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χιλιέτη. Cf. Virg. Aen. VI 748 ff. has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos | Lethaeum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno. There is little doubt that both Virgil and Plato took the period of 1000 years from some Orphic or Pythagorean source: see Dieterich l.c. pp. 116 ff. It will be observed that the thousand years do not, in the Republic, include the lifetime of the soul on earth, which Plato estimates at 100 years (615 B). In the Phaedrus on the other hand the entire interval from birth to birth is reckoned at 1000 years (249 A ff., compared with 248 D, E). εὐπαθείας -- κάλλος suggests the beatific visions of the Phaedrus (247 A ff.). πολλοῦ χρόνου: sc. ἐστί, as in Laws IV 708 D χρόνου πολλοῦ καὶ παγχάλεπον (Stallbaum). It is worse than needless to insert δεῖ (with Liebhold) after χρόνου. ὅσα -- ἠδίκησαν. In Plato, as in Dante, doing wrong to others is the great sin. τοῦτο δ᾽ εἶναι κτλ. ‘that is,’ said he, ‘once in every hundred years.’ τοῦτο δ᾽ εἶναι (‘namely’) explains ὑπὲρ ἑκάστου δεκάκις. This view is simpler and more idiomatic than (with Schneider) to make τοῦτο=τὸ δίκην δοῦναι ἐν μέρει ὑπὲρ ἑκάστου.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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