where’s 17a the fourth of yesterday’s guests?: we do not know who this missing fourth person, who has fallen ill, might be, nor why Plato has Socrates refer to him.
Only partly: Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates have forgotten at least part of what Socrates spoke of yesterday, giving Socrates a cue to give a summary, which will set the background for the main speeches of Timaeus and Critias.
the political one: Socrates proceeds to give a summary of the previous day’s conversation. It has strong affinities to material presented in books II to V of Republic, concerning the organization of the ideal state, but leaves many other aspects of Republic untouched. We must take into consideration that what we in the twenty-first century find of interest or importance in Republic may differ from what Plato believed to be interesting or important. Even given that, though, it is hard to see that any summary of Republic could be complete without the analysis of the tripartite soul, the analogy between soul and state, and the allegories of sun, line, and cave. If the memory of those present is correct, yesterday’s conversation cannot have been the whole of Republic. That is not problematic, as there may well have been other occasions when Socrates spoke of these issues, or Plato may have invented a fictional occasion.
yesterday’s conversation: the preceding material has resembled some of the political theory of Republic. As with Republic, there is to be a separate warrior class to defend the city, while all other men have a single specific trade; these guardians are to have a special education and will live communally without private possessions; and the state will discretely manage marriage, procreation, and the nurture of children (Republic 459a ff.).
someone who had gazed on . . . living creatures): see Republic 472d ff . (cf. 498d ff ., 592a ff .), where Socrates compares his description of the ideal city to a painter who has produced a good portrait, but cannot prove that the subject exists.
as it goes to war: Plato’s politics and vision of an ideal state are quite militaristic. In this he may well have been influenced by Athens’ defeat by Sparta and the subsequent political unrest and upheavals in the city, and also by Athens’ victory over the Persian invaders at Marathon, which he regards as the city’s finest hour.
in these respects: this is typical self-deprecation by Socrates. In Plato’s works Socrates often claims to know nothing, but proves very adept at discovering flaws in what other people claim to know. Nor is Socrates a politician, in the sense of running for office, nor is he a writer (if Socrates himself wrote anything, nothing survives), nor is he an orator, in the sense of someone using rhetoric to generate a fine speech about Athens.
As for the sophists: Plato generally has a very low opinion of the Sophists, men, according to him, who took either side of an argument depending on circumstances, and were paid to do so, rather than being concerned with the truth.
That leaves only people with your qualifications: Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates have philosophical ability and experience as well as political ability; cf. Republic on the ideal ruler.
Hermocrates: This is Hermocrates’ only speech in Timaeus. He does not speak again until a short speech at the beginning of Critias.
a story which, for all its strangeness, is absolutely true: Critias claims that his story is entirely true; Timaeus will claim that his account of the origins of the cosmos and the origins of man is a ‘likely account’.
Solon, the wisest of the seven sages: Solon was a noted Athenian statesman, responsible for revising the constitution of Athens early in the sixth century BC. The seven sages were the traditional wise men of Greece, dating back to 800–500 BC.
in his verses: not in any of the surviving fragments, which focus almost exclusively on describing and justifying his political reforms.
the destruction of human life: Plato seems to have believed in periodic catastrophes which destroy most of human life, cf. Statesman 270c ff ., Critias 111a ff ., Laws 677a ff .
her festival: the Panathenaea, the most important festival in Athens for the city’s patron, Athena. It was celebrated towards the end of July each year, and with special splendour every four years.
the Koureotis of the Apatouria: an Athenian festival in late autumn where, on the third day (named ‘Koureotis’ after a Greek word for ‘youth’), new male children were presented to their father’s phratry—literally ‘brotherhood’, a kinship organization with religious and social functions.
Who told him it was true?: if we are to accept the word of Solon and Critias that the tale is true, it is important to know who told Solon that it is true.
King Amasis: Herodotus also tells us that Solon travelled in Egypt at the time of King Amasis (see Herodotus 2. 172 ff., on Amasis). As Amasis came to the throne in 570 and Solon died in 560 this is possible, though Plato has Solon visiting Egypt prior to his constitutional reforms, which is less likely.
he was talking about: in Argive legend Phoroneus was an early, or even the first, ancestor; his daughter Niobe was the founding mother, by Zeus, of the Argive race. The Noah-like legend of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha has them warned that Zeus was going to destroy the corrupt human race; they built a boat, stocked it with provisions, and rode out the deluge before restocking the earth with human beings. It sounds as though Solon attempted to systematize and rationalize the chaos of Greek legend in the way that several Greek proto-historians of the fifth century had done.
a real event: so myths can be disguised truth. This may be a model for how we are to think of the Atlantis story—as true, not in the sense that it describes hard historical facts, but in the sense that it communicates a general truth, in this case how the ideally good citizens of Plato’s Republic would behave if they were to become actual.
the deviation of the heavenly bodies: Critias’ tale contradicts what Timaeus will say about the cosmos. The cause of the periodic destruction of human beings is a shift in the bodies which orbit the earth. Not only is there no mention of this in Timaeus’ account, but it runs against the general notions of cosmic stability, and in particular it is contrary to the notion of the predictable great year. The Greek word here for deviation, paralattein, can be found in the cosmological accounts of the Republic and the Statesman, but not in Timaeus’ account.
by being released: the Egyptians had a complex system of floodable canals attached to the Nile for irrigation purposes. The old priest’s suggestion seems to be that releasing the river-water into this network of canals keeps the land and its inhabitants from being scorched by the cosmic fire.
rises up from below: Egypt’s lack of rain was notorious, and it had a largely flood-plain agriculture. The Nile would flood, inundating a wide flood basin, and would deposit fertile silt which was farmed when the Nile receded. Why the Nile flooded was a matter of speculation, as it was not related to rain. It is in fact due to melting snow much nearer the Nile’s source.
a thousand years later: the antiquity and primacy of Egypt was almost universally acknowledged among the Greeks, and so this statement of the primacy of Athens is truly remarkable. In Athenian legend Erichthonius, their first ancestor, was the offspring of the deities Earth and Hephaestus (or the elements earth and fire), after Hephaestus’ seed had spilled onto the earth during a bungled rape of Athena. How will that fit with Timaeus’ account of the origins of humans? Cf. Critias 113c–d, where there again seems to be at least one man born from the earth.
the example of the goddess: the goddess Athena was traditionally armed with a spear and a shield.
men of outstanding intelligence: the idea that Athens had a climate conducive to producing intelligent men is common in Greek literature—cf. Euripides, Medea 826–9; ps.-Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 5; Aristotle, Politics 1327b.
Pillars of Heracles: the straits of Gibraltar.
that genuine sea: Greek geography recognized three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa, in our terms) grouped around the Mediterranean, with a further sea surrounding all of them. Here Plato supposes a further continent surrounding the outer ocean.
Etruria: specifically the central part of Italy, but here meaning Italy as a whole.
abandoned . . . brink of disaster: this description sounds rather like the plight of Athens in the Persian invasion of 480–479 BC.
for permanence: the ‘encaustic’ method of painting involved applying coloured waxes to a surface and fixing the colours in place by means of a heated metal rod. It was used especially for painting difficult surfaces such as stone, or other objects that would stand outdoors.
a true historical account: Socrates is delighted with Critias’ story, though he gives no grounds or criteria for his judgement that it is true.
specialized in natural science: we know nothing of any real Timaeus, but the fictional characteristics suit him well for the task of describing the origins of the cosmos and of man. ‘Natural science’ was a broad discipline, covering everything from cosmology and astronomy and the laws of nature, to biology and medicine.
from you: from Socrates, because Critias has already identified the citizens of bygone Athens with those of Socrates’ imaginary community (26d).
what is it that always is . . . never is?: Timaeus begins his discourse with a distinction that will affect the nature of his whole account, between being and becoming. Some things (i.e. forms) always are, without ever changing, while others undergo change. The verb ‘to become’ in Ancient Greek has two different senses. It can mean to come into existence (or be created), or it can mean to come to be something.
object of belief, supported by unreasoning sensation: the things that do change are those of the world about us, which we perceive with our senses. Similar views are expressed in Republic (510 ff.), where Plato develops the analogy of the divided line, to explicate his views on knowledge. A line is divided into four sections (L1–L4), with types of belief/knowledge correlated to types of entity. The task of the philosopher is to ascend the line (cf. the cave analogy of Republic, which follows on from the divided line). So Timaeus will deny that we can have knowledge, in the strong Platonic sense, of the world about us and we have to settle for opinion.
anything created is necessarily created by some cause: a strong principle, which lays the foundations for the view that as the cosmos has come into being, it too must have a cause.
did it always exist . . . in the first place?: another key question for Timaeus’ account. Has the world come into existence, or has it always existed? If it has come into existence, he will have to explain how and why it came into existence. And his answer is unequivocal—it has come into existence.
two kinds of model: it is not clear that Plato gives a real choice between the two models that the demiurge may base the cosmos on. What would the changing model be? The conclusion, that the demiurge bases his work on the eternal model, is no surprise, though it is not entirely clear what the eternal model is either. Timaeus’ argumentation here is far from watertight; he is effectively presenting an overview in an introductory speech.
are themselves stable and reliable: our accounts of the stable, intelligible entities have to be stable themselves and entirely reliable, or in other terms, have to be secure knowledge, while (29c) our account of what are likenesses, on the other hand, can be no more than likely. Note the word-play (see p. xxxiv).
to the plausibility of the other: the analogy is again reminiscent of the divided line of Republic.
impossible to give accounts that are . . . perfectly precise . . . as plausible as anyone else’s: the account that Timaeus will give will deal with the physical, sensible world and so can be no more than likely, but he will make sure that it is as good as or better than any other account of the world. There are certain affinities between Parmenides’ poem and Timaeus’ speech here. Both separate the objects of reason and sensation, reckoning these to be co-ordinate with what is knowable and what is opinable, and both require explanations to be similar in type to what they explain (see especially Parmenides, Fr. 1 28 ff.). We might also compare Timaeus’ repeated use of eikos to describe the status of any account of the physical with Parmenides’ similar usage at Fr. 8 60–1, ‘I tell you this way of composing things in all its plausibility, so that never shall any mortal man outstrip you in judgement.’
