BOOK I
1. [Hê theos: Most probably—as 354a10–11 implies—the Thracian goddess Bendis, whose cult had recently been introduced in Piraeus. However, for Athenians, Athena is hê theos.—C.D.C.R.]
2. [“God ever draws together like to like.”]
3. [Odyssey 19.392–8.]
4. [In Greek superstition, anyone seen by a wolf before he sees it is struck dumb.]
5. [Proverbial characterization of an almost impossible task.]
6. [The temples served as public treasuries, so that a temple robber is the equivalent of a present-day bank robber.]
7. [Euêtheia, kakoêtheia: Thrasymachus uses euêtheia in the bad sense, to mean stupidity. Socrates takes him to mean it in the good sense of being straightforward, and so contrasts it with kakoêtheia—deviousness.]
8. [347e.]
BOOK II
1. [In Seven against Thebes 592–4, it is said of Amphiaraus that “he did not wish to be believed to be the best but to be it.” The passage continues with the words Glaucon quotes below at 362a–b.]
2. [See Homer, Odyssey 16.97–8.]
3. [Hesiod, Works and Days 332–3.]
4. [Homer, Odyssey 19.109.]
5. [Works and Days 287–9, with minor alterations.]
6. [Iliad 9.497–501, with minor alterations.]
7. [The quotation is attributed to Simonides, who is cited by Polemarchus in Book 1.]
8. [At 361b–c.]
9. [Uranus prevented his wife, Gaia, from giving birth to his children by blocking them up inside her. Gaia gave a sickle to one of these children, Cronus, which he used to castrate his father when the latter next had intercourse with her. Cronus ate the children he had by his wife, Rhea, until, by deceiving him with a stone, she was able to save Zeus from suffering this fate. Zeus then overthrew his father. See Hesiod, Theogony 154–210, 453–506.]
10. [As at 377d10.]
11. [The first three quotations are from Iliad 24.527–32. The sources for the fourth, and for the quotation from Aeschylus, are unknown. The story of Athena urging Pandarus to break the truce is told at Iliad 4.73–126.]
12. [Odyssey 17.485–6.]
13. [Inachus was the father of Io, who was persecuted by Hera because Zeus was in love with her. The source for the part of the story Plato quotes is unknown.]
14. [At Iliad 2.1–34, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon to promise success if he attacks Troy immediately. The promise is false. The
source for the quotation from Aeschylus is unknown.]
BOOK III
1. [Odyssey 11.489–91. Odysseus is being addressed by Achilles in Hades.]
2. [Iliad 20.64–5. Hades is afraid that the earth will split open and reveal what his home is like.]
3. [Iliad 23.103–4. Achilles speaks these lines as the soul of the dead Patroclus leaves for Hades.]
4. [Odyssey 10.493–5. Circe speaking to Odysseus about the prophet Tiresias.]
5. [Iliad 16.856–7. The words refer to Patroclus, who has just been mortally wounded by Hector.]
6. [Iliad 23.100. The soul referred to is that of Patroclus.]
7. [Odyssey 14.6–9. The souls are those of Penelope’s suitors, whom Odysseus has killed.]
8. [“Cocytus” means river of wailing or lamenting; “Styx,” river of hatred.]
9. [Iliad 24.3–12.]
10. [Iliad 18.23–4.]
11. [Iliad 22.414–5.]
12. [Iliad 18.54. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, is mourning his fate among the Nereids.]
13. [Iliad 22.168–9. Zeus is watching Hector being pursued by Achilles.]
14. [Iliad 16.433–4.]
15. [Iliad 1.599–600.]
16. [Odyssey 17.384.]
17. [Iliad 4.412. Agamemnon has unfairly rebuked Diomedes for cowardice. Diomedes’ squire protests, but Diomedes quiets him with these words. By obeying, the squire exhibits the kind of moderation that most people can come to possess.]
