan and Cretan lawgivers can have been mistaken in honouring courage as the first part of virtue (ii.667 A), and are puzzled at hearing for the first time (ii. 661 D)"that goods are only evil to the evil." Several times they are on the point of quarrelling, and by an effort learn to restrain their natural feeling (cp. Shakespeare, Henry V, act iii. sc. 2).
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Dialogues of Plato, Translated Into English, Vol. 5 of 5 (Classic Reprint) (Plato Plato)