You’re absolutely right: unlike the Socrates of Plato’s earlier works, here Socrates is remarkably compliant, as he was with Critias too.
being free of jealousy: this establishes a theme for the whole of Timaeus. Whoever constructed the cosmos is good, and has no jealousy: he desires that everything should be as good as possible; he creates maximum order, as order is always better than disorder. This passage marks the culmination of a move away from the gods of Greek myth. Contrary to those gods, the generator of the universe is entirely good and entirely free from jealousy (see also pp. xxxii–xxxiv). For the first time, an independent creator is focused solely on the good.
moving in a discordant and chaotic manner: prior to the intervention of the demiurge, there is chaos. The demiurge will not only establish order, but will also generate harmony in the cosmos.
in all ways better: a basic assumption throughout Timaeus is that order is better than chaos.
endowed . . . with soul and intelligence: see pp. xxiv–xxvi for why the cosmos needs to be intelligent.
living being the maker made the universe in the likeness of: quite what Plato has in mind here is unclear. Is the universe modelled on some type of living creature, or on the form of living creatures?
an infinite plurality: the early atomists Leucippus and Democritus had supposed there to be an infinite plurality of worlds, all occurring due to chance and necessity rather than by any design, but for Plato there is one and only one universe, and it is designed.
is and always will be a unique creation: Plato has emphasized that there is only one world at any one time, and here he emphasizes that there is only one world through time as well. Prior to Plato, Empedocles had held that, although there was only one world at any one time, it would eventually be destroyed and replaced by another world in an unending cycle.
three solids or three powers: the reference here may be to cubic and square numbers. See F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937), 44.
can be taken apart only by him who bound it together: so apart from earth and fire, two more constituents are required for the cosmos, water and air. However we interpret Plato’s somewhat obscure remarks about proportion here, the consequence is clear enough. When the cosmos is put together in this way, it becomes a unity, dissoluble only by the creature who bound it together. In what follows, the cosmos will be presumed to be exhaustive of the constituents, so it cannot be attacked from the outside; here we find that, thanks to its internal cohesion through proportion, it will also not deteriorate of itself.
unageing, and untroubled by disease: the assumption being that it will not become ill or age of itself without external interference.
so he made it perfectly spherical: the idea that one shape is better than another is a strange one to the modern mind, but came quite easily to the ancients, especially those with a strong teleology.
vastly superior to dissimilarity: another basic supposition of Timaeus, like the earlier idea that order is in all ways better than chaos; we will shortly meet another such axiom, that self-sufficiency is better than dependency.
equip it with hands: Plato may describe the cosmos as a living entity, but this is no simple anthropomorphism or animism, as we can see here from the description of the cosmos. There may well be assorted criticisms of some presocratics implicit here too, notably perhaps the Pythagoreans. Quoting Aristotle’s lost On the Pythagoreans, Stobaeus tells us that: ‘The universe [according to the Pythagoreans] is unique, and from the infinite it draws in time, breath and void, which distinguishes the places of separate things’ (Stobaeus 1.18.1, Wright’s translation and brackets (1995), 62). So too the idea of a unique, self-sufficient, and exhaustive cosmos tells against the views of the atomists. One might also compare Parmenides’ ‘well-rounded sphere’ from his Way of Truth, though the differences from Parmenides are perhaps more important than any such similarities. Plato’s cosmos is alive and in motion, has a beginning, is not homogenous, and is designed to support life.
the other six kinds of motion: the cosmos has perfect regular circular motion. It has no part in any of the other six motions (up, down, left, right, forward, back), so there can be no metaphysical reason, relating to the imperfection of the sensible world, why there cannot be entirely regular circular motion.
he created it without legs and feet: the apparently trivial fact that the cosmos has no feet is significant for two reasons. It is the culmination of a line of thought beginning with Thales—why does the earth not fall? This is now treated with full generality—why does the cosmos, the totality of everything, not fall? Secondly, in previous works (notably Republic and Statesman; see pp. xxii–xxiv) Plato has the cosmos turning on a pivot. Now it does not need any such support, nor is motion going to be affected by any friction from a pivot. The cosmos will not wind down and be in need of the intervention of deities as it is in Republic and Statesman.
the god who exists for ever took thought for the god that was to be: rephrased, the demiurge (the god who always exists) took thought for the world-soul (the god who is generated).
the coincidence and contingency that characterize our lives: this may be one reason why we can have only a likely account of the cosmos, though 37b–c and 44b–c suggest that it may be something we can at least attempt to control or ameliorate.
third kind of substance: the reason for this mixing will become clearer. Essentially, perception takes place by the principle of like to like, so soul must have a part in the unchanging to have some cognition of forms and so on, and some part in the changing to perceive bodies. So the third substance is a blend of indivisible and never-changing substance, so it will be able to apprehend and make judgements about the intelligible, and of divisible and changing substance, so that it will be able to perceive and make judgements about the sensible.
difference does not readily form mixtures: so this process could not occur accidentally and the action of the demiurge is required. Just as the physical cosmos could not have come together accidentally, but needs a provident designer, so the world-soul does too.
twenty-seven times the quantity of the first: this gives us the sequence: 1–2–3–4–9–8–27.
exceeded by the other extreme: Timaeus treats 1–2–3–4–9–8–27 as two sequences, 1–2–4–8 and 1–3–9–27, and goes on to fill these intervals with the harmonic means (2ab/a+b) and the arithmetic means (a+b/2), giving a sequence of: 1–4/3–3/2–2–8/3–3–4–9/2–16/3–6–8–9–27/ 2–18–27.
were 256 : 243: there is then some further filling of intervals where multiplying one of the numbers in this sequence by 9/8 does not exceed the next number in the sequence. So the first part of the sequence will run: 1–9/8–81/64–4/3–3/2–27/16–243/128–2. These divisions have a musical significance, as 3/2 represents a musical fifth, 4/3 a fourth, 9/8 a tone. The remainder between the 9/8 multiplications and the next number is 256/243, close to a semitone. In musical notation, beginning with C for the sake of simplicity, we can represent this sequence as follows:
This represents the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Further notes above these will be generated by the division of the sequence from 2 to 27, covering three-and-a-half octaves. Plato stops with the seventh term, 27, as there are only five planets in addition to the sun and moon. There is a need to go as far as the seventh term to generate the harmony of the heavens, but no need to go any further. In Timaeus and subsequent works there is no mention of any audible harmony of the heavenly bodies. There is a harmony to the structure of the world-soul, but no sound. This differs from the Pythagoreans, and also differs from the Myth of Er at 617b–c of Republic.
was all used up: the soul-stuff is entirely used up, as the physical stuff of the cosmos was.
a point opposite their original junction: the demiurge splits the soul-stuff lengthwise and joins the two resulting lengths together, initially as a Greek letter chi, Χ, and then joins the limbs of the chi together. This can be represented like this:
The horizontal arm of the chi will move the whole cosmos in a once-a-day rotation. The other arm of the chi will move the sun, moon, and five planets relative to the fixed stars.
seven unequal rings: this gives the orbits for the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
three of them being similar in speed: the sun, Mercury, and Venus, with the ‘other four’ being the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
the same: the world-soul, qua compounded from being, sameness, and difference, is able to make judgements concerning being, sameness, and difference in whatever it encounters. Note that ‘identity’ has occasionally been used in the translation instead of ‘sameness’, in order to cover not just judgements of the form ‘This is the same as that’, but also ‘This is the same as itself’.
that which is eternally consistent: so the soul can not only compare material objects to one another (as identical or different), but can also compare material objects to immaterial objects (e.g. ‘this apple both resembles and is dissimilar from the Ideal Apple’). This latter kind of judgement gives us, as possessors of soul, access to the world of Platonic forms: see Phaedo 74c.
beliefs and opinions . . . are the result: even for the world-soul there is a difference between judgements about intelligible entities and those concerned with perceptible entities. As at Timaeus 27c–28d, we can have knowledge of the intelligible but only opinion of the sensible. The world-soul may have true opinion, but for Plato there is a considerable difference between true opinion and knowledge.
the place where belief and knowledge arise: it is a typically Platonic belief that knowledge is generated by the soul, not by the brain, the blood (some presocratics believed that we think with the blood), or the senses.
while eternity abides in oneness: this contrast is important for Timaeus. The physical cosmos is less perfect than what it is a model of. Does this mean that it moves in an irregular manner? No, because the contrast is framed as one of movement according to number, as opposed to stability.