18. [A mix of Iliad 3.8 and 4.431.]
19. [Iliad 1.225. Achilles is insulting his commander, Agamemnon.]
20. [Odyssey 9.8–10.]
21. [Odyssey 12.342. Eurylochus urges the men to slay the cattle of Helios in Odysseus’ absence.]
22. [Iliad 14.294–341.]
23. [Odyssey 8.266ff.]
24. [Odyssey 20.17–8. The speaker is Odysseus.]
25. [The source of the passage is unknown. Cf. Euripides, Medea 964.]
26. [Iliad 9.602–3.]
27. [Iliad 19.278ff., 24.594.]
28. [Iliad 22.15, 20.]
29. [Iliad 21.232ff.]
30. [Iliad 23.151–2.]
31. [Iliad 14.14–8.]
32. [Iliad 23.175.]
33. [According to some legends, Theseus and Peirithous abducted Helen and tried to abduct Persephone from Hades.]
34. [Thought to be from Aeschylus’ lost play Niobe.]
35. [Apollo.]
36. [Iliad 1.15ff.]
37. [Apollo as at 393a1 and 394a3.]
38. [Metabolê: variation in general, but also a technical term in music for the transition from one harmony to another.]
39. [As was traditionally done to statues of the gods.]
40. [387d–388e.]
41. [Phthongos, prosôdia: phthongos is a human voice, an animal cry, or more generally a sound of some sort; prosôdia is the tone or accent of a syllable, or a song accompanied by music.]
42. [After Athena had invented the flute, she discarded it because playing it distorted her features. It was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was foolish enough to challenge Apollo (inventor of the lyre) to a musical contest. He was defeated, and Apollo flayed him alive. Satyrs were bestial in their behavior and desires—especially their sexual desires.]
43. [Nê ton kuna: probably the dog-headed Egyptian god Anubis.]
44. [Rhythm is poetic meter, and the elements are the metrical feet.]
45. [Probably those in which the foot is divided in the ratio of: (1) 2:2—e.g., the dactyl (¯ ˘ ˘) or the spondee (¯ ¯); (2) 3:2—e.g., the paeon (˘ ˘ ˘ ¯); (3) 1:2 or 2:1—e.g., the iamb (˘ ¯) or the trochee (¯ ˘).]
46. [The foot being described is probably the dactyl (¯ ˘ ˘): it is warlike and heroic, because Greek heroic poetry was written in dactylic hexameter; complex, because it consists of a long syllable and two short ones; equal up and down in the interchange of long and short, because a long syllable is equal in length to two short ones; and fingerlike, because the first joint on a finger is roughly equal in length to the other two.]
47. [398e6.]
48. [Fish was a luxury item in Plato’s Athens.]
49. [Corinthian prostitutes enjoyed an international reputation in the Classical period.]
50. [At Iliad 11.580ff. Eurypylus is wounded, but not treated in this way (see 11.828–36). However, Machaon, the son of Asclepius, does receive this treatment at 11.624–50.]
51. [Phocylides of Miletus was a mid-sixth–century elegiac and hexameter poet best known for his epigrams.]
52. [Iliad 4.218–9. In the extant text, Machaon is acting alone.]
53. [375c6–8.]
54. [Iliad 17.588.]
55. [Misologos: the opposite of a philosopher, who is a philologos, a lover of argument.]
56. [382a4–d3.]
57. [Apparently a reference, first, to the legend of the Phoenician hero, Cadmus, who sowed the earth with dragon’s teeth from which giants grew; and, second, to the Odyssey, and the tales Odysseus tells to the Phaeacians.]
BOOK IV
1. [This discussion begins at 445c, but is interrupted and does not resume again until Book VIII.]
2. [Ancient Greek statues were painted and gilded.]
3. [At formal drinking parties (sumposia), the toastmaster (sumposiarchos) sat at the head of the table. The others sat in order of their importance, from his right counterclockwise around the table to his left.]
