James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ὑποκεκινηκώς=‘deranged’ (D. and V.). The litotes in ὑπο- is only euphemistic. ὑποκεκινηκώς with this meaning does not apparently occur elsewhere in classical Greek: see StephanusHase Thes. s.v., where the only parallel cited is from a scholium on Soph. Aj. 531 ὑποκεκινηκότι μὴ πιστεύουσα. W. H. Thompson (on Phaedr. 249 D) proposes παρακεκινηκώς, in view of Ar. Frogs 643, where he approves ‘on MS authority’ the reading ἤν με παρακινήσαντ᾽ ἴδῃς. In point of fact, however, this reading will not scan, and the Ravenna with other MSS has ἤν μ᾽ ὑποκινήσαντ᾽ ἴδῃς, although ὑποκινεῖν is not used with the same sense as here.

οὐ μόνον κτλ. The madman also τυραννικόν τι φρόνημα ἴσχει. ἐλπίζει is not here ‘expects’ (D. and V.) but ‘fancies,’ ‘imagines’ (II 383 B note).

τυραννικὸς δὲ κτλ. I formerly printed δή for δέ (with q and Vermehren Plat. Stud. p. 112), but now prefer the reading of the best MSS. Plato is testing his account of the origin of the tyrannical man by obvious and admitted facts: cf. (with Schneider) IV 442 E ff. Lust, Drink, and Madness are confessedly tyrants; and we hold that a τυραννικὸς ἀνήρ in the strictest sense of the term (for ἀκριβῶς cf. I 341 C) is produced when a man falls under the dominion of all three. So that our theory accords with everyday experience. μελαγχολικός is not of course ‘passionate’ (Jowett), but ‘insane’: cf. ὅ γε μαινόμενος καὶ ὑποκεκινηκώς above.

573C - 576B In respect of his character and mode of life, the tyrannical man plunges into every form of dissipation, and is hounded on by ever fresh desires. His income and property soon disappear; and in order to satisfy his clamorous lusts, he plunders his father's estate, not hesitating if need be to lay violent hands on father and mother. Then follow sacrilege and theft, and every variety of crime; for he has now become in living fact that which once he rarely was in dreams. Such men, if few in number, may go abroad and join a tyrant's bodyguard or remain to swell the ranks of petty criminals at home; but if they are numerous, they make the worst of all their crew into a tyrant over their fatherland. Tyranny is the goal and consummation of such a man's desires. Throughout his whole existence, both before and after he attains the crown of his ambition, the tyrannical man is a stranger to freedom and friendship, faithless and superlatively unrighteous— in one word, he is the living embodiment of the monstrous lusts we found in dreams, and the longer he rules, the worse he grows.

ff. Plato's τυραννικός is a monster without a single redeeming feature of any kind, the incarnation of unnatural desire, “bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious”—“not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils” (Macbeth Act IV Sc. 3). It must be admitted that Plato takes a terrible revenge on Dionysius: see on 577 A.

γίγνεται κτλ. ‘Such, apparently, is the origin also of the tyrannical man.’ The stress of the voice falls on τοιοῦτος i.q. τυραννικός (τυραννικὸς ἀνήρ in Socrates' last sentence). καί is etiam : we have now described his origin as well as that of the others. J. and C. propose ἁνήρ, as if Plato meant γίγνεται οὕτω, καί <*>στιν τοιοῦτος. But the character of the man has still to be described (ζῇ δὲ δὴ πῶς;): hitherto we have been concerned only with his genesis (γίγνεται μέν). Schneider caught the meaning (“so nun entsteht auch dieser Mann”); but recent English translators are wrong. For μέν Richards conjectures μὲν οὖν (or οὐκοῦν γίγνεται μέν as an alternative). The asyndeton helps of course to accentuate the antithesis between γίγνεται and ζῇ.

τὸ τῶν παιζόντων . παροιμία ἡνίκα τις ἐρωτηθείς τι ὑπὸ γινώσκοντος τὸ ἐρω- τηθέν, αὐτὸς ἀγνοῶν, οὕτως ἀποκρίνηται ‘σὺ καὶ ἐμοὶ ἐρεῖς’ (Schol.). Cf. Phil. 25 B.