[615c]
and holy men they might receive
their due reward in the same measure; and other things not worthy of record
he said of those who had just been born1 and lived but a short time; and he had
still greater requitals to tell of piety and impiety towards the gods and
parents2 and of self-slaughter. For he said that he stood by when
one was questioned by another ‘Where is Ardiaeus3 the Great?’ Now this Ardiaeos had been tyrant in a
certain city of Pamphylia just a thousand years before that time and had put
to death his old father
1 For the words Cf. Tim. 76 Eεὐθὺς γιγνομένοις. Plato does not take up the problem of infant damnation! Warburton says, “and I make no doubt but the things not worth to be remembered was the doctrine of infants in purgatory, which appears to have given Plato much scandal, who did not at that time at least reflect upon its original and use.” See also Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 307, apudSeebohm.The Oxford Reformers(3rd ed.), p. 495: “Augustine had laid down that the punishment of such children was the mildest of all punishment in hell. . . . Aquinas laid down the further hypothesis that this punishment was not pain of body or mind, but want of the Divine vision.” Virgil, Aen. vi. 427, Anth. Pal. ix. 359. 10θανεῖν αὐτίκα τικτόμενον. Stallbaum and Ast think ἀποθανόντων dropped out of the text after γενομένων.
2 Cf. Phaedo 113 E-114 A, where there is a special penalty for murderers and parricides.
3 Cf. Archelaus in Gorg. 471.
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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