4. [The reference is obscure; it may be to a saying or proverb, or to a game like checkers called poleis, or cities, in which the set of pieces on each side, or perhaps any subset of them, were called cities, while the individual members of the sets were called dogs.]
5. [415a–c.]
6. [Odyssey 1.351–2. Our text of Homer is slightly different.]
7. [Roughly seven feet. A cubit is between seventeen and twenty-two inches long.]
8. [The Hydra was a mythical monster. When one of its heads was cut off, two or three new heads grew in its place. Heracles (or Hercules) had to slay the Hydra as one of his labors.]
9. [The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was traditionally consulted by all Greeks on religious and other such matters. A stone there marked the supposed center of the earth.]
10. [368b7–c3.]
11. [Euboulos: In Greek cities, the boulê was the council that had day-to-day responsibility for public affairs. In kingships it served as an advisory body to the kings; in democratic Athens it served as an advisory body and steering committee for the assembly of all the adult male citizens.]
12. [414b1–6.]
13. [Carbonate of soda from Chalestra, a town and lake in Macedonia.]
14. [428a2–9.]
15. [368c7–369a3.]
16. [A fragment of the comedy Kapêlides by Theopompus (410–370 B.C.E.) tells us that a certain Leontinus (emended to Leontius because of Plato’s reference here) was known for his love of boys as pale as corpses. So his desire is probably sexual in origin, and for that reason appetitive. The North and South Walls enclosed an area connecting Athens to Piraeus.]
17. [439e5.]
18. [Odyssey 20.17. See 390d.]
19. [432d2–433b4.]
20. [The difference between knowledge (epistêmê) and belief (doxa) is explored at 475d1–480a13.]
21. [I.e., the soul. See 353d9–10.]
BOOK V
1. [This task is taken up in Book VIII.]
2. [A proverbial expression applied to those who neglect the task at hand for an uncertain profit. Thrasymachus is reminding Socrates of his own words at 336e4–9.]
3. [This may be an allusion to the mimes of Sophron of Syracuse (c. 470–400 B.C.E.), which were divided into male mimes, in which men were represented, and female ones, in which women were represented.]
4. [Respectable, well-to-do women lived secluded lives in most Greek states: they were confined to the household (see 579b8) and to domestic work and were largely excluded from the public spheres of culture, politics, and warfare.]
5. [The women will be gumnozomenas, which can mean stripped naked, but often also means wearing a tunic, or undergarment, without a cloak (see 457a6–7). A palestra was a wrestling school and training ground.]
6. [A reference, perhaps, to Aristophanes, Assembly Women, which makes fun of the idea of women having political power and making laws like these. As in English, the term hoplon (“weapon” or “tool”) was used to refer to the male genitals, and ocheuein (“mounting,” “riding”) to refer to sexual intercourse (as at 454e1).]
7. [The story of Arion’s rescue by the dolphin is told in Herodotus, Histories 1.23–4.]
8. [453c7–9.]
9. [Men were in charge of roasting meat. See 404b10–c4.]
10. [374e4–376c5.]
11. [Plato is adapting a phrase of Pindar.]
12. [The metaphor begins at 453c10–d7.]
13. [Both hunting dogs and aviaries were common in rich Greek households.]
14. [382c6–d3.]
15. [Infanticide by exposure was commonly used in ancient Greece as a method of birth control.]
16. [452b1–3.]
17. [Greek women were often married before they turned twenty.]
18. [These are lunar months. The period is from roughly seven to roughly nine calendar months. A fetus of less than seven months was considered nonviable.]
19. [Greek law did not usually permit marriage between biological siblings, who will be included in the class referred to here.]
20. [The Athenian democracy had nine rulers (archons) in Plato’s time. These included the chief magistrates, the chief military leader, and an important authority in religious matters.]
21. [462b4–c9.]
22. [416d3–417b8.]