‘time’: if the motions are time, and time is regular (and nowhere does Plato suggest otherwise), then the motions must be regular too.
before the creation of the universe: measured and orderly time only comes into being with the ordering of the cosmos. Prior to that there are no days, nights, months, or years.
mistakenly apply to that which is eternal: ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are tenses which apply to things which change. Only ‘is’ is appropriate in the description of things which do not change.
now is not the appropriate moment: Plato shies away from a full metaphysical discussion of time and tenses. The second part of Parmenides contains several arguments about time.
the model exists for all eternity, while the universe was and is and always will be for all time: this is all that Plato needs to get out of this discussion of time here—a reasonable contrast between eternity and time, and how the cosmos can be said to be in time.
were created to determine and preserve the numbers of time: this is the purpose the demiurge has in creating the sun, moon, and planets. They must move in a regular fashion if they are to distinguish and preserve time.
sun into the circle second closest to the earth: this is typical of the order of the heavenly bodies in early, geocentric astronomy.
assigned them tendencies that oppose it: as Mercury (Hermes) and Venus (the Morning Star) change their position relative to the sun (see next note), they cannot have exactly the same speed as the sun but must have some other motion as well. Does the ‘opposing tendency’ invoked here for Mercury and Venus entail a breach of the principle of regular circular motion? It is possible that Plato does not give us the full details in this compressed account, and the opposing tendency involves further regular circular motions, or that Plato knew there was a problem here which he as yet had no solution for, but hoped would be solved by further regular circular motions; see pp. xli–xlii.
constantly overtake and are overtaken by one another: it is important to be aware of which phenomenon is being referred to here. In modern terms, Mercury and Venus are inferior planets, that is, the radius of their orbit around the sun is less than that of the earth, while Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are superior planets, having larger orbits than the earth. This is significant because of the limitations of where inferior planets can be seen in relation to the sun: Mercury and Venus are always seen relatively close to the sun. In the following diagram, the inferior planet is at its maximum angular distance from the sun relative to the earth. Move the earth anywhere else in the diagram, and the angle will be less:
Mercury and Venus will sometimes appear to precede the sun, and sometimes to follow it. In practical terms, Mercury and Venus are seen fairly low on the horizon either just before sunrise (when they precede the sun) or just after sunset (when they follow the sun). So at one extreme of their orbits of the sun, Mercury and Venus are seen at their maximum elongation from the sun while preceding it. As they go round their orbits, they precede the sun less and are eventually ‘overtaken’ by it. They then gradually go to the other extreme of following the sun, and then begin to catch the sun up again and eventually overtake it again. As Mercury and Venus have different speeds of orbit, they will overtake and be overtaken by each other as well; that is, sometimes Mercury will precede Venus, and sometimes Venus will precede Mercury.
though in fact they were overtaking them: there may be a critique of Democritus here. According to Democritus, the nearer celestial objects are to the earth, the less they are carried around by the vortex (Democritus’ views are reported by Lucretius at De Rerum Natura 5. 621ff.). So the moon, the nearest body to the earth, moves most slowly and is left behind most. This creates the greatest difference in motion relative to the fixed stars, so the moon (on this theory) appears to move swiftly relative to the fixed stars, completing a circuit in a month, when actually (on this theory) its absolute motion is the slowest. Plato changes this. The fixed stars still move the most rapidly, but the sun, moon, and planets now have their own motions (so they are no longer ‘left behind’ in a vortex), and the most rapid of them completes its motion relative to the fixed stars in the shortest time, so now the moon has the most rapid motion. There is another interesting consequence of Plato’s combinations of regular circular motions. If there is a single vortex, one can see how the fixed stars will be swept around by it. One can also see how there will be some relative motion between sun, moon, and planets and the fixed stars, if the former are to some extent ‘left behind’ by the vortex. But if sun, moon, and planets are thought to have a combination of two circular motions, these motions having different axes, how can that be accounted for in one vortex with one axis of rotation?
constitute time: if the motions of the planets constitute time, and these motions are irregular, then time will be irregular. So, however complex the motions of the heavens, they must be regular.
perfect year: if there is a specific amount of time between grand conjunctions, then celestial motion must be regular, or we are left with the highly improbable alternative that the irregular motions somehow cancel each other out. In that case, the great year would lose its significance as a sign of the rational ordering of the universe. If the great year recurs—and there is no suggestion in Timaeus that it does not—then celestial motion must be regular and the solar system stable and free from any degeneration. The predictable recurrence of the great year is a sign of cosmological stability.
mostly out of fire: the stars are rounded, made of fire for the most part, and each has intelligence set in it. Plato does not have a spherical shell in which the stars are embedded, as with some later cosmologies. The stars keep formation due to each having an intelligence.
winding around: the earth is generally taken to be central and immobile in Plato, as in all Greek thinking prior to Plato with the exception of the Pythagoreans. What winding or turning motion might the earth have? Two older ideas, that the earth orbits the centre of the cosmos, or moves up and down on the central axis of the cosmos, have now generally been rejected, as the objections to them are, to say the least, considerable. As we saw earlier, there is a careful division of the same in order to produce orbits for the sun, moon, and five planets. If the earth orbits the centre of the cosmos, why is there not a division of the different for it? If the earth is not at the centre of the cosmos, what is at the centre of the cosmos? There is no reason here to suppose that Plato is thinking of any sort of Pythagorean system with a central fire, as no central fire and no counter-earth are mentioned. The earth is supposed to define and guard time, which it would have trouble doing if it has either of these motions. It is very hard to see what would motivate Plato to have the earth in motion around the centre of the cosmos. It would not help the astronomy of Timaeus, there is no physical necessity for the earth to move in such a manner, and it would not help to explain any physical phenomena.
Cornford (Plato’s Cosmology, 130 ff.) suggested that there is a sense in which the earth might be said to have motion, while in fact it stands still. If the entire cosmos is rotating, then, in the absence of any other consideration, the earth would rotate with it, especially as the world-soul permeates the cosmos from the centre to the extremes, including the earth (36e). But this fails to allow for the existence of night and day, as the earth would be rotating at the same rate as the cosmos. The earth, in the absence of any other consideration, may rotate on its own, like the stars and the planets. If the earth’s own rotation is equal and opposite to that of the cosmos, then the earth would stand still. There are other possibilities here. The cosmos might have an absolute rotation of less than once a day, with the earth rotating in the opposite sense, giving a relative rotation of once a day between them. Similarly, the cosmos might have an absolute rotation of more than once a day and the earth a smaller rate of rotation in the same sense, again giving a relative rotation of once a day between them. Cornford’s proposal is attractive as it is simple, and allows the earth to be stationary and the cosmos to have an absolute rotation of once a day. The objection that this proposal ignores the different does not carry great weight. While everything is subject to the motion of the same—or, put another way, all the components of the intelligent whole of the cosmos rotate with the cosmos—only certain components of the whole (moon, sun, five planets) are subject to the motion of the different. The stars are not subject to it, and even though its motion is centred on the earth, the earth need not be subject to it.
A different solution here is to argue that we should read eillomenen, ‘packed around’ rather than illomenēn, ‘winding around’. If the earth is simply ‘packed around’ the central axis, then there need be no question of its motion.
turn back on themselves and go forward again: Plato appears to be aware of the retrograde motion of the planets. This is certainly the most natural reading of epanakuklēseis, literally a ‘circling back’, in this context. The planets move relative to the fixed stars, but will occasionally stop relative to the stars, move backwards, stop again, and move forwards again: see p. xli.
conjunction and opposition with one another: Plato may also have good knowledge of what happens when planets pass each other, depending on whether he uses different words to refer to one or several phenomena here. When planets pass each other, there are three things which may happen: they may pass each other with sufficient distance between them that they remain two distinct objects; they may ‘touch’ each other, such that they appear to be one brighter object; or one may pass in front of the other and occlude it.
veiled from our sight and then reappear: Plato was aware of Mercury and Venus ‘overtaking and being overtaken by’ the sun (see 38d). He may well also be aware of another phenomenon, which is that Mercury and Venus are not visible when they are close to the sun. They disappear from view as they approach the sun and reappear on the far side. This was a phenomenon much studied by Babylonian astronomers.
