[362a]
the
branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering,
he will be crucified,1 and so will learn his
lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. And the
saying of Aeschylus2 was, it seems, far more correctly applicable to the unjust man. For
it is literally true, they will say, that the unjust man, as pursuing what
clings closely to reality, to truth, and not regulating his life by opinion,
desires not to seem but to be unjust,“
Exploiting the deep furrows of his wit
”
1 Or strictly “impaled.” Cf. Cicero De Rep. iii. 27. Writers on Plato and Christianity have often compared the fate of Plato's just man with the crucifixion.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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