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ἡγουμένης κτλ. ‘Now where Truth was leader’ (as we saw it was with the φιλόσοφος) ‘we shall never, I think, allow that a quire of evils joined her train.’ ἡγουμένης is not the present, but the imperfect participle (cf. ἡγεῖτο δ᾽ αὐτῷἀλήθεια 490 A): the ‘philosophic’ past is carried on from the earlier sentence. The tense is strictly to the point, for our ἀπολογία is not yet finished: see 490 A note We ought not to regard ἀκολουθῆσαι (with Goodwin MT. p. 55) as a gnomic aorist: still less should we read ἀκολουθήσειν with q, or φαμεν for θαῖμεν (Stobaeus Flor. 11. 18 and Vind. F), taking ἄν with ἀκολουθῆσαι (as I formerly suggested). The past tense is the only one appropriate to the situation both in Greek and in English. See also on line 17.

ἦθος: sc. ἀκολουθῆσαι. These ‘joined the train’ of virtue at 486 B.

καὶ δὴ κτλ. καί is ‘also’ and goes with τὸν ἄλλον: cf. καὶδή in 494 A.

ἀναγκάζοντα has been doubted. It is read by all the MSS except Ξ, which has ἀναλαμβάνοντα (cf. 490 D). Stallbaum accepts ἀναλαμβάνοντα, while Baiter adopts Madvig's picturesque conjecture ἀναβιβάζοντα. The text is perfectly sound. ἀναγκάζοντα is ἀναγκάζοντα τῷ λόγῳ, i.e. λέγων ἀναγκαῖα εἶναι, ‘insisting on their necessity’: see on II 363 D (ἀποτίνουσιν) and cf. X 611 B and Theaet. 153 C (where Cobet wrongly brackets ἀναγκάζω). Much the same view is taken by Jackson (J. of Ph. XIII p. 218), who compares 486 E μή πῃ δοκοῦμέν σοι οὐκ ἀναγκαῖα ἕκαστα διεληλυθέναι. J. and C.'s translation “compelling your assent” is scarcely accurate here.

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    • Plato, Theaetetus, 153c
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