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"Dikaiosune". An Essay in Greek Intellectual History. (In Tribute to George Grube, theDistinguished Author of "Plato's Thought")Author(s): E. A. HavelockSource: Phoenix, Vol. 23, No. 1, Studies Presented to G. M. A. Grube on the Occasion of HisSeventieth Birthday (Spring, 1969), pp. 49-70Published by: Classical Association of CanadaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1086568Accessed: 11/09/2008 11:25

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DIKAIOS UNE

An Essay in Greek Intellectual History

(In tribute to George Grube, the distinguished author of Plato's Thought)

E. A. HAVELOCK

A LTHOUGH THE DOCTRINE of the four cardinal virtues cannot be documented in a formal sense earlier than Plato's Republic in the first quarter of the fourth century B.C., it is commonly assumed to have been supported by a tradition which went back perhaps two centuries into the archaic period.' The priority of dikaiosune in the Platonic canon needs no demonstration. Its proposed definition constitutes the formal "hypothesis" of the treatise and though the first book in the manner of the other early dialogues on virtue ends aporetically, the treatise as a whole devotes itself to completing the definition with meticulous exactitude.2 The effect of the eloquent argument offered in Plato's written masterpiece has been to rivet on the minds of scholars and laymen alike the presumption that the English terms "justice" and "righteousness" represent what had always been a general idea available to the Greeks throughout their earlier cultural history, a concept lying at the back of their minds and taken for granted.

If one asks, Is this presumption based on fact?, the answer will depend on how "fact" is defined. Is it a datum supplied by the intuitions of moral philosophy, which has always been prone to assume for its own purposes that the notion of the moral law as idea or ideal informs our common humanity and must exist as a realized concept in the minds of all men who share such a culture as the Greeks possessed? Or is it

'W. Jaeger, Paideia, translated by Gilbert Highet, 1 (Oxford 1946) 106: "Plato took it over en bloc from the ethical system of the early Greek city-state." Pind. Nem. 3.71-76 and Aesch. Sept. 610 have been interpreted as assuming the doctrine (see also Theognis- Phocylides, below notes 50, 51); so L. R. Farnell (Amsterdam 1965) on Pindar ad loc. (but contra Wilamowitz, Pindaros [Berlin 1922] 279, n. 3); P. Groeneboom (Gro- ningen 1938) on Aeschylus ad loc.; James Adam (reprinted, Cambridge 1963) on Plato Resp. 427E. A "Pythagorean" origin was admitted as possible but unprovable by Adam (loc. cit.) and supported with demonstration by F. M. Cornford (C. 6 [1912] 246-265). See below, n. 4 sub fin.

'Dikaiosune in the polis 432B 2 ff.; in the psyche 442D ff. In each case the definition is completed by a definition of the contrary and corresponding vice. Further demon- stration of the profitability of dikaiosune (444E 7 ff.) in effect extends the definition (588B 6-7) and is again formally completed by an exposition of the misery of the corre- sponding vice (576B 11 ff.). A mathematical ratio is even established between the two (587B 4 ff.).

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guaranteed by the content of historical studies, which by revealing pat- terns of action approved or rejected will reveal also the presumed guidance of corresponding moral principles? Or, finally, is it safest to test the presumption by the canons of linguistic usage where alone the idea alleged to exist in the common mind can find verbal expression and thus submit to verbal measurement? This last will be the metho- dology of the present paper. We address ourselves to a study of ter- minology, more particularly to the history of the word dikaiosune itself.

