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ΜΕΣΟΤΗΣ IN PLATO'S LAWS 746A6–7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2019

Roberto Grasso
Roberto Grasso*
Affiliation:
Universidade Estadual de Campinas
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In the fifth book of Plato's Laws (745e7–746a8), the Athenian stranger concedes that some requirements posed in the description of the ideal city might be unrealistically demanding. The passage quotes the due limits fixed with regard to wealth and the regulations about the number of children and the size of the family, as well as the rules to be observed in the allocation of houses in the city and in the countryside. The latter requirement is recalled at 746a6–7 (ἔτι δὲ χώρας τε καὶ ἄστεος, ὡς εἴρηκεν, μεσότητάς τε καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ οἰκήσεις πάντῃ), where the word μεσότης is unanimously understood as indicating a geographic notion of ‘middle’, with regard to either the position of the houses in the ideal city, or that of the city in the territory.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 443 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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References

1 Translators suggesting a reference to the central position of the city include Jowett, B., Dialogues of Plato: Translated into English, with Analyses and Introduction, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1892 3)Google Scholar; Adorno, F., Platone, Dialoghi Politici, Lettere, vol. 2 (Torino, 1953)Google Scholar; and Schöpsdau, K., Platon Werke: Platon, Bd.9/2: Nomoi (Göttingen, 2003 1)Google Scholar. The word μεσότης does instead indicate the central position of the houses, according to Jowett, B., Dialogues of Plato: Translated into English, with Analyses and Introduction, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1875 2)Google Scholar; Robin, L., Platon: Œuvres complètes, tome 2 (Paris, 1943)Google Scholar; Des Places, E., Platon, tome 11, 2e partie: Les Lois—Livres III–VI (Paris, 1951)Google Scholar; Saunders, T.J., Plato. The Laws (Harmondsworth, 1970)Google Scholar; Pangle, T.L., Plato. The Laws (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Radice, R. in G. Reale, Platone. Tutti gli scritti (Milano, 2000)Google Scholar; Ferrari, F., Platone. Le leggi (Milano, 2005)Google Scholar; Griffith, T. in M. Schofield and T. Griffith, Plato: Laws (Cambridge and New York, 2016)Google Scholar.

2 Other unsupported emendations include μεσαιτάτας and ἐν μέσῳ τινάς, respectively proposed by Wagner, F.W., Platons Werke. Griechisch und Deutsch. 17. und 18. Theil: Platon Gesetze I (Leipzig, 1854)Google Scholar (in the apparatus criticus) and (in the text) by Bury, R.G., Plato in Twelve Volumes: Laws (London, 1926)Google Scholar.

3 While endorsing the geographical rendering of μεσότης, Susemihl, F., Platon's Werke. Gruppe 4. Bändchen 9–15: Die Gesetze (Stuttgart, 1862)Google Scholar clearly has in mind this requirement in his translation of 746a6–7: ‘ferner den Besitz eines Grundstücks in der Mitte und eines andern im Umkreise des Landes und einer Wohnung in der Mitte und einer im Umkreise der Stadt’.

4 As an exception to the standard practice, Zadro, A., Platone, Dialoghi. Vol. 7: Le Leggi, vol. 7 (Bari, 1952Google Scholar) translates μεσότητας as ‘proporzioni’. Along the same lines, Fantasia, U., ‘Platone e Aristotele sull'organizzazione della χώρα’, ASNP 5 (1975), 1255–74Google Scholar (at 1258) remarks that ‘è indubbio che Platone si riferisca in qualche modo alle proporzioni geometriche secondo le quali è ordinata la sua città’, but none the less translates the passage according to the standard ‘geographical’ reading.

5 It is tempting to conjecture that the word μεσότης was coined as a technical term in the Academy, possibly under the influence of Eudoxus’ investigations on the subject of mathematical means mentioned by Iamblichus’ Commentary on Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic (cf. 100.19–101.11 [= Text A in Huffman, C.A., Archytas of Tarentum: Pythagorean, Philosopher, and Mathematician King (Cambridge, 2005), 164CrossRefGoogle Scholar], a passage probably based on the lost history of geometry by Aristotle's pupil Eudemus; cf. Huffman [this note], 170). At any rate, while the utterance of the word by a ‘Pythagorean’ character in the Timaeus is possibly paying homage to earlier discussions of the same subject by thinkers like Hippasus, Philolaus and Archytas, there is no textual evidence that any of those thinkers did use the actual term μεσότης (cf. the useful information about Pythagorean systematizations contained in Huffman [this note], 70–7).

6 Bailly, A., Dictionnaire Grec-Français (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar refers to the occurrences in 43d and 36a as evidence for the definition of μεσότης as ‘position médiale, intermédiaire’, while Montanari, F., The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden, 2015)Google Scholar proposes the sense of ‘space between’ for 36a. The mathematical meaning of ‘mean’ is rightly recognized by Mugler, C., Dictionnaire Historique de la Terminologie Géométrique des Grecs (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar; Zeyl, D.J., Plato. Timaeus (Indianapolis/Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar and Cornford, F.M., Plato's Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (Indianapolis, 1937)Google Scholar.

7 Both LSJ and Montanari (n. 6) quote Plato's passage as a source for the first sense of ‘central position’ (Montanari [n. 6] has ‘centre, central position’ and the slightly different, but still geographical, ‘l'essere al centro’ in the original 2004 Italian version). Bailly (n. 6) similarly offers ‘position médiale, intermédiaire’ as the first meaning, but the reference he offers points to Plato's Ti. 43d and 36a.

8 LSJ only adds two passages from Mirabilium auscultationes (846a18) and De Mundo (399b34), in which the reading μεσότης is dubious (ἐν μεσότητι in 846a18 is at odds with ἐν μέσῃ τῇ at 399b34).

9 LSJ suggests a temporal extension of the meaning of ‘central position’ in Aristotle's Physics 251b20, while Montanari (n. 6) has ‘middle point or period’ for the same occurrence. In fact, the argument for the eternity of time contained in the passage relies on the idea that present instants necessarily entail the existence of past and future ones. Thus, the word is better understood as indicating some ‘mean’ determined by way of the intermediation of extreme terms (cf. Graham, D.W., Aristotle. Physics, Book VIII [Oxford, 1999], 47–8Google Scholar, who recognizes that μεσότης is used here ‘not merely in the sense of being a mid-point, but in the sense of being like a geometric mean’). Other supposed sources for the temporal extension of ‘central position’ appear to be echoing a Pythagorean dictum firstly attested by Aristotle, whose formulation features μέσον instead of μεσότης (Cael. 268a10–13; cf. also Pl. Leg. 4.715e7–716). The version of the dictum using μεσότης is attributed to ‘Ocellus’ in a ‘Pythagorean’ fragment preserved by John the Lydian (sixth century c.e.) in his De Mensibus (2.8, p. 27 lines 8–9 [Wuensch]: ἡ τριὰς πρώτη συνέστησεν ἀρχήν, μεσότητα καὶ τελευτήν; collected as fr. 8 in DK [1951], 440–1). The name Ocellus, however, is mainly known as the supposed author of the De uniuersi natura, which is in fact a late Hellenistic pseudo-Pythagorean forgery (cf. Centrone, B., ‘The pseudo-Pythagorean writings’, in Huffman, C.A. (ed.), A History of Pythagoreanism [Cambridge, 2014], 328Google Scholar). A wording very similar to the ‘Ocellian’ version of the dictum appears in the sources quoted for the ‘temporal’ meaning by LSJ and Montanari (n. 6): LSJ refers to an inscription in Eleusis about the eternity of the Universe (ἀρχὴν μεσότητα τέλος οὐκ ἔχων, Dittenberger [1883: 3.1125.9–11]), which is thought to be Augustan; on the other hand, Montanari (n. 6) quotes similar phrases in Philo of Alexandria (Quis rerum diuinarum heres sit 126) and the Old Testament (Wisdom 7.18).

10 Cf. Chadwick, J., ‘The case for replacing Liddell and Scott’, BICS 39 (1994), 1–11Google Scholar and Glare, P.G.W., ‘Liddell–Scott–Jones: then and now’, Hyperboreus 3 (1997), 205–17Google Scholar.

11 Some of the studies deal with Aristotle's ethics with no critical remark on the meaning and the use of μεσότης in particular (Kalchreuter, H., Die Mesotēs bei und vor Aristoteles [Tübingen, 1911]Google Scholar; Stark, R., Aristotelesstudien: philologische Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der aristotelischen Ethik [Munich, 1972]Google Scholar); others are thematic dictionaries on specific meanings of μεσότης with regard to philosophy (Peters, F.E., Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon [New York, 1967]Google Scholar; Urmson, J.O., The Greek Philosophical Vocabulary [London, 1990]Google Scholar), mathematics (Mugler, C., Dictionnaire Historique de la Terminologie Géométrique des Grecs [Paris, 1958–9]Google Scholar) and grammar (Botas, V.B., Diccionario de terminología gramatical griega [Salamanca, 1985]Google Scholar), which contain no objections to the received lexicography. Sieben, H.J., Voces: eine Bibliographie zu Wörtern und Begriffen aus der Patristik (1918–1978) (Berlin, 1980)Google Scholar is itself a bibliographical repertoire, which in turn quotes Schilling, H., Das Ethos der Mesotes: eine Studie zur Nikomachischen Ethik des Aristoteles (Tübingen, 1930)Google Scholar—a philosophical study on Aristotle's doctrine of the mean; and G.P. Kousoulakos, ‘Μεσότης and μέτρον in Greek thought’, in Wolff, H.J. et al. (edd.), Ξένιον. Festschrift für P.J. Zepos (Athen, Freiburg, 1973), 203–65Google Scholar—regrettably impossible for me to obtain and check.