Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/69



Of this dialogue, which Fischer has, on the authority of Suidas, attributed to Æschines, a follower of Socrates, but Boeckh to an unknown writer, five translations have appeared in Latin, one in German, and one in French. But as they have been all made from a printed text, they are in a critical point of view of very little use. And a similar observation is applicable to the notes of the different editors, who have been apparently unwilling to meddle with the text, even when they could scarcely have failed to see it was corrupt. I have therefore been reluctantly compelled to supply partially their omissions, and to attempt to do, what would have come with a better grace from Boeckh.

From the allusion in §2, to the embassy sent from Sicily to Athens, as recorded by Thucydides in iii.86, Fischer infers that the dialogue is supposed to have taken place about Ol. 88, 2; and as regards the subject of it, that the wise alone are the really wealthy, he refers to Cicero, Paradox 6, and to lamblichus, Protrept. p.23, ed. Arcer.