If we except a couplet found in the Theognidean corpus (a false exception: to this we shall return later) the word is not found in extant Greek literature before Herodotus. The fact can fail to attract the attention it deserves because of the prevalence in all authors from Homer onwards of dike and dikaios, and because of our habit, difficult to resist, of translating these two words as though they belonged in the mental and moral context of Platonic dikaiosune.3 The comparatively late appearance of dikaiosune takes on added significance when we note that (with one exception: a fragment of Euripides) it does not occur in any of the extant remains of the pre-Platonic poets. To the end of the fifth century, its occurrences are limited to five contexts in Herodotus, one in Thucydides, one in the Antiphon papyrus, one in Thrasymachus, and one (which depends on editorial supplement) in Damon as cited in a Philodemus papyrus.4 By the second decade of the fourth century on the other hand the word has obtained common currency.

One is justified in the case of this particular word in noting the com- parative rarity of occurrence as remarkable. Here, after all, is the most convenient Greek noun by which to index the notion of morality as an ethical principle, a notion basic to our own discourse in the West (whether we accept or reject it) and one which therefore would have been thought equally basic to the discourse of the Greeks to whom we trace the founda-

'The habit is as unconscious as it is pervasive in all who write on such topics as "Greek Ideals" or the "Greek way of life." Two recent and careful studies of Greek ethical thought are not immune to it. A. W. H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility (Oxford 1960) 185-186, discussing Euripides' Electra 1051 ("You have spoken dikaia, but the dike in them is aischron") comments on "the choice of aischron as the term to express the claims of dikaiosune." L. C. Pearson, Popular Ethics in Ancient Greece (Stanford 1962) 116-117, contrasts the assured claims to justice put forward by Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra with "the language of Cassandra, who in all her catalogue of blood and vengeance has no thought of dike. Her terms are more savage and more primitive .. .it is only when Clytaemnestra exults over her deed that the notion of justice is reintroduced."

'The unwary should not be misled by the entries in the index to Diels-Kranz, Vor- sokr., s.v. "dikaiosune," listed under the names of (Archytas), Anaxagoras, Pythagorean School (four entries), Bias, Hecateaus of Abdera. On this last see below, n. 34. The vocabulary of the formula 6&KaLOoivv'rl dpL0uS LOaCKtS Caos, printed by Diels-Kranz (1.452.22) as "Pythagorean," is Platonic; see LS7, s.v. laaKLS.

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tions of our moral and political philosophy. One does not have to be a philo- sopher to use it. One would have thought, for example, that it would be likely to recur in the moralising meditations addressed by Pindar to his patrons and by the choruses of Greek tragedy to their audiences, or that it would have appeared not infrequently as a verbal counter in the dialectic of Thucydides' speeches. Its scansion, so far as the poets are concerned, offers no difficulty in dactyls or anapaests, or for that matter in lyric. Pindar could have used it, as he does use philophrosune. Is it not rather an odd accident-to cite a conspicuous example of omission-that it does not occur anywhere in Aristophanes' Clouds, a play which in its revised version was amended to find room for a fairly lengthy confrontation between Dikaios Logos and Adikos Logos?

Nor is it easy to identify any equivalent for the term which might have made the coinage unnecessary. The neuter of dikaios with the article carries us no further than the bounds of meaning set by dikaios (and to these bounds we shall return). Dikaiotes appears to be a fourth- century coinage.6 Tentatively we conclude that dikaiosune was coined sometime during the fifth century and possibly not before 450 to express a notion which, for whatever reason, had not hitherto demanded it.

The -osune words (there are several in Homer) have been studied as evidence of early abstraction.6 It is to our purpose to note that they denote personal properties (what Aristotle would call dynameis) which match the behaviour indicated by the corresponding adjective: they are "psychological" words. If we apply this rule of thumb to dikaiosune, as opposed to dike and dikaios, we might conclude that the notion of morality as an attribute of a person, or as a set of habit-patterns resident in him, did not achieve the status of a "name" (onoma) until Greek culture had matured, if that is the word, to the stage represented by Periclean Athens, and that even then the name for it was not a popular one nor did it become so until the influence of the fourth-century thinkers made it so. Further it might be guessed that its appearance marks the beginning of the internalization of a moral conception hitherto viewed from a purely external and social point of view. Dike and dikaios refer to the maintenance of reciprocal relations of right: they connote "rights" rather than "righteousness"; they were indexes of purely ex- ternal behaviour whether of gods or of men.7 With the appearance of dikaiosune it had occurred to some that this kind of reciprocal propriety corresponded to a personal virtue, the property of an individual.

If social and economic changes occurring at the time were such as to

6It occurs neither in the extant remains of lyric and drama, nor in the historians. Epic and elegy would have had to reject it if available.

6Paul Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik (Leipzig 1895) 439. 7See below, n. 48.

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encourage individualism, then an individualized conception of "right" would be encouraged also. If the coinage does not appear to be poetic, this need not surprise us, for poetic vocabulary favours the traditional. Was it not more likely to be the work of the thinkers, the speculators, and the prosaic minority of society whom it is often convenient to identify as the intellectuals?

These, however, are conclusions which lie in advance of our investi- gation. It is time to turn to usage itself.

The five contexts in which Herodotus uses the term are widely scattered through his history. It will be convenient to list them alphabetically, as follows:

A. HERODOTUS 1.95-129

The conquest of Lydia becomes the historian's occasion to narrate the history of Cyrus the Persian, which in turn calls for a summary of the previous history of Media-Persia. The Medes, having broken away from the Assyrian Empire "gained their freedom."8 Their example was followed by the entire Asiatic mainland. Their political organization was confined to the village. A certain Deioces, a man of intelligence and wide reputa- tion, had monarchical ambitions, which he sought to realize by con- centrating on the "practice" of dikaiosune for he understood clearly that in the present lawless condition of the country the antagonism between "right" and "wrong" was fundamental.9 He was accordingly chosen to be "judge" of his village. The reputation of his legal adminis- tration which was "straight" and "correct"'0 in contrast to decisions rendered in other villages induced neighbouring villages to bring their suits to him until he had a monopoly of the judicial process. Deioces, as part of his plan, finally declined to continue this, pleading that it was "unprofitable" for him to neglect his own affairs. Faced with an in- creasing degree of "lack of order" (&voMtst, 1.97.2 and 3) the Medes held assembly to decide policy and voted to establish a monarchy which would bring law and order and the opportunity to get work done. Chapter 98 describes how they picked on Deioces as a well-known man to be monarch, whereupon he required them to furnish a royal capital (which became Ecbatana) and a bodyguard. An architectural description of Ecbatana is followed by a description of the Persian palace ceremonial which Deioces, says the historian, invented, its motive being to stress his own uniqueness in separation from his subjects. His legal adminis- tration became severe and more bureaucratic, requiring the submission

8The Greek adds emphasis by repeating the idea in triplicate. 91.96.2: 6LKaloaTbv7)v ErtOLeJCvos 7Kee ... 7r rtfrlaievos oir Tcr 6tKal( Tr &6&KOV

iroAH.ut6v anrt. 1o... l.os Te Kal 6iKaLos . .. Kara ro 6p66v 6tK&'cfv ..., 1.96.2-3; cf. Hesiod

Op. 35-39 and 263-264.

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DIKAIOSUNE

of written briefs, but enforcing appropriate and adequate penalties for all acts of hybris. His spies and agents pervaded the kingdom.

Here the tale breaks off. Chapter 101 in two lines narrates the for- mation of the Medes as a nation under Deioces and in two more the ethnic composition of Media. Chapters 102 ff. narrate the dynastic succession and the wars of the Median dynasty thus established, in- cluding the conquest and absorption of Persia and finally of Assyria, and then the Median recovery from defeat inflicted on them by the Scythians. This brings the dynasty down to Astyages (chapter 107), whereupon the folk tale of the boy Cyrus takes over. He, the half- Persian grandson of Astyages, was in infancy ordered to be killed for dynastic reasons, but pity had prevailed over the savage instructions issued, and he in fact grew up as the putative son of a herdsman, till one day (1.114), when he was ten, the boys playing "I am King of the Castle" in the village street chose him as "king," whereupon (apparently with kingly instinct) he proceeded to distribute his "subjects" by func- tion, assigning the builders, the soldiers, the messengers, and the royal agents their respective tasks (1.114.2). A nobleman's son refused his assignment and was duly ordered whipped by the herdsman's son in his capacity as "king." Complaint was then laid before Astyages, the boy was brought before him to answer, and replied, "O King, I did this 'rightfully.' I was chosen king as evidently the most fitted for the post. This boy refused to carry out orders until he 'got his right'll [that is, was punished]. If this makes me deserving of evil, here I am."

The story ends happily for Cyrus, with the king recognizing and accepting his grandson, though inflicting savage retribution upon Har- pagus, the minister who had failed to carry out the original order. Finally, with the help of this minister, Cyrus organizes a revolt of the Persians against the Medes, and defeats and deposes his grandfather. The triumphant Harpagus, and the captive Astyages, two mortal enemies, then confront each other in dialogue. Harpagus, taunting the deposed monarch, claims main credit for the success of the revolt. "It is rightly my achievement." Whereupon Astyages uses argument to prove to him that he is both the most "stupid" and the most "wrongful" of mortals. If the achievement is really his, he could have made himself king instead of someone else. Hence the complete stupidity. If his motive was a grudge against Astyages, then it would have been more "right" to make another Mede king rather than a Persian. As it is, the Medes have been enslaved for something they were not themselves responsible for, a result totally "wrongful."'2

oav v 61K1 ... Xo. ae ri1V 8lK7V, 1.115.2 and 3. 2'"Ap7rayos 6c erl .. .r6 rpjyCtpa gwvrov tbi &LKaics etvaL. 'Aarv&yrls b6 juaw

arare e... ve. . . 6vra . . . aKaLOr6TaTov ev 'ye, et . . , &6KTraTov 68, ; K. . .. 6KaL6- repov elva& Mrjwv Tr 7rep&raXecv TOVrTO r6 AyaO6v ... , 1.129.2-4.

53

The narrative then resumes the history of the Median-Persian king- dom. Though dikaiosune itself has occurred only once in these 35 chap- ters, this small event will be seen to gain some significance from the extended context in which it is found.

B. HERODOTUS 2.141-152 (with extensive omissions)

The historian has narrated in garbled form a highly condensed version of Egyptian dynastic history, concluding with the reign of one "Sethos, a priest of Hephaestus" whose policies neglected the interests of the Egyptian warriors to the extent of expropriating their landed holdings. At the conclusion of his regin the Egyptians were "liberated" (2.147.2). But being unable to conduct their lives for any length of time without a king, they divided the entire country into twelve districts, each with its own king.

These twelve, besides intermarrying, governed their administration by three rules or regulations which forbade mutual subversion and also mutual aggrandisement, and which guaranteed complete mutual amity (2.147.3). Herodotus then gives his account of the motive behind this arrangement. Directly they had assumed their respective kingdoms, an oracle had foretold that one of them would be monarch of all Egypt. Their careful observance of these three rules was designed to prevent this. According to the oracle the future monarch would be identified by the fact that he would pour libation in the temple of Hephaestus from a

cup of bronze. And so the twelve kings "employed dikaiosune"'3 and continued to

do so until, on a certain occasion, one of them seemed to fulfill the oracle by accident. The eleven took no chances. They established by examina- tion that he had done so without intention, so could not consider it "right" to kill him,14 but they stripped him of his powers and exiled him. He had in fact, adds the historian, been exiled once before. Being now a victim of hybris (2.152.3), he planned vengeance on his perse- cutors, and in due course with the aid of "bronze men from the sea" (that is, Greeks) he deposed the eleven and become monarch of all

Egypt. This was Psammetichus, who founded a dynasty (chapters 158 if.)

C. HERODOTUS 6.73 and 85-87

The two Spartan kings Cleomenes and Leotychides descend upon Aegina and, in the absence of resistance, select and seize ten prominent Aegine- tans, take them to Athens, a bitter foe of Aegina, and "place them on deposit"'" at that city. There they remained as hostages until the death

136&Katoa'vvy XpEwCtve'v, 2.151.1. 4. . . KTEltva.L ipEV OaUK kKaClwaaV ... &. . . E. OVe# LLrS TpOvolSt avrov

TroLiavTa ... , 2.151.3. l5rapaOf7K7rv KararOeTrat, 6.73.2.

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DIK AIOSUTNE

of Cleomenes, whereupon, on complaint of the Aeginetans at Sparta, a Spartan tribunal found the plaintiffs to have been the victims of hybris (6.85.1). Leotychides, it was finally agreed, was to accompany them to Athens to take back the hostages. So Leotychides came and demanded his "deposit." The Athenians did not think it "right" to comply'6: the deposit had been made by two kings, not one. To this Leotychides made a lengthy reply:

To restore them is an act of piety; to refuse to do so is the opposite; the choice is yours (6.86a). But I want to tell you of a "happening" in Sparta which concerned a deposit.17 There is a Spartan tradition about one Glaucus three generations ago who, besides being generally pre- eminent, enjoyed a unique reputation among Spartans for dikaiosune. Tradition reports that in the course of time the following thing "hap- pened" to him. A Milesian arrived and told him: "I want to enjoy the benefit of your dikaiosune which has gained wide reputation in Ionia and indeed in all Hellas.18 Ionia, so I have reflected, is continually in- secure, and money continually changes hand, whereas the Peloponnese enjoys secure and settled conditions. I have decided to convert half my property into silver and deposit it with you, well understanding that deposit with you means security for me. Here it is, and here are the tokens you must keep. You will restore it to the bearer of corresponding tokens." Glaucus accepted the deposit on these terms.'1 After a long interval of time the children of the depositor arrived, produced the tokens, and asked payment. Glaucus put them off; "I don't remember," he said, "I can't carry back to any knowledge of what you are talking about. I want to recall the matter and do the 'right' thing. If I was the recipient I would be correct to pay up. If I was not, I will apply the usual Greek regulations against you. Give me four months."

The Milesians made out that they had been disastrously robbed, and left. Glaucus resorted to Delphi, asking the oracle: Shall I take oath and plunder the money? The oracle replied in seven hexameter verses to the effect that (a) it would be more profitable to take oath, and to prevail, and to plunder the money. After all even the man of faithful oath must die. (b) However, oath has a demonic offspring which can exterminate a man's lineage and household, whereas the lineage of the man of faithful oath can prevail.

Glaucus promptly asked pardon of the oracle, but the oracle refused:

Scb; 8 ... aTralree Tr)V wapaO6Kr7v, ol 'AOrvacotL TpocLaLoas eIXKOV ... Q. aVTre . . . ob sKato . . ir 4T7robL6vaL, 6.86.1.

17... . KOLOV... UV . Yr V( rOrI1 yetoaL rlat rp aparjKrs .. .., 6.86a; cf. ovvyVietX- jRvaL, 6.86.3.

8TroVrov rTO av6pa OaEfz.v . . . KOtELVe ptara &LKaLoauvY7s rwept . .., 6.86.2; 7)Kw b6 r7ijs oa, FXaijKE, &LKaLoavvrls PovX6,uevos a&roXavo'aa, 6.86.3; rTjs as SLKa&oaovvrfs 7r v X6oyos roXXos, 6.86.4.

19k'5aTo rt)v 7rapaO?Kr?v irl Ty ei prll.Evw X6oyw, 6.8683.

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to tempt the god was equivalent to doing the deed. Glaucus restored the money. "And why, then, O Athenians, do I tell this tale? There is now no root or branch of Glaucus' line left in Sparta. The moral of this story: in the case of a deposit do not even harbour intention of refusing pay- ment to a claimant."20

However, Athens gave no hearing to this argument, and Leotychides left. The Aeginetans had not yet paid "redress" for the "wrongs" pre- viously committed against Athens to please the Thebans. Now, com- plaining against the Athenians and claiming they had been "wronged" themselves, they prepared to retaliate.?2

D. HERODOTUS 7.44-52

Xerxes on his way to Greece pauses at Abydos in order to ascend an eminence from which he can review his army and fleet. At the spectacle of such incomparable numbers of men he first congratulated himself, but then wept, whereupon his uncle Artabanus, an original opponent of the expedition, engaged him in a dialogue of which the following is a summary: Art.: Your actions are in flat contradiction :22 self-congratulation followed by tears. X.: It occurred to me to calculate23 how brief is the life of man; of all these myriads none will be around one hundred years from now. Art.: There are worse things than that which can happen to us. Short as life is, no one is born blessed without the certainty that he will often wish himself dead rather than alive. Disaster and disease can make even a short life seem protracted. Death is man's most preferred refuge; the god grudges us more than a taste of pleasure. X.: You have correctly defined what human life really is. But to another topic:24 evils are irrelevant when a good enterprise is in hand. If that dream had not been so vivid, would your negative view of this expedi- tion still hold, or would you have changed your mind? Art.: I could hope the vision may issue as we both want it to. But my fears persist, more particularly as I see two supreme (elements) ex- tremely adverse.25

200oiVT abya6ov rla68 travoEca Oai trpt Irapa6rK7rs a XXo y,e aLratrebovTwv aLro886tvaL, 6.868.

2 . p. . rpv 7TV rp6repov a8LKrll7aTcVrw 8ovatLI 8LKas r&v s 'AOrfvalovs Lfptaav . . . &aLoVTres &8LK(e?QOa s rS TIUprvwa6voEoL.. . rapeaKevUTovro, 6.87.

22"s iroXXbv &X)kXcwv KEXWptLaikva epy&aao... 7.46.1. 23kafXOBe yp ue Xoy?La6ievov . . , 7.46.2. 24LTorijs ly vvv &vOpw irti talS TrpL, O Ovarfs TroLansr o'tli Trep av 8pkraopal etvar,

7ravaw,6aeO . . . 4pcaov 8 IAoL r68e, 7.47.1. 2568o rT jai7LoTa T7r&vTwv kbvrTa roXeCtTrarTa, 7.47.2.

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X.: My dear man, which are these? Is our land army open to criticism or is our fleet inferior? If either is true, additions are immediately avail- able. Art.: No, their size is beyond criticism. To increase them is to increase the hostility of the two elements: these are land and sea. The sea has no harbour large enough to shelter the fleet in a storm and you will need a succession of harbours on the route; the lesson is that men cannot control calamities but are controlled by them. That is one of the two elements. Now I come to the second: other obstacles aside, the hostility directed against you by the land will increase in proportion to your advance. Success is a commodity in short supply for human beings, and even in the absence of other opposition, the land as distance accu- mulates will starve you. Human excellence consists in planning with extreme caution, reckoning on every possible vicissitude, before acting with elan. X.: You distinguish and define these several matters correctly.26 But you must avoid excessive timidity. If you keep giving second thought to anything that can come up you will never do anything. An elan which ignores exceptions can run into dangers-say half of those anti- cipated-but this is far better than a general timidity which runs into nothing. Contentious arguments offered against any and every proposal with no demonstration of the secure course to take are just as likely to court failure as their opposite. They are self-cancelling. A human being in fact is denied certain knowledge of the most secure course. A willing- ness to act is usually rewarded by success, which is not true of continual hesitation and second thought. The rise of the Persian empire proves this. My ