The following lines (15 sqq.) are a famous crux:

τὸ μὲν ὅτι βασιλεὺς

ἐσσὶ μεγαλᾶν πολίων

ἔϰει συγγενὴς

ὀφθαλμὸς αἰδοιότατον γέρας

τεᾷ τοῦτο μειγνύμενον φρενί.

The reading is that of all MSS., save for the necessary correction αἰδοιότατον for αἰδοιέςτατον, which will not scan. I have purposely left it without punctuation. The core of the difficulty of course is the word ὀφθαλμός Farnell, it seems to me, has made it abundantly clear that this cannot be literal, for, apart from the oddity of the epithet συγγενὴς in such a context, to take it as meaning the actual physical eye of Arkesilas (or anyone else) involves giving ἔϰει the impossible meaning ‘sees’. But the metaphorical meaning is not much easier. A person or group of persons can be the ‘eye’, that is to say the most precious part, of something, as the Emmenidai were the ‘eye of Sicily’, Ol. ii, 10, Amphiaraos the ‘eye’ of Adrastos' army, Ol. vi, 16, the eldest or only son, or even the presence of the master, the ‘eye’ of the house (Aesch., Choeph., 934, Pers., 168–9), a child the ‘eye’—we should perhaps say ‘light’—of his mother's life, Eurip. Andr., 406, and perhaps, for the interpretation is not too certain, a chosen band of Athenians the ‘eye’ of Theseus' land, Aesch., Eumen., 1025. In these instances we may I think acquiesce in Groeneboom's remark on Pers., loc. cit., that ‘eye’ is used to signify the most precious or noble part of something, its glory (dat iets het kostelijkste, het edelste, de glorie van dit of dat is).

So much has been written on this vexed issue, that one hesitates to reopen it. Yet one has no other choice when one finds scholars accepting as generally agreed a view which rests on altogether insufficient evidence. I propose, therefore, to examine the main grounds on which recent authorities interpret the disorderly motion of Tm 30a, 52d–53b, and 69b as a mythical symbol. They are four:

I. That the Timaios is a myth;

II. The testimony of the Academy;

III. That motion could not antecede the creation of time;

IV. That motion could not antecede the creation of soul.

When Pythodorus in 411 B.C. moved in the Athenian Assembly his decree that Commissioners should be elected to draft measures for the security of the State, Cleitophon added a rider instructing the Commissioners προσαναξητῆσαι καὶ τοὺς πατρίονς νόμονς οὓς κλειδθένης ἓθηκεν ὃτε καθίδτη τὴν δημοκρατίαν, ὄπως ἅν ἀκούσαντες καὶ τούτων βολεύσωντααι τὸ ἂριστον. The instruction appears to have struck Aristotle as paradoxical and inept, for he has appended an explanation of Cleitophon's reasons which is also a criticism: ὡς οὐ δημοτικὴν ἁλλὰ παραπλησίαν οὖσαν τὴν Kλεισθένους πολιτείαν τῇ Σόλωνος. Indeed one would never imagine that the constitution of Cleisthenes as described by Aristotle (21) could have been seriously suggested as a model or a repertory of precedents for legislators intent, like Cleitophon's friends, on restoring the πάτριος πολιτεία, which it obviously disestablished; and the conjunction of τοĐς πατρίουσ with ὃτε καθίστη τὴν δημοκρατἰαν might seem to make the proposal a challenge or a mockery. Aristotle had already (22. 1, cf. 41. 2) given his opinion that by Cleisthenes' innovations δημοτικωτέρα πολĐ τῆς Σόλωνος ἐγένετο ὴ πολιτεἰα He recognized democratic features in Solon's laws, but they lay in the redress of social wrongs or in the method of administering justice rather than in the organization of the government; he regarded Solon's political changes, not as the establishment of democracy proper, but as a reform, conservative rather than revolutionary, of existent institutions. His comment on the rider implies that he would not have corrected Cleitophon if he had referred the Commissioners to Solon's ancestral laws, but to refer them to Cleisthenes' must, he thought, be ignorance, irony, or idiosyncrasy.

The vast majority of the extant mss of Euripides consists of ‘Byzantine’ mss of the ‘school triad’, Hec, Or., Phoen. The value of this mass of material for textual criticism is problematical: it has been declared to be nil by numerous modern scholars, and this is no doubt a natural reaction against the excessive importance attached to certain of the ‘Byzantine’ mss by the scholars of the earlier part of last century, men like Porson and Dindorf, who, however, did not collate their mss with a view to such things as Leitfekler. In fact, until our knowledge of this class of mss is far more thorough than it is at present, it would be premature to pass judgement on it as a whole.