Republic

Well, then, is there any tradition of a war in Homer’s time that was well conducted by his command or counsel?None.Well, then, as might be expected of a man wise in practical affairs, are many and ingenious inventions[*](On the literature of inventions, εὑρήματα, see Newman ii. p. 382 on Aristot. Pol. 1274 b 4. Cf. Virgil, Aen. vi. 663 inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes, and Symp. 209 A.) for the arts and business of life reported of Homer as they are of Thales[*](Diog. Laert. i. 23-27.) the Milesian and Anacharsis[*](Diog. Laert. i. 105 says he was reported to be the inventor of the anchor and the potter’s wheel.) the Scythian?Nothing whatever of the sort.Well, then, if no public service is credited to him, is Homer reported while he lived to have been a guide in education to men who took pleasure in associating with him and transmitted to posterity a certain Homeric way of life[*](In the (spurious?) seventh epistle, 328 A, Plato speaks of the life and λόγος advocated by himself. Cf. Novotny, Plato’s Epistles, p. 168.) just as Pythagoras[*](Diels i3 pp. 27 f.) was himself especially honored for this, and his successors, even to this day, denominating a certain way of life the Pythagorean,[*](Cf. ὀρφικοὶ . . . βίοι Laws 782 C.) are distinguished among their contemporaries?No, nothing of this sort either is reported; for Creophylos,[*](Of the beef-clan. The scholiast says he was a Chian and an epic poet. See Callimachus’s epigram apud Sext. Empir., Bekker, p. 609 (Adv. Math. i. 48), and Suidas s. v. κρεώφυλος ) Socrates, the friend of Homer, would perhaps be even more ridiculous than his name[*](Modern Greeks also are often very sensitive to the etymology of proper names. Cf. also on 580 B, p. 369, note d.) as a representative of Homeric culture and education, if what is said about Homer is true. For the tradition is that Homer was completely neglected in his own lifetime by that friend of the flesh.Why, yes, that is the tradition, said I; but do you suppose, Glaucon, that, if Homer had really been able to educate men[*](See on 540 B, p. 230, note d.) and make them better and had possessed not the art of imitation but real knowledge, he would not have acquired many companions and been honored and loved by them? But are we to believe that while Protagoras[*](Cf. Prot. 315 A-B, 316 C.) of Abdera and Prodicus[*](See What Plato Said, p. 486, on Laches 197 D.) of Ceos and many others are able by private teaching to impress upon their contemporaries the conviction that they will not be capable of governing their homes or the city[*](For διοικεῖν Cf. Protag. 318 E.) unless they put them in charge of their education, and make themselves so beloved for this wisdom[*](See Thompson on Meno 70 B.) that their companions all but[*](On μόνον οὐκ Cf. Menex. 235 C, Ax. 365 B.) carry them about on their shoulders,[*](Stallbaum refers to Themist. Orat. xxii. p. 254 A ὃν ἡμεῖς διὰ ταύτην τὴν φαντασίαν μόνον οὐκ ἐπὶ ταῖς κεφαλαῖς περιφέρομεν, Erasmus, Chiliad iv. Cent. 7 n. 98 p. 794, and the German idiom einen auf den Händen tragen.) yet, forsooth, that Homer’s contemporaries, if he had been able to help men to achieve excellence,[*](Cf. Protag. 328 B.) would have suffered him or Hesiod to roam about rhapsodizing and would not have clung to them far rather than to their gold,[*](The article perhaps gives the word a contemptuous significance. So Meno 89 B τὸ χρυσίον.) and constrained them to dwell with them[*](οἴκοι εἶναι: J. J. Hartman, Ad Platonis Remp. 600 E, Mnem. 1916, p. 45, would change εἶναι to μεῖναι. But cf. Cic. Att. vii. 10 erimus una.) in their homes, or failing to persuade them, would themselves have escorted them wheresoever they went until they should have sufficiently imbibed their culture? What you say seems to me to be altogether true, Socrates, he said.