A–B and C–D are sections of the planet’s orbit where it would be invisible due to its proximity to the sun.
without visible models: Plato may have had some form of rudimentary armillary sphere to help him envisage the motions of the heavens.
implausible and illogical: Timaeus seems to have his tongue in his cheek.
gave birth to further offspring: genealogies of the gods were typical in Greek mythology; see e.g. Hesiod’s Theogony.
anything created by me is imperishable unless I will it: Timaeus here expresses the view that the cosmos is dissoluble, but will not in fact be dissolved because of the goodness of the demiurge. This is significant as a statement of the long-term stability of the cosmos. Timaeus differs from Statesman in this respect.
a mark of evil: this passage seems to have provoked Aristotle, who attempts to demonstrate that whatever is generated can also undergo destruction, and whatever is not generated cannot undergo destruction, and that there is nothing which is generated which is everlasting (On the Heavens I. 12).
remain yet uncreated: the three kinds are creatures of the air, water, and earth (39e–40a), but since they all develop by reincarnation from human beings (42b–c, 91d-92c), Timaeus focuses in what follows on the creation of human beings.
imitate the power that I used: human beings and all other earthly living things are to be made by the demigods that the demiurge has created, not by the demiurge himself, though the highest part of the human soul will be generated by the demiurge, and it will then be the job of the demigods to house this soul.
lower in the scale of purity: the demiurge generates human souls in a manner analogous to that in which he generated the soul of the cosmos, but the mix of sameness, being, and difference is not quite as good. It seems that the same harmonic proportions are employed. This is not made clear here, but at 43d we find that these proportions are disrupted by sensation when the soul is first given a body.
planted each of them in the appropriate instrument of time: one human soul is paired with one star. The human soul will come to earth to be embodied, and may, if it lives a good life, return to its star. Although each human soul is assigned a star, the stars themselves are ensouled by the heavenly gods. The cosmos as a whole has a soul and spins on one spot. The stars (including sun, moon, five planets, and probably, in a slightly odd sense relating to 40b, the earth as well) all spin and have other motions as appropriate. If they did not have these divine souls, they would not spin in a regular manner nor have other motions in a regular manner.
come to be called ‘male’: it was usual in ancient Greece for the male to be considered superior.
powerful properties: that is, properties that are powerful enough to penetrate the insensitive body and be registered by the soul: see Philebus 33d–34a.
in control of these things or were controlled by them: an important theme in the Timaeus’ psychology is that humans should be in control of their sensations and emotions rather than be controlled by them. If they control them, they will lead a good life.
become a woman instead of a man: compare this cycle of incarnation with Phaedrus 248c–e and with the Myth of Er at the end of Republic. It is notable again that any woes that befall a soul are its own fault and the downward cycle of man to woman to animal can be reversed by that soul. Timaeus says more about this degeneration at 90e. Not surprisingly, 42d tells us that the first condition is the best condition for humans, and adds the important principle that the demiurge is not responsible for any wrongdoing by humankind. The demiurge is wholly good and free from jealousy, and so wants only the best for human beings. He sets everything up so that they can achieve good things in life, but if humans fail to do so it is not his fault.
its original, best state: our minds are at their best before they are bound into our bodies and subject to sensations and emotions. It is this sort of state we can seek to achieve by controlling our sensations and emotions.
govern and steer: see also 90a, and the Myth of Er in Republic on each person having his own personal deity in life.
he resumed his life in his proper abode: it would be wrong to impose onto Plato here the terms of the seventeenth-century debate between Newton and Leibniz. Leibniz argued that an omnipotent god would produce a universe which had no need of his subsequent interference; the belief that god ‘needed to wind his watch’ detracted from the notion of god and led to atheism. Newton, through his intermediary Samuel Clarke, replied that god could hardly be an ‘absent landlord’ and must care for his creation, and so must interfere with it; any other view would lead to atheism. But Plato lacks the notion of omnipotence. The demiurge still cares for the cosmos (it will not be dissolved except through his will), even if he returns to his proper place. He has delegated to the lesser gods much of the running of the cosmos, and not least the way that the heavens move. Later in antiquity thinkers concerned themselves with questions such as why, if the cosmos is generated, does god choose this specific moment to generate the cosmos rather than any other? What was god doing prior to the generation of the cosmos? More subtly, did the generation of the cosmos entail any change of mind on god’s part? Does generating the cosmos change god? Christian theologians took up many of these issues, with St Augustine’s work probably being the pinnacle of this tradition.
together with countless rivets: the lesser gods begin the process of making humans by placing the ‘immortal principle’ in a body made from earth, water, air, and fire, and by unifying the body with many rivets. So the ‘revolutions’ of the human mind will now become prone to the problems affecting the body.
‘sensations’: as elsewhere in the dialogues, Plato is trying out an etymology—but here it is completely unclear what etymology of aisthēseis, sensations, he is getting at.
things increasingly return to normal: when the stream of nutrition lessens a little, the revolutions can stabilize and pursue their natural path. When they do this, they can make correct attributions of sameness and difference. This makes the soul intelligent. There does not seem to be a limit on what humans can achieve here if they have proper nurture and education. Indeed, this should be the goal of life, rather than limping through life and returning to Hades unfulfilled.
In imitation of the rounded shape of the universe: this keeps up the macrocosm–microcosm analogy between man and the universe.
vehicle and means of transport: see p. xviii for this as possibly criticism of Empedocles.
to enable the soul to be fully aware: this too may be aimed at Empedocles: see Fr. 61 quoted on pp. xvi–xvii. According to Plato, the gods organize the human body with the face and body pointing forwards. If human parts meet by chance, as Empedocles had argued, how plausible is it that all the parts fit in exactly the right way? Empedocles’ reply might have been that though there are mismatches, it is only when beings capable of reproduction are formed that species are generated.
flow through the eyes: Plato believes that vision is the result of the interaction of light flowing out through the eyes and light in the external world.
mirrors or any other reflective surface: a consequence of the theory of vision is being able to explain why, in mirror images, left appears right and right appears to be left. There is also a discussion of this topic at Sophist 266c.
contributory causes: this could have come straight from the ‘autobiographical’ passage of Phaedo 96a ff. There are contributory causes, but most people wrongly take them to be the sole causes, when they should be considering teleology.
cooling things down and heating them, or thickening and thinning them: cooling and heating is possibly a reference to Anaximander (see ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis 2), while thickening and thinning is possibly a reference to Anaximenes (ibid. 3). But the attack is quite general: none of these processes are capable of acting with intelligence, nor are any of the traditional four elements. This is an important critique of a good deal of presocratic cosmogony. One might try to explain how a cosmos is formed by attributing to a fundamental substance or process the capacity to direct things. Anaximander believed that his Unlimited ‘steers’, while Anaximenes may have held a similar view about air (his follower, Diogenes of Apollonia, certainly did). If one rules out this kind of possibility, as Plato seems to do here, one is left with an external god imposing order, or with supposing the cosmos to have come into being through chance. The final comment in this passage is also critical for Plato’s notion of cosmogony. There are causes which will produce only disorderly and chance effects, but without intelligence causes will produce nothing of any worth; this rules out the possibility of chance generating a cosmos.
the rational revolutions of the heavens: it is from our observation of the heavens that we have derived number and all philosophy, so it is no great surprise that this is the greatest gift from gods to men. On some readings of Republic VII, though, this passage comes as a considerable surprise. If Plato bans or denigrates observational astronomy in Republic, what of this passage? Is this a change of mind? As argued in the Introduction, Plato does not ban observational astronomy in Republic VII, but rather draws a distinction between how astronomy is done now and how the guardians ought to use astronomy in their education.
the perfect evenness of the god’s: there is a contrast between the entirely unwandering motions of the mind of god and the wandering motions in our own heads. Here is very strong evidence that stars, sun, moon, and planets move in a perfectly orderly manner.
sound and hearing too: sound, here meaning speech and music, is another gift from the gods for the same general purposes as eyesight. It allows us to bring the disorderly motions within our own heads into order. It is interesting and perhaps significant that here we have the same order (sight, hearing, music) as we do at Republic 530d. If the previous section on sight gives us at least a different emphasis on the benefits of eyesight, and another role for astronomy, here we have similar moves for hearing and harmony.
digression: 45b–46a.
an account of the creations of necessity: Timaeus signals very clearly a shift from talking about the products of intelligence to the products of necessity. There will be a similar clear shift to talking about the products of a combination of reason and necessity at 69a.
towards perfection: see pp. xlvii–xlix on the relation of intelligence and necessity.
wandering cause as well: ‘Matter, having no inherent tendency toward good ends, acts in a purposeless way unless it is directed, or in Timaeus’s preferred idiom, “persuaded”, by intelligence’ (Sedley, Creationism and Its Critics, 114–15).’
how they were created: or at least it has not been explained to Plato’s satisfaction. Some thinkers (e.g. Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus) took one ‘element’ (respectively, water, air, fire) as basic and outlined how it might be changed into the others, but they left unexplained the origin of the basic element.
compared to syllables: Timaeus will give us a version of the letters-and-syllables analogy which is common in later Plato (Theaetetus 201d ff ., Statesman 277d ff ., Sophist 253a ff ., Philebus 18b ff .). Plato employs the analogy to illustrate not only something about the nature of language, but also, arguably in some or all of these cases, about the nature of the world. Plato is often interested in which letters do or do not combine to make syllables, and is concerned with the bonds between letters (see Sophist 253a, Philebus 18c). Why do earth, water, air, and fire not even constitute syllables? If we glance ahead for a moment to geometrical atomism, the ‘letters’ are taken to be the two basic triangles. These form either squares or other triangles, which figures in turn then form a cube of earth, a tetrahedron of fire, an octahedron of air, or an icosahedron of water. Any perceptible amount of earth, water, air, or fire will contain a considerable number of these three-dimensional figures. No one of any sense, then, would call earth, water, air and fire even syllables, let alone consider them to be letters.
such a conception: several presocratic philosophers did identify one element as fundamental and basic: see the first note to 48b.
start again from the beginning: Timaeus calls upon the gods as he did at the outset of his discourse, reaffirms the likely nature of the account, and begins a new line of thought.
this difficult and obscure kind of thing: from the outset Plato recognizes that the receptacle is difficult to describe.
the receptacle (or nurse, if you like) of all creation: it is never made clear in what sense the receptacle is a ‘nurse’. It is possible to take it as a material metaphor, whereby the ‘nurse’ is a wet-nurse, giving material sustenance to what comes to be in the receptacle, but there is nothing that compels us to take the metaphor this way. Another possibility is that the receptacle is a nurse in the sense of rocking its charges: the use of the word at 52d leads up to the description of the receptacle shaking the things that are in it, and 88d has the ‘nurse and the nurturer of the universe’ always moving and agitating the cosmos.
by all four names, one after another: if earth, water, air, and fire all change into one another, as was perfectly possible in most ancient theories of the elements, and indeed was a common view, which of them is more basic than any other?
water in turn gives rise to earth and stones: one can find explanations of this type in many presocratic thinkers. They originate in Egyptian and Babylonian cosmogonies, which were impressed by the observation of the annual flood receding and revealing new land.
