Page:A Day in Athens with Socrates (1884).djvu/168

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NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC.

Note 41, p. 65.

The Peiraeus was the chief port of Athens. It was the ome of the mefics — this term including all resident Greeks not of Athenian parentage — and of the foreign residents, as at this day are the ports of Galata and Pera in Constantinople.

Note 42, p. 65.

Plato and his two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, claimed descent on their father’s side from Codrus, the last king of Athens; while through their mother, Perictione, they were nephews of Critias, the leader of the violent faction of the Thirty Tyrants, and were also connected with the great law-giver Solon. Glaucon is said to have written a number of dialogues, none of which, however, are extant. A conversation between him and Socrates is given in the Memorabilia of Xenophon (iii. 6) in which Glaucon is cured of a wild ambition to put himself at the head of public affairs, by being led to perceive and acknowledge his own ignorance and incapacity.

Adeimantus, who is shortly to be introduced, is known to us only by the representation of him in the Republic.

Note 43, p. 65.

The worship of Bendis, the Thracian Artemis, was first celebrated in Athens by a public festival at the time when Plato represents this dialogue as opening.

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