[516d]
sequences and co-existences,1 and so most successful in guessing at
what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and
that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and
lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer2 and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a
landless man,’”Hom. Od. 11.489 and
endure anything rather than opine with them
1 Another of Plato's anticipations of modern thought. This is precisely the Humian, Comtian, positivist, pragmatist view of causation. Cf. Gorg. 501 Aτριβῇ καὶ ἐμπειρίᾳ μνήμην μόνον σωζομένη τοῦ εἰθότος γίγνεσθαι“relying on routine and habitude for merely preserving a memory of what is wont to result.” (Loeb tr.)
2 The quotation is almost as apt as that at the beginning of the Crito.
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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