‘something of this sort’: the translation and interpretation of this passage have been much disputed. Debate centres on the phrase, mē touto alla to toiouton hekastote prosagoreuein pur.
The traditional reading is that touto (‘this’) and to toiouton (‘suchlike’) are competing predicates for the subject pur, fire. The phrase then concerns ways in which we may talk of fire, one proper and one improper: we ought not to call phenomenal fire ‘this’, but we can call it ‘suchlike’.
The alternative reading takes touto and toiouton to be competing subjects for the predicate pur. This then reads, ‘do not call this (phenomenal fire) fire, but do call what is each time “the suchlike” fire’. On this reading the sense is that words such as fire, which we now apply to transient phenomena, are better applied to more stable entities. So if we are to use ‘fire’ properly, we should only use it to refer to entities which are ‘this’, and not those which are ‘suchlike’.
On the traditional version we can call phenomenal fire ‘suchlike’, so it is permissible to call this phenomenon ‘fiery’ or ‘fire-like’. Forms and the receptacle, however, as they are unchanging, can have normal names and can each be regarded as a ‘this’. On the alternative reading, we are not told how we can refer to phenomenal fire, only that it cannot be called ‘fire’. We can call ‘what is each time suchlike’ fire, though it is not clear what ‘what is each time suchlike’ might be. Both of these interpretations are acceptable renderings of the Greek. Which we choose to accept, however tentatively, will depend on more general considerations. Here are two:
(1) A major concern over the traditional reading was the apparent discord between Timaeus and Theaetetus. It has been argued that Theaetetus postdates and corrects Timaeus’ view on the relation of flux and language (G. E. L. Owen, ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato’s Later Dialogues’ (1953), repr. in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 322 ff.). It is surely true, so Owen argued, that if everything is in radical flux, we cannot successfully refer to anything at all, and this is a better position than the ‘lame plea’ of Timaeus 49d ff . that we can refer to the four elements as ‘the suchlike’. The alternative view was pioneered by H. F. Cherniss, ‘A Much Misread Passage in the Timaeus (49c7–50b5)’ (1954), repr. in Cherniss, Selected Papers (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 346–63). The key passages in Theaetetus are 182c ff . and 183a ff . The flux described there is very radical. If something is always in motion and always changing all of its characteristics all the time, then we cannot refer to it at all (cf. Cratylus 439d). However, it is not clear that Timaeus envisages the world being in so radical a flux. Some passages can be interpreted in that way, but it is not necessary to do so. Nor is it clear that Plato is committed to a radical flux in Theaetetus.
(2) A major concern with the alternative reading is what things are ‘each time suchlike’ that we can call, for example, fire? Clearly not the phenomena, nor the receptacle, nor, it would seem, forms. The ‘suchlike’ entities are explicitly said to enter and leave the receptacle (49e ff .), which forms explicitly (52a) do not do. This leaves the alternative reading supposing some fourth kind of thing, beyond forms, receptacle, and phenomena, where Timaeus is explicit that there are three. As Plato never explicitly says anything of this fourth kind, the alternative reading seems somewhat unnatural.
refer to fire as ‘something that is regularly of this sort’: when we see what we had previously called ‘fire’, we should call it ‘fiery’ instead; we should not identify it as ‘fire’, as it will change to something that is not fire, but we can say that currently it is ‘fiery’.
and from which it subsequently passes away: we can refer to the receptacle in this manner, as it is stable, but not to what occurs in it, which is liable to change. The ‘from which it comes and into which it is destroyed’ formula that Plato uses here was applied by some presocratics to the element which they considered to be basic.
in fact they’re changing even while they’re being identified: to be safe, we must call what we have here ‘gold’, rather than name any shape the gold may be in. Analogously, the safest thing to do is call anything ‘receptacle’ (i.e. that which does not change which underlies the changes), rather than call it by any name we currently give to transient phenomena.
appears different at different times: the receptacle can only appear to be different at different times. If it were to change in its own nature, we would need to look for something unchanging which underlies that change in the receptacle.
later: this promise is never fulfilled.
altogether characterless: that the receptacle is entirely characterless is required by this line of argument, but gives rise to a problem. How can one either grasp or talk about something that is entirely characterless? See 52a–b.
It’s almost incomprehensible: throughout this passage Timaeus is aware of the difficulties of giving an account of the receptacle.
Is there such a thing as fire which is just itself?: this question cannot be ignored, but cannot be treated at length either in this context, so we get a brief argument only. It is remarkable that forms have not been mentioned or argued for until now. We might take them to be implicit in the distinction made at the outset of Timaeus’ discourse (between what is, is stable, and is apprehended by intellect and what becomes, changes, and is perceived), but this is their first explicit mention.
if knowledge and true belief are two distinct kinds of thing: it is an important tenet of Platonism that knowledge and true opinion are very different, and Timaeus goes on to summarize why. Compare 27d ff . on the differences between what is and what becomes.
there is space: this is the first time that the receptacle has been referred to specifically as space.
hardly credible: it is difficult to talk about something as characterless as the receptacle. If the receptacle is neither intelligible, nor perceptible, it is also difficult to apprehend. This gives it a rather odd epistemological status.
those that were most similar were pushed the closest together: the shaking of the receptacle produces a like-to-like sorting. There were hand-held baskets which were used in agriculture for sorting grain, oats, barley, and the like. When shaken, they sorted seeds of similar density together. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 201, has a good illustration.
with no god present: the pre-cosmic chaos is non-progressive. Although there is a like-to-like sorting, this is not enough to produce a cosmos. See pp. xvii–xviii.
use shapes and numbers to assign them definite forms: an important theme in Timaeus, both in the cosmology, where the orbits of the heavenly bodies are given shape and number, and here in the theory of matter as well. Hence the demiurge may be called a geometer god.
as beautiful and as perfect as they could possibly be: Timaeus restates another important theme, familiar from 30a.
consists of triangles: the restriction to rectilinear plane figures has no logical basis and is designed purely to lead into what follows.
half of a right angle which has been divided by equal sides: the first of Timaeus’ two basic triangles, then, is like this:
two parts by unequal sides: the other type of basic triangle is to be a scalene triangle, but we are not yet told which of many scalene triangles is going to be used.
more perfect visible bodies than these four: the four that will be chosen are the cube, the tetrahedron, the octahedron, and the icosahedron. All these are known as Platonic solids, and are constructed from identical faces (the cube from six identical squares, the tetrahedron from four identical triangles, etc.). There are very few solids with these properties.
triple the square of the shorter side: there are an unlimited number of scalene triangles, so Timaeus chooses the best, which he takes to be the scalene which is half of an equilateral triangle. This is one advantage of Plato’s teleology, that when faced with a choice from an unlimited field, the best can be chosen. The drawback here is in defining criteria for what is the best, and Timaeus has little to say on this, other than some cryptic remarks about the construction of the four best solid bodies for earth, water, air, and fire.
Only the three can do that: Timaeus now clarifies whether all the bodies can transform into each other. Going back to 49b ff ., it appeared that earth, water, air, and fire could all transform into each other, but this is illusory. Three of the four types (water, air, and fire, though they are not mentioned specifically here) can transform into each other, being constructed from one type of triangle; the fourth type (earth) cannot, being constructed from the other type of triangle.
a single equilateral triangle made up of six triangles: Timaeus now begins to construct complex triangles, with the intention of generating the simplest solid. The first is an equilateral, made up of six basic scalene triangles.
Four of these solid angles form the first solid figure: out of these complex equilateral triangles, certain solid bodies can be made—first the tetrahedron, and then in what immediately follows the octahedron and the icosahedron. ‘The angle that comes straight after the most obtuse possible plane angle’ is an overly precise way of saying ‘180° angle’.
The resulting construct had the shape of a cube: first, the second type of triangle forms up in fours in squares:
Then these squares form cubes:
used it for the whole: so far, Timaeus has used four bodies of a certain type, all constructed from faces of the same size and shape. There is another figure of this type, the dodecahedron. This cannot be constructed from either of the two basic types of triangle and is not required for the theory of the elements. It is unclear what Timaeus means when he says that god ‘used it for the whole’. It is possible that it is used for the earth, with reference here to Phaedo 110b and the comment that the earth is like a ball made of twelve pieces. I find this unlikely, especially as it makes little sense of the phrase about decoration, which can also be rendered as ‘covering with animals’, which might well be a reference to constellations. So perhaps the dodecahedron is used either for the zodiac or the cosmos as a whole, though it is hard to see the connection with either, especially as the cosmos is specifically described as spherical.
a boundless plurality: there were ancient thinkers who did believe in a boundless plurality of worlds, most notably, prior to Plato, Leucippus and Democritus.
five worlds: five worlds corresponding to the five Platonic solids.
a square is more stable than a triangle: the most stable of the solids we have generated is assigned to earth, which is perceived to be the most stable of the four elements. Timaeus uses similar principles to assign the three remaining figures to the three remaining elements.
lumps made up of a lot of them all at once: it is no great surprise that individual elemental bodies are too small for us to perceive, but is also quite significant. While what we perceive may change, what is below our threshold of perception may have greater stability.
into a single complete water-figure: Timaeus begins his account of the transformation of the elements. Earth cannot transform into the others, as we have seen, but it can be affected by the others. This passage is significant in that it seems to imply that cubes of earth can be broken up, and then recombine at some later stage. This would imply that there can be ‘loose’ faces and perhaps even ‘loose’ triangles for some considerable time, not just in the transformation of, say, water and air.
fire turns into air, or air into water: where we have two unlike substances, the weaker will be assimilated by these transformations into the stronger.
by the movement of the receptacle: the shaking of the receptacle mentioned at 52e ff., which produces a like-to-like sorting.
engendered a triangle of just a single size: the basic triangles come together to form either squares or equilateral triangles. The squares and equilateral triangles can have different sizes, depending on how they are made up. So we can put four squares together to get a bigger square or, four equilateral triangles together to get a larger equilateral triangle. Other combinations of this type, resulting in other sizes of square or equilateral triangle, are possible. The larger sizes join up to form solids of a larger size.
already discussed: presumably Plato is thinking of the ‘inequality’ between all the different elementary triangles.
every last bit of void: circular motion does not produce this compressive effect, but ancient scientists inferred that it did from observation of how a whirlpool moves objects to its centre (Aristotle, On the Heavens 295a ff .).
gaps within the large bodies: the solids that Plato supposes for the elements cannot fit together to fill space completely. The compressive effect of the revolution of the whole, though, will push them together so that the smaller particles fill the spaces as best as possible. It is hard to believe that Plato was not aware that his theory of atoms and how they move and change implied that there must be gaps between atoms and spaces when they change. Certainly Aristotle is aware of this sort of problem (On the Heavens 306b3 ff.).
‘cooling’ . . . ‘solidification’: the idea that fire is a substance, and that its presence brings heat and its leaving produces coolness, had a long history. Even when eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientists broke with the ancient idea of fire as an element, they substituted first phlogiston, a substance with weight that carried heat, then caloric, a substance without weight that carried heat. The modern idea of heat as the rapid motion of particles dates from the mid-nineteenth century.
its constituent earth and water: the ancient elements of earth, water, and air can be thought of as principles of solidity, fluidity, and gaseousness. This is important for understanding the supposed composition of some materials. Materials that did not melt when heated (e.g. stones) were thought to be composed almost entirely of earth. Materials that did melt, such as metals, were thought to be composed of earth and water, water explaining the fluidity of the heated metal.
their normal, loose-textured state: this fits with one of the general ideas of this section of Timaeus, that pleasure is associated with the return to a normal state.
the new air pushes at the adjacent air: should air be able to push air, according to the principles laid down at 57d ff .? Plato explains at 61a that if air is compressed, nothing dissolves it.
the more beautiful kind: crystals.
dark-coloured millstone: millstones were often made out of lava.
its name: Plato seems to want to link ‘heat’ (therm- words) with ‘cutting’ (kerm- words).
altogether incorrect: this passage is significant for its rejection of a type of cosmology. Much early Greek cosmology was of the ‘parallel’ type (on this see D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, vol. 1: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and its Earliest Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)), in which heavy objects drop from the ‘top’ of the cosmos to the ‘bottom’. Hence the problem Thales has with the question of why the earth does not drop, and what supports the earth. Gradually a new type of cosmology took over, the ‘centrifocal’ type, most clearly typified by Aristotle, where there is a central point of the cosmos to which heavy objects move. Plato played a significant part in the transition.
it’s just in the centre: so in Timaeus’ cosmos there can be no up and down. The cosmos is spherical and the opposite of a point on the extremity is the point in the centre. Note, however, the careless use of ‘up’ at the beginning of 60c.
we use ‘heavy’ and ‘down’ for the opposite property and place: the basic principle here is that of like to like. If we forcibly shift earth away from the mass of earth, it will attempt to return and so feel heavy. Plato’s account here, though centrifocal, is different from Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, earth moves naturally to the centre of the cosmos, not to its own kind. If the earth in the cosmos were gathered elsewhere for Plato, earth would move to this other place. Aristotle’s distinction between heavy and light is also more absolute, based on whether elements move naturally towards or away from the centre of the cosmos. For Plato this is relative, depending on the situation of the gathered mass of an element. While this may all seem a little odd and archaic, universal gravitation is not the easiest of ideas to develop. Certainly no one in the ancient world came close to it, and it required the work of many hands to develop it into a coherent theory in the seventeenth century. The Newtonian account involving attraction at a distance only won out over the Cartesian account involving vortices in the mid-eighteenth century.
bones and hair: those parts of the body that are composed mainly of earth do not pass on motion to the soul, and so perception does not occur.
observed when the body is burnt and cut: where the normal state is disrupted slowly or restored slowly, no pain or pleasure is felt. It is possible for the normal state to be disrupted slowly, with no pain, and restored rapidly, with pleasure; and for the normal state to be disrupted violently and with pain and restored slowly without pleasure, as in the case of burns. Compare Philebus 31d ff . on the nature of pleasure.
too broad for fire and air: the account of smell is unsatisfactory. The passages with which we smell are said to be too fine for earth and water, too large for air and fire, so these elements cannot be smelled in their pure form. That seems odd for air and fire, which could easily collide with the walls of the passages rather than pass straight through. It is also odd in that there may be larger sizes of the elements (e.g. cubes of earth with sixteen rather than four triangles per face), which should then either be smellable or even too large for the passages.
great and small movements: a stroke is transmitted from the air through the ears to the blood and brain, and is then passed on to the soul. The motion this causes, from head to liver, is hearing. The eardrum appears to play no part in this account. Pitch is related to speed, ‘smoothness’ (as opposed to ‘harshness’) is related to uniformity, volume is related to magnitude.
later stage of the discussion: 80a–b.
fourth and final: of our canonical five senses Plato omits touch, though he discussed tactile qualities in 61d–64a.
how sight occurs: see 45b–46a.
‘white’ is what expands the visual ray, and ‘black’ is the opposite: Plato refers back to his theory of vision as the interaction of two streams, one from the eye and one from the outside world; see 45b ff .
‘bright’ and ‘shiny’: we would not describe ‘bright’ and ‘shiny’ as colours, but as qualities or intensities of light. Plato treats them like colours, though, as he describes the mixing of colours with ‘bright’.
the result is orange-yellow: there are two difficulties in trying to understand Plato’s theory here. First, Greek colour terms do not match up in any simple way with our own. Quite often the Greeks would emphasize hue rather than colour, so the description ‘wine-dark’ might be used of the sea or of sheep, and the word for ‘black’ also means ‘dark-hued’. Secondly, it is not always clear in this section whether Plato is talking of the effects of fire particles on one another or the effects of mixing pigments together. If Plato is talking about pigments, we don’t know specifically which pigments (that is, what the pigments consisted of) or how they would interact with each other when mixed. So some of his results seem strange to us.
fathering the self-sufficient, perfect god: i.e. the universe. Timaeus is moving towards a conclusion for this part of his discourse, and so recapitulates what the demiurge has done with the chaos he began with at 53b. The demiurge is responsible for everything good that has come out of the primordial chaos.
apart from necessary ones: compare 46e on divine and contributory causes, and Phaedo 99a on the relative importance of contributory and divine causes.
the rest of our account: while so far we have had a section on the works of intelligence and on what happens by necessity, in the third and final section we have an account of intelligence combined with necessity.
proportionate and compatible: as at 53b, where the demiurge imposes shape and number on the primordial chaos.
except by chance: Plato sees chaos as non-progressive. A body may, by chance, attain the characteristics of an element, but will lose those characteristics just as easily.
pleasure, evil’s most potent lure: compare Philebus on the relation between pleasure, hedonism, and the properly good life.
constrained by necessity: if the soul is to be placed in a body, there are some unavoidable consequences, and inevitably the soul will be racked by assorted emotions and passions. This is a necessary constraint on how we are constructed.
the diaphragm as a barrier between them: the diaphragm separates the chest from the abdomen. It helps us breathe, and is continuous, except where it allows the spine, intestines, and blood vessels through.
the dictates of reason issuing from the acropolis: here we have an example of intelligence and necessity, seemingly of the logical kind. The mortal and immortal soul must be housed in the same body but it is best to keep them as far apart as possible, so they are housed in different parts of the body. Thus ‘reason persuades necessity’ as far as possible, though having mortal and immortal soul in the same body is necessary. The language of ‘parts’ of the soul is taken from Republic 436a ff., as is the theory that the soul consists of three predominant parts—a reasoning part, a passionate, defensive part, and an appetitive part.
the blood that circulates vigorously throughout the body: Plato did not believe in the circulation of the blood in the same way that we do, in the sense of a flow from the heart, through the arteries, through the capillaries, through the veins, and back to the heart. He did believe, however, that blood was transported around the body, and that the heart is in some sense the ‘source’ of blood.
relief and comfort from the heat: Plato is, of course, completely wrong here on the function of the lungs. However, ancient anatomists, while they knew the disposition of the organs, struggled to understand their function, and often believed that major organs (lungs, even the brain) existed mainly as a means of regulating heat and cold within the body. In Plato’s time the lungs were thought of as a single organ, with right and left chambers.
collectively and individually: Plato uses a macrocosm–microcosm analogy between the cosmos and humans, but there is also a secondary theme, relating both the cosmos and the human body to a city. How is a city to be best governed? Like the body, it should be governed by the most intelligent and knowledgeable.
bewitched by images and phantasms: the lower the level of intelligence for Plato, the more easily will we be taken in by visual images. Compare here the cave analogy of Republic 514a ff ., and the way that the prisoners in the cave are also prisoners of the images they see.
images to look at: in some way our thoughts are reflected on or form an image on the liver, and so will communicate themselves to our lowest parts. Since dissection of humans was not practised, it was hepatoscopy, the dissection and investigation of animal livers for divinatory purposes, that had enabled the Greeks to know something about the liver—for instance, that it presents a considerable diversity of appearances when dissected, and that its appearance is altered by various diseases, as Plato says in what follows.
some kind of contact with truth: for humans to be as good as possible, the baser instincts are kept as far away as possible from the higher intellectual functions, but some thought is taken by the designers even for the improvement of the baser part of the soul.
present trouble or benefit: it is important that we can make rational judgements about what is presented to us in dreams, etc. Compare 42b, where the injunction is that we should control our sensations and emotions and should not be controlled by them.
to know himself: ‘know yourself’ is a famous dictum of Socrates, stemming from advice inscribed in Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi.
clear indications of meaning: it is not clear how Plato would support the idea that the liver in life is so different in these respects from the liver in death. At any rate, he here casts doubt on hepatoscopy, since the animal victims were first killed before having their livers examined.
cleans them all up: the function of the spleen is simply to keep the liver clean, to help even the most base type of soul see the images clearly. Actually the functions of the spleen are to produce lymphocytes which help recycle red blood cells and play an important part in fighting infections in combination with white blood cells.
formation of the rest of the body: Plato refers back to his promise at 61d to cover this topic.
in the marrow: the marrow is the starting point for the construction of the body. The soul is in some way bound into the marrow for the extent of a human’s life: see 81d, where death occurs when the soul eventually is released by the marrow.
the ‘head’: the Greek word for ‘brain’ means literally ‘the organ in the head’. Plato seems to be aware that the brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid, and the idea that the brain is marrow works well with the idea that the soul is bound into the marrow and that the flight of the soul from the marrow is death. The marrow is also supposed to be an individual’s sperm bank, just as (73b–c) the original marrow-stuff contains the seeds of all life on earth.
made out of bone: the human body is constructed in layers. First the marrow, then the bones around the marrow (the skull and spine, in the first instance), then the sinews, etc., and finally the flesh.
like hinges: there may be a specific attack on Empedocles here, in the notion that the spine is designed to be flexible. According to Empedocles, the spine is broken into pieces by chance (cf. Aristotle, Parts of Animals 640a). The entire section, of course, runs contrary to Empedocles’ thinking: Plato explains by design, Empedocles by a multiplicity of accidents.
more sensitive and intelligent: a good example of the relation between necessity and intelligence. Of necessity, humans must have bodies, and their minds must be housed, but intelligent design guides the construction to ensure that our heads are sensitive and intelligent rather than swathed in deep layers of bone and flesh, which might give us a longer life but not a more intelligent one.
to think about the future: the creators of human beings believed that at least some humans will fail in their lives (on the criteria laid out by Timaeus), and so they gave humans rudimentary nails that will be useful when they turn into animals in future incarnations (see 90a ff .).
to move itself: Plato follows a typical ancient distinction between plants, animals, and humans. Plants have a vegetative soul, that is, they can grow but not move from place to place or think. Animals have motion as well as growth, humans have intelligence as well as motion and growth.
other parts of the body: Plato does not know the difference between arteries and veins, and has no knowledge of the capillaries that link them. Nor does he give the heart any role in the movement of blood.
permeable by smaller particles: the principle here is important for what is to come. Bodies composed of small particles are impervious to larger particles, but those composed of larger particles are not impervious to smaller particles. One might take this to mean that there are small-scale voids. If there are interstices in the formation of larger bodies that small ones can pass through, what is in these interstices? One answer might be a constant stream of smaller particles, but as those particles neither tessellate with the larger ones nor with themselves, that still has to leave some void.
like a fish-trap: a simple but effective means of catching fish or crustaceans (there is a similar design for lobster pots). The overall shape is like a vase, with a funnel-like mouth leading into a broad body which tapers to an end. They can be made of reeds, flexible branches, or even netting strung around a skeleton of reed or branch. The fish find it easy to swim into them (and the traps were often baited), but very difficult to swim out. In relation to the body, the gods make a fish-trap with two funnels, one of which is branched into two again. This is generally understood to be a funnel each for the mouth and nose, with the nose forked into two again.
into the abdomen: the two tubes are the oesophagus and the trachea.
through our porous flesh: Plato needs to explain the sensation of breathing in and breathing out without recourse to a void. We cannot simply expel air and leave a void; air is simultaneously being drawn in through the pores of the body, and this is what makes the chest swell again and triggers an in-breath. Plato believes that the primary function of the diaphragm, the muscle wall which separates the chest and the abdomen, is to separate different parts of the soul, rather than to be a major cause of the deflation/inflation of the lungs.
cupping-glasses that doctors use: another phenomenon that can be explained by the no-void theory is the action of medical cups (to raise skin, now used only in alternative therapies). Next we see that objects which keep in motion after the mover has let them go can also be explained by the same principle. The ancients, lacking modern ideas such as momentum, struggled to explain why objects kept moving when the mover had released them. Here the idea is that air displaced by the motion of an object rushes in to fill any potential void behind a moving object, thus imparting some force and keeping the object in motion.
blend of high and low pitch: quite how the theory explains how music may be harmonious or dissonant is obscure.
there’s no attraction . . . and there’s no void involved either: Timaeus also wants to reject what we would call action at a distance, or attraction and repulsion. Two difficult cases here are the apparent electrostatic attraction generated when amber is rubbed, or magnetic attraction from permanent magnets. Timaeus wants to account for these by the contact action of particles. So instead of attraction across empty space, there is a close press of particles whose motion results in the appropriate bodies moving towards each other. Descartes came up with a very similar theory in the seventeenth century. The usual analogue here is a whirlpool. While an object on the surface (say a piece of wood) moves to the centre of a whirlpool, this is not due to any attraction from the centre of the whirlpool, but is rather due to the motion of the water particles.
explained earlier: 68b.
universal movement: the macrocosm–microcosm relation is being stressed again in this paragraph.
at that time: the like-to-like principle is being stressed again as well. While modern scientists tend to think in terms of fluids and nutrients being forced around the body (e.g. by the action of the heart, the heart acting as a pump), the ancients often took the view that parts of the body attracted what they needed. This sort of thinking was dominant until the seventeenth century and the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey.
flies joyfully away: the marrow includes the brain, so the higher intelligence located in the head can escape its mortal bonds.
abnormal predominance and deficiency among them: this sort of theory, that disease is due to an imbalance of crucial elements or fluids in the body, was typical of the ancient Greek world. But it turns out that Plato has three theories of disease: it may be caused by imbalance (82a–b, 86a), by decomposition (82b–84c), or by air, bile, or phlegm (84c–86a). Of these, the decomposition theory appears to be original to Plato.
depending on its colour: bile played a significant role in early theories of the constitution of the body and the nature of disease. The theory of the four humours held that there were four critical substances for the body: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. When these four humours were in balance, the body was healthy; all diseases were due to an imbalance of the humours. For Plato, however, bile and phlegm were the unhealthy products of decomposition (83e).
reverse the direction of their flows: diseases involving putrefaction of the flesh, such as gangrene, were much more common in the ancient world.
‘tetanus’ and ‘opisthotonos’: tetanus is actually caused by wound infection, and is an involuntary and prolonged contraction of the muscles. Typically, the contractions begin around the mouth, giving tetanus its other name of ‘lockjaw’. Opisthotonos, literally a ‘backward arching’, involves the patient involuntarily arching his head, neck, and spine backwards. It is a symptom of tetanus, and also of meningitis. Before the advent of modern vaccines and antibiotics, tetanus was much more widespread and dangerous.
air in its bubbles: see 83c–d.
the ‘sacred disease’: it is notable here that Timaeus believes the ‘sacred disease’ (epilepsy) to be well named, whereas the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease had attacked the idea that it was caused by the god, and argued for a natural explanation. Timaeus seems to agree that the disease has a natural cause, but as it attacks what he considers the highest part of a human, he allows it the name of the ‘sacred disease’.
combined action of the fibres and a cool environment soon causes the blood to clot: there is a clotting agent in the blood called fibrin. It is a protein with fibre-like molecules which join together in appropriate circumstances to help generate a blood-clot. Plato would not have known this, but his ingenious theory involving blood fibres does give him a way of explaining the thickness of the blood and blood-clotting.
sets the soul free: in other words, the result is death.
quotidian fevers: quotidian fevers have daily crises. Fevers were carefully observed by the Hippocratics, who took care to note when a medical crisis occurred. Even if they could not cure the fever, they could at least give a good prognosis, important in a situation where they had to struggle against other practitioners (herbalists, faith-healers, etc.). Tertian fevers have a crisis every three days; quartan fevers have a crisis every four days.
loses the ability to think rationally: compare 43b ff .
no one is bad of his own choice: it was standard Platonic/Socratic doctrine that no one is willingly bad.
soul’s three locations: see 69c–70a.
what I was saying before about the universe: just as the ‘nurse’ of the universe (cf. 53a), that is, the receptacle, keeps in motion and shakes what is within it (cf. 49a, 52d), so we should keep our bodies in motion and shake what is within them. This helps to ward off external attacks and internal imbalances. Notice the macrocosm–microcosm relation again.
medical use of drugs to purge the body: Plato sides with the medical theorists who opposed radical purges of the body. Ancient medicine emphasized diet and exercise as preventatives, and had little in the way of effective cures for diseases. What they did have were emetics, laxatives, and diuretics to purge the body. Whether these procedures cured or exacerbated medical conditions was a matter of debate. Here Plato considers them to be a last resort only.
the application of drugs: in some ways this passage reads rather strangely to the modern eye, but one might well ask: the gym or liposuction? Jogging or anti-depressants? Fruit, vegetables, and fish to help the immune system, or antibiotics? The issue of the efficacy (or perceived efficacy) of available drugs is still an issue.
controlling and being controlled by himself: this looks back to 42b, where if we master our sensations and emotions, we will live just lives.
in proportion with one another: compare the proportions required in the cosmos to make it the best possible (see 35b ff.), and the proportions required in the human body (see 87c ff.).
suspended our heads: human beings have a greater natural kinship with the heavens, and should make astronomy an object of special study.
giving it food and exercise that is congenial to it: this, of course, is not physical food and exercise, but the intellectual kind best exemplified by astronomy. The idea that impressions are a kind of food was implied by 43b, and is argued for at Republic 401b–d.
to its original condition: the best condition for humans is the one that obtained before they were bound into their bodies, when the revolutions in their heads were not disrupted (42e–44c).
within human reach: a good life is attainable, if we work for it. As ever in Timaeus, jealousy is not a feature of the relation between gods and humans. The demiurge wants us to have good lives, and has given us the means to attain such a life.
sexual desire: this confirms that the original population were male, as sexual desire (or at least, heterosexual desire) is generated only with the advent of women.
studied the heavens: astronomy has figured significantly in Timaeus. It is the means by which we can bring the imperfect revolutions in our heads in tune with the perfect revolutions of the world-soul. It is no surprise, then, to be told that those who ignore philosophy and astronomy become brutish. But practising astronomy superficially is not good enough. We must not only observe, but must think about the heavens in a serious fashion.
the most mindless of them: there is a hierarchy among brutes, and the most mindless humans are reincarnated as snakes. It is apt that those who have reached the lowest levels of intelligence should be assigned to the lowest places on earth.
their losing or gaining intelligence: although this sequence has been given as a descent, there is also the possibility of ascent. If someone should live a life of one of the lower creatures in a virtuous manner, attempting as far as possible to gain knowledge and intelligence, she will be reincarnated further up the scale.
medicine: this picks up the theme of some of the last pages of Timaeus.
imprecise and deceptive outline: Critias’ mistake: to say that we are content with a discussion of heavenly bodies that bears only a faint resemblance to them is to assume that we know what they are like, because otherwise we would not know that it was no more than a faint resemblance.
competent successor: Socrates is comparing the speeches to a dramatic competition in Athens, where one after another three tragic playwrights displayed their work, and were explicitly awarded first, second, and third places. Hermocrates changes this to a military metaphor, which Critias extends.
Apollo Paean: soldiers chanted a paean, an invocation of Apollo, before advancing into battle.
9,000 years: actually, at Timaeus 23e the Egyptian priest said that Saïs and Egypt were involved in the war, and that Saïs (modern Sa-el Hagar) was not founded until 8,000 years previously. Moreover, in Timaeus the Atlanteans conscripted troops from this side of the strait, and so the war should not simply be characterized as between those on one side of the strait and those on the other. It is worth bearing in mind from the start that Plato never finished Critias, and that there are several indications that what we have of the book remained unrevised.
into the ocean: the mud and shallow water just beyond the Pillars of Heracles were apparently familiar: Aristotle mentions them at Meteorologica 354a.
no disputes involved: in keeping with the argument of Republic that the gods should not be portrayed in immoral terms, Plato denies traditional tales such as that Poseidon and Athena competed to gain patronage of Athens.
for courage and intelligence: see note on Timaeus 24c.
born from the ground: see note on Timaeus 23e.
predecessors of Theseus: the legendary first kings of Athens.
godlike men: the supposed founders of the city.
for our imaginary guardians: that is, the guardians of the ideal state imagined by Plato in Republic, or in the conversation that took place the day before that of Timaeus.
on the left: the idea that Attica once extended west as far as the Isthmus of Corinth was irredentist wishful thinking, but Oropus was the site of frequent border disputes between Athens and Boeotia.
exempt from working the land: as opposed to the norm in historical Athens, where citizens had a duty to double up as soldiers and where 90 per cent of them worked the land.
the small islands: quite a few of the smaller islands of the Aegean have little topsoil.
in the time of Deucalion: see Timaeus 22b, with note. The ‘single night’ of earthquakes and deluge is presumably the one mentioned at Timaeus 25d.
opposite the Pnyx: see Map of Athens (opposite).
willing subjects: the pattern of their leadership was not the more oppressive Athenian empire of the fifth century, but the ideal of the renewed empire of the fourth century, at the time Plato was writing. For further connections between the Atlantis myth and fourth-century Athens, see K. A. Morgan, ‘Designer History: Plato’s Atlantis Story and Fourth-century Ideology’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 118 (1998), 101–18. For the general thesis that the Atlantis myth was made up by Plato partly as a ‘political parable’ with messages for his contemporaries, partly to reflect the constitution of Republic, and partly as a piece of fiction, see C. Gill, ‘The Genre of the Atlantis Story’, Classical Philology, 72 (1977), 287–304, and the other papers by Gill listed in the Select Bibliography.
you now know why: since Plato himself invites us to find the names of the inhabitants of Atlantis meaningful, here is a list of their meanings: Ampheres, ‘well made’; Atlas, ‘enduring’; Autochthon, ‘born from the ground’; Azaes, ‘enviable’; Cleito, ‘bright fame’; Diaprepes, ‘glorious’; Elasippus, ‘horse-rider’; Eumelus, ‘rich in sheep’; Evaemon, ‘of good blood’; Evenor, ‘man of courage’; Leucippe, ‘white horse’; Mestor, ‘adviser’; Mneseus, ‘rememberer’.
fifty stades: on the Athenian scale a foot is 29.6 cm, a plethron is 29.6 m, and a stade is 177.6 m.
pivot of a lathe: more precise measurements are given at 115e–116a. For the general features of the city area, see Figure 1.
been invented: Plato leaves it ambiguous whether Poseidon is creating a utopian paradise, which was corrupted by later generations of Atlanteans, or the kind of place that would inevitably encourage the greed that would lead to the island’s downfall. Poseidon is quite the opposite of the gods of Timaeus’ speech (and the ideal gods of Republic): so far from being ‘free of jealousy’ (Timaeus 29e), Poseidon guards or imprisons his beloved away from everyone else.
Gadeira: modern Cadiz.
as I said before: Timaeus 25a–b.
solid or fusible: solid products are presumably minerals and stones, while fusible ones are all the metals. The simplicity of primeval Athens is contrasted with the profusion of ancient Atlantis, with its multiplicity of shrines, territories, types of building, and so on.
orichalc: ‘orichalc’ was a perfectly acceptable word (meaning literally ‘mountain metal’) in ancient Greek for copper alloys, or for the yellow copper ore used in such alloys. As such it was certainly ‘more than just a name’ in Plato’s time, so he is using the term to refer to some more precious (and more fabulous) metal.
his satiety: we do not know what fruit was offered diners to relieve satiety—perhaps a lemon.
fifty stades long: see note on 113c.
underground sailing passage below: it is hard to see how the struts supporting the bridges could coincide with the mouths of these underground canals, especially since in at least one instance the canal is wider than the bridge: the bridges are 1 plethron wide (116a) and the outermost canal is 3 plethra wide.
the appearance of the temple: it is non-Greek in its over-lavish use of precious metals and in its enormous size (three times larger than the Parthenon), but its basic design is Greek, and many Greek temples were gaudy themselves.
FIGURE 1. The capital city of Atlantis. After C. J. Gill, Plato:
The Atlantis Story (Bristol Classical Press, 1980)
acroteria: ornamental devices crowning the top or side angles of the triangular pediment of an ancient Greek temple.
this many Nereids: in classical times there were usually thought to be fifty of them. Nereids were sea-nymphs, and as such they often accompanied Poseidon.
bodyguards: perhaps for the first time a sour note is struck, since to Greek thinking bodyguards indicated tyranny rather than fair and tolerant leadership.
FIGURE 2. The coastal plain of Atlantis. After C. J. Gill, Plato: The Atlantis Story (Bristol Classical Press, 1980)
faced south: because there were mountains to the north, west, and east: see Figure 2.
the god: it was Zeus, as we discover at 121b, who sent the Atlanteans against primeval Athens, as a roundabout way of punishing the Atlanteans.
he said: the work breaks off here, and Plato never completed it. He would have continued at least with an account of how the punishment Zeus ordained for Atlantis was that it was to be defeated by the paradigm of virtue, primeval Athens, and a description of the war.
