Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias

εἰς μακάρων νήσους: according to Homer, δ 564, Zeus transferred his favorites (Rhadamanthys and Menelaus, the latter a son-in-law of Zeus, are especially mentioned) alive to the Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, where they pass a blissful existence. The first mention of the Islands of the Blessed is found in Hesiod (ἔργα κ. ἡ. 170), who makes them the place to which the men of the fourth race, the heroes and chieftains of the Trojan war are sent after death as their reward. The punishment, on the other hand, of the men of the second and third races is that after death they must wander in Hades (ib. 152 ἐς εὐρώεντα δόμον κρυεροῦ Ἀίδαο). The myth is then further developed, and the Isles of the Blessed become gradually in the common belief, largely through Pindar's influence, the abode of all the righteous after death. Cf. Pind. Ol. II. 75 ff. (Gildersleeve). ὅσοι δ᾽ ἐτόλμασαν ἐστρὶς ἑκατέρωθι μείναντες ἀπὸ πάμπαν ἀδίκων ἔχειν ψυχάν, ἔτειλαν Διὸς ὁδὸν παρὰ Κρόνου τύρσιν: ἔνθα μακάρων νᾶσος ὠκεανίδες αὖραι περιπνέοισιν, κτἑ. Tartarus was originally, according to Homer, the prison of the Titans; cf. Θ 13, 478. Plato alone makes it the prison of all wrong-doers. The term μακάρων νήσους became stereotyped very early; hence we never find the prose word μακαρίων used in it.

ἐν πάσῃ εὐδαιμονίᾳ: on the omission of the art., see G. 142, 4, N. 5; H. 672 b.

11 f.

τούτων δὲ δικασταί: the representation of a court of the dead, with other judges besides Pluto himself, and before the souls enter Hades, is first found in the Platonic version of the myth.

ἔτι νεωστί: (still more recently, when, etc.) is contrasted with ἐπὶ Κρόνου, so that τοῦ Διὸς . . . ἔχοντος forms the explanation of it. Heindorf connects ἔτι νεωστί with ἔχοντος, and translates: recente adhuc Iovis imperio. See on 503 c.

ζῶντες ἦσαν ζώντων: this pres entation is quite in harmony with the mythical form which Socrates adopts. The object is to show the contrast between a judgment which is human, uncertain, and based on external appearances, and the true one, which is based on accurate inspection of the unveiled truth. For this purpose the human tribunal is supposed in the myth to have existed first; the second tribunal is then made by Plato to arise as a substitute for the first, although naturally it must be conceived as existent ever since the creation of man. The first tribunal admits of the same criticism as the one in use among men deserves.

οἱ ἐπιμεληταί: who these are remains uncertain. The addition οἱ ἐκ μακάρων νήσων shows that they abode there, though their functions probably extended also to Tartarus. On the attraction of the preposition, see G. 191, N. 6; H. 788 a.

ἑκατέρωσε: i.e. as well to Tartarus as to the Isles of the Blessed; hence ἀνάξιοι refers both to reward and punishment.

νῦν μὲν γὰρ κτἑ.: note the re