[496d]
with whose aid the champion of justice1 could escape
destruction, but that he would be as a man who has fallen among wild
beasts,2 unwilling to share their
misdeeds3 and unable to hold out singly against the
savagery of all, and that he would thus, before he could in any way benefit
his friends or the state come to an untimely end without doing any good to
himself or others,—for all these reasons I say the philosopher
remains quiet, minds his own affair, and, as it were, standing aside under
shelter of a wall4 in a storm and blast of
dust and sleet and seeing others filled full of lawlessness, is content if
in any way
1 Cf. 368 b, Apol. 32 Eεἰ . . . ἐβοήθουν τοῖς δικαίοις and 32 Aμαχούμενον ὑπὲρ τοῦ δικαίου.
2 Cf. Pindar, Ol. i. 64. For the antithetic juxtaposition cf. also εἷς πᾶσιν below; see too 520 B, 374 A, Menex. 241 B, Phaedr. 243 C, Laws 906 D, etc. More in the Utopia（Morley, Ideal Commonwealths, p. 84) paraphrases loosely from memory what he calls “no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government”
3 Cf. Democrates fr. 38, Diels ii.3 p. 73καλὸν μὲν τὸν ἀδικέοντα κωλύειν: εἰ δὲ μή, μὴ ξυναδικεῖν, “it is well to prevent anyone from doing wrong, or else not to join in wrongdoing.”
4 Maximus of Tyre 21. 20 comments, “Show me a safe wall.” See Stallbaum ad loc. for references to this passage in later antiquity. Cf. Heracleit. fr. 44, Diels 3 i. 67, J. Stenzel, Platon der Erzieher, p. 114, Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, p. 33, Renan, Souvenirs, xvii., P. E. More, Shelburne Essays, iii. pp. 280-281 Cf. also Epist. vii. 331 D, Eurip.Ion 598-601.
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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