23. [Men victorious in the Olympic games were often awarded free meals for life by their cities.]
24. [419a1–421c6.]
25. [Works and Days 40.]
26. [460b1–5.]
27. [Iliad 7.321.]
28. [Iliad 8.162.]
29. [Works and Days 122.]
30. [Apollo.]
31. [The third wave was proverbially the greatest.]
32. [Trittarchousi: “command the soldiers in a trittys.” A trittys was one third of one of the ten tribes of which Athens consisted.]
33. [A poem or play is fashioned out of sounds, a painting out of colors and shapes.]
34. [The riddle seems to have been this: a man who is not a man saw and did not see a bird that was not a bird in a tree (xulon) that was not a tree; he hit (ballein) and did not hit it with a stone that was not a stone. The answer is that a eunuch with bad eyesight saw a bat on a rafter, threw a pumice stone at it, and missed. For “he saw a bird” is ambiguous between “he saw what was actually a bird” and “he saw what he took to be a bird,” xulon means both “tree” and “rafter” or “roof tree,” and ballein means both “to throw” and “to hit.” The rest is obvious.]
35. [See 451b3.]
BOOK VI
1. [Eikos: also, likeness.]
2. [An intoxicant.]
3. [Aristotle, Rhetoric 1391a7–12, says that when Simonides was asked whether it was better to be rich or wise, he replied: “Rich—because the wise spend their time at the doors of the rich.”]
4. [487d10.]
5. [485c3.]
6. [See Homer, Iliad 24.367.]
7. [An inescapable compulsion. The origin of the phrase is uncertain.]
8. [Plato seems to have had Alcibiades in mind here and in what follows. Alcibiades’ extraordinary career is described in Thucydides, Books 6–8.]
9. [The trial of Socrates in 399 B.C.E. is the obvious case in point.]
10. [I.e., dialectic.]
11. [Heraclitus’ sun was extinguished at night but rekindled the next morning.]
12. [Plato is mocking the rhetoricians who were fond of forced rhyme. His own words ou gar pôpote eidon genomenon to nun legomenon—“they’ve never seen anything come into existence that matches our account”—exhibit the phenomenon he is mocking.]
13. [At 412b–414a. The conviction referred to is identified at 412e6.]
14. [434d–444e.]
15. [435d.]
16. [Throughout, Socrates is punning on the word tokos, which means either a child or the interest on capital.]
17. [Helios—the sun—was considered a god.]
18. [Socrates’ claim ends with the words dunamei huperechontas (“superior in … power”), Glaucon responds with the punning daimonias huperbolês. Hence the joke.]
19. [The play seems to be on the similarity of sound between orano (“the heavens”) and orato (“visible”).]
BOOK VII
1. [Odyssey 11.489–90. The shade of Achilles speaks these words to Odysseus, who is visiting Hades. Plato is likening the cave dwellers to the dead.]
2. [505a–b.]
3. [420b–421c, 462a–466c.]
4. [I.e., the practical life of ruling and the theoretical life of doing philosophy.]
5. [A proverbial expression, referring to a children’s game. The players were divided into two groups. A shell or potsherd—white on one side, black on the other—was thrown into space between them to the cry of “night or day?” (Note the reference to night and day in what follows.) According as the white or black fell uppermost, one group ran away pursued by the other.]
6. [404a, 412b–417b.]
7. [495c–e.]
8. [504c.]
9. [528b.]
10. [A dense interval is evidently the smallest difference in pitch that was recognized in ancient music.]
11. [Nomos: also, law.]
12. [Poreia: An aporia (puzzle, problem—literally, a blockage on one’s journey forward) is what dialectic attempts to solve.]
13. [511d6–511e4.]
14. [The reference is to 511d6–e5, where the first section is called understanding (noêsis), not knowledge (epistêmê). Since thought (dianoia) is not now a kind of knowledge, noêsis and epistêmê have in effect become one and the same. Epistêmê and dianoia are now jointly referred to as noêsis, because that whole section of the line on which they appear consists of intelligible objects (noêton).]
15. [Elengchein: (“to examine,” “to refute”)—as in the Socratic elenchus.]
16. [A pun made possible by the fact that alogon can mean “irrational” (as applied to people) and “incommensurable” (as applied to lines in geometry).]
17. [412b8–417b9.]
18. [The difference between voluntary and involuntary lies is explained at 382a1–383a7.]
BOOK VIII
1. [415d6–420a7.]
2. [445c1–450c5.]
3. [449b1–2.]
4. [I.e., Spartan.]
5. [Homer, Odyssey 19.163.]
6. [Most recently at 544a2–8.]
7. [Apparently an adaptation of Iliad 16.112–3.]
8. [The divine creature seems to be the world or universe. See Timaeus 30b–d, 32d, 34a–b. Plato does not specify what its number is.]
9. [The human geometrical number is the product of 3, 4, and 5 “thrice increased”: if (3 × 4 × 5) × (3 × 4 × 5) = (3 × 4 × 5)2 is one increase, (3 × 4 × 5) × (3 × 4 × 5) (3 × 4 × 5) × (3 × 4 × 5) = (3 × 4 × 5)4 is three.
This formula included “increases involving both roots and powers”: (3 × 4 × 5) is a root; its indices are powers. It “comprehends” three “intervals,” symbolized by ×, and four “terms”—namely, the roots. The resulting number, 12,960,000, can be represented geometrically as: (1) a square whose sides are 3,600, or (2) an “oblong” or rectangle whose sides are 4,800 and 2,700. (1) is “so many times 100”: 36 times. (2) is obtained as follows. The “rational diameter” of 5 is the nearest rational number to the real diameter of a square whose sides are 5. This diameter = √52 + 52 = √50 = 7. Since the square of 7 is 49, we get the longer side of the rectangle by diminishing 49 by 1 and multiplying the result by 100. This gives 4,800. The “irrational diameter” of 5 is √50. When squared (= 50), diminished by 2 (= 48), and multiplied by 100, this, too, is 4,800. The short side, “100 cubes of three,” = 2,700. The significance of the number is more controversial. The factors “that cause likeness and unlikeness, cause increase and decrease, and make all things mutually agreeable and rational in their relations to one another” are probably the numbers, since odd numbers were thought to cause likeness and even ones unlikeness (Aristotle, Physics 203a13–5). Of the numbers significant in human life, one is surely the 100 years of its maximum span (615a8–b1). Another might be the number of days in the year (roughly 360), and a third might be the divisions of those days into smaller units determined by the sun’s place in the sky, since it is the sun that provides for “the coming-to-be, growth, and nourishment” of all visible things (509b2–4). Assuming that those units are the 360 degrees of the sun’s path around the earth (a suggestion due to Robin Waterfield), the number of moments in a human life that have a potential effect on its coming-to-be, growth, and nourishment would be 100 × 360 × 360, or 12,960,000—Plato’s human geometrical number.]
10. [414d1–415c7; Hesiod, Works and Days 109–202.]
11. [Homer, Iliad 6.211.]
12. [The line does not occur in the extant plays, but it may be an adaptation of Seven against Thebes 451.]
13. [548a7–8.]
14. [544c4–5.]
15. [I.e., as being few in number. Oligos means few.]
16. [374b6–c2.]
17. [For the Greeks, the king of Persia was emblematic of absolute rule.]
18. [I.e., Plutus, the god of wealth, who is often represented as being blind.]
19. [Their heads are down because their appetite for money forces their souls to look downward.]
20. [Dead heroes were worshipped as minor deities in Greek religion, particularly in their birthplaces, where their spirits were thought to linger.]
21. [Bread is used here to mean “the staff of life.” That is why one dies for want of it.]
22. [Described at 559d7–e2.]
23. [Many public officials in democratic Athens were elected by lot.]
24. [Isonomia: an important democratic value.]
25. [The Greeks drank their wine mixed with water.]
26. [At 562e4–5. We no longer possess the play from which this fragment comes.]
27. [I.e., you are telling me what I already know.]
28. [552c2–e3.]
29. [Phlegm and bile were two of the so-called humors Greek medicine thought responsible for health and disease.]
30. [The exceptions in question are presumably the various offices—such as the chief military official—to which in the Athenian democracy were appointed on the basis of expertise.]
31. [Zeus the wolf-god.]
32. [Plato seems to be alluding to the tyrant Peisistratus. In 560 B.C.E., Peisistratus made himself tyrant with the help of a bodyguard granted to him by the Athenian people. After five years, he was expelled. Eventually he returned to Athens and used mercenaries to establish himself firmly as tyrant. He died in 527. See Herodotus 1.59–64.]
33. [The story of the Delphic Oracle to Croesus is found in Herodotus 1.55.]
34. [See Iliad 16.776.]
35. [The fragment is from an unknown play. Euripides meant that tyrants gain wisdom from the wise people who, as Simonides said, “knock at the doors of the rich” (489b7–8). Plato twists his words to mean that the drones and slaves, who are the tyrant’s last resort, are wise, since they associate with him.]
BOOK IX
1. [558c–562a2.]
2. [Literally, the many.]
3. [I.e., the façade referred to earlier. Greek tragedies often had tyrants as characters.]
4. [Plato spent time with Dionysius I, tyrant of Sicily.]
5. [The reference is to the way plays were judged at dramatic festivals in Athens. A herald announced the results.]
6. [Glaucon, but also, perhaps, his brother Plato.]
7. [At 553c5.]
8. [The first toast at a banquet was to the Olympian Zeus, the third to our savior, Zeus. By combining both in a single form of address, Plato seems to be emphasizing the importance of this final proof.]
9. [Stegnon: contrasted in the Gorgias (493a1–b3) with the “leaking jar” in which the appetites are located.]
10. [According to the story, Stesichorus wrote a poem defaming Helen and was punished by being struck with blindness. His sight was restored when he added a verse to the poem in which he claimed that it was a phantom of Helen and not Helen herself who was at Troy.]
11. [Envy, violence, and peevishness are all painful conditions that enhance the honor-lover’s pleasures through contrast.]
12. [Third because the Greeks always counted the first as well as the last member of a series. The day after tomorrow was the third day.]
13. [Because the timocrat is between them.]
14. [Socrates’ mathematics is difficult to follow. He seems to have something like this in mind: the tyrant’s pleasure is a two-dimensional image (a plane figure) of the true, three-dimensional pleasure of the philosopher. Hence, if a one-unit square represents the degree of closeness to true pleasure of an image nine times removed from it, true pleasure should be represented by a nine-unit cube. It follows that the king lives 729 times more pleasantly than the tyrant. However, in order to reach the significant number 729—there are 729 days and nights in a year of 364 twenty-four–hour days and 729 months in the “great year” recognized by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus—Socrates has had to make two rather fast moves. First, he illegitimately capitalizes on the Greek manner of counting series in order to count the oligarch twice, once as the last term in his first series (tyrant, democrat, oligarch) and again as the first term in his second series (oligarch, timocrat, king). Second, he multiplies the number of times the tyrant is removed from the oligarch by the number of times the oligarch is removed from the king, when he should have added them. In fact, the tyrant is only five times removed from the king, and so lives only 125 times less pleasantly!]
15. [Eriphyle was bribed by Polyneices to persuade her husband, Amphiaraus, to take part in an attack on Thebes. He was killed, and she was murdered by her son in revenge. See Odyssey 11.326–7.]
16. [The snakelike element hasn’t been previously mentioned, although it may be included in “all that pertains to” the lion (588e6). It symbolizes some of the meaner components of the spirited part, such as peevishness, which it would be unnatural to attribute to the noble lion. Snakes were thought to guard shrines and other sacred places. Including a snakelike element in the part of the soul dominant in guardians is, therefore, somewhat natural.]
BOOK X
1. [God is called king at Laws 10.904a6.]
2. [The rhapsodes and poets who recited and expounded Homer throughout the Greek world.]
3. [It derives from two words, kreas (meat) and phylon (race or kind). A modern equivalent might be “meathead.”]
4. [436b8–c1.]
5. [439c2–441c7.]
6. [387d4–e4.]
7. [Philosophers, such as Xenophanes and Heraclitus, attacked Homer and Hesiod for their immoral tales about the gods. Poets, such as Aristophanes in his Clouds, attacked philosophers for subverting traditional ethical and religious values. The sources of these particular quotations, however, are unknown.]
8. [Ancient paintings may have represented Glaucus in the way Plato describes him here. His name appears in the accusative (Glaukon), suggesting a play on Glaucon (Glaukôn).]
9. [Philosophia.]
10. [Eite polueidês eite monoeidês: having many elements or only one.]
11. [The reference is to the challenge posed by Glaucon and Adeimantus at 357a1–367e5. But they, of course, are renewing the challenge posed by Thrasymachus in Book I (see 358b1–c1).]
12. [The ring of Gyges is discussed at 359c6–360c5. The cap of Hades also made its wearer invisible.]
13. [352a10–b2, 363a5–e4.]
14. [A foreshadowing of the doctrine of reincarnation introduced below.]
15. [The race is a sprint from one end of the stadium to the other and back.]
16. [361d7–362c8.]
17. [Books 9–11 of the Odyssey were traditionally referred to as Alkinou apologoi, the tales of Alcinous. Included among them is the story in Book 11 of Odysseus’ descent into Hades. Since the word translated by “brave” is alkimou, which is very similar to Alkinou, some sort of pun seems to be involved. The following is one attractive way to interpret it. Alkinou might be taken as a compound of alkê (strength) + nous (understanding) and alkimou as a compound of alkê + Mousa (a Muse). Socrates would then be saying something like: it isn’t a tale that shows strength of understanding that I’m going to tell but one that shows the strength of the Muse of storytelling.]
18. [Sphondulon: the circular weight that twirls a spindle in weaving.]
19. [Plato’s description of the beam of light and the spindle is difficult. He compares the light to hypozomata, or the ropes that bind a trireme together. These ropes seem to have girded the trireme from stem to stern and to have entered it at both places. Within the trireme, they were connected to some sort of twisting device that allowed them to be tightened when the water caused them to stretch and become slack. The spindle of Necessity seems to be just such a twisting device. Hence, the extremities of the light’s bonds must enter into the universe just as the hypozomata enter the trireme, and the spindle must be attached to these extremities, so that its spinning tightens the light and holds the universe together. The light is thus like two rainbows around the universe (or the whorl of the spindle), whose ends enter the universe and are attached to the spindle. The upper half of the whorl of the spindle consists of concentric hemispheres that fit into one another, with their lips or rims fitting together in a single plane. The outer hemisphere is that of the fixed stars; the second is the orbit of Saturn; the third of Jupiter; the fourth of Mars; the fifth of Mercury; the sixth of Venus; the seventh of the sun; and the eighth of the moon. The earth is in the center. The hemispheres are transparent and the width of their rims is the distance of the heavenly bodies from one another.]
20. [Prophêtês: a prophet. Here in the sense of someone who speaks on behalf of a god.]
21. [According to one myth, Orpheus was killed and dismembered by Thracian women, or Maenads.]
22. [Ajax thought that he deserved to be awarded the armor of the dead Achilles, but instead it was awarded to Odysseus. Ajax was maddened by this injustice and later killed himself because of the terrible things he had done while mad.]