James Adam, The Republic of Plato

---

αὐτοῦ τούτου. See cr. n. The reading αὐτοῦ τοῦ, which has most of the MSS in its favour, is kept by Schneider, Stallbaum and Burnet (“ab ea, utpote suapte vi et natura perimente’ Schneider). Hermann and Jowett and Campbell read αὐτοῦ τούτου, which is intrinsically far better (‘this itself’ ‘just this’ as opposed to the external agencies mentioned below), and might easily have been corrupted into αὐτοῦ τοῦ.

ἀποθνῄσκειν -- οἱ ἄδικοι. If Injustice kills the soul, which is the principle of life (609 D note), the wicked should die of their own wickedness; for they cannot of course continue to live on after their soul expires. As it is, however, they have to be put to death by others, and (according to Glauco) their wickedness rather increases than diminishes their vitality. The argument may not be conclusive (609 D note); but we are surely not justified in charging Plato (as Brandt apparently does l.c. p. 29) with confounding either here or in 609 D the two notions of physical death and death of the soul.

ἀλλὰ μὴ ὥσπερ κτλ. For the construction cf. III 410 B note

διὰ τοῦτο. See cr. n. Schneider defends διὰ τούτου by Aesch. Ag. 447 πεσόντ᾽ ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναικός: but Aeschylus regards Helen as an agent in the death of the fallen Greeks, and the meaning ‘on account of’ is even more necessary here than in 609 E δἰ ἐκεῖνα ὑπὸ τῆς αὑτοῦ κακίας. Cf. VIII 562 B note

οὐκ ἄρα -- κακῶν. Cf. Phaed. 107 C εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἦν ὁ θάνατος τοῦ παντὸς ἀπαλλαγή, ἑρμαῖον ἂν ἦν τοῖς κακοῖς ἀποθανοῦσι τοῦ τε σώματος ἅμ᾽ ἀπηλλάχθαι καὶ τῆς αὑτῶν κακίας μετὰ τῆς ψυχῆς. The thought expressed in these two passages contains the germ of a new argument for immortality. It might be urged that a future existence is necessary in order that the wicked may pay the penalty for their sins, so that Immortality would become a “postulate of the moral government of the universe” (Deichert l.c. p. 48). Plato is content merely to suggest this argument: neither here nor elsewhere does he place it in the forefront of his dialectical proof of immo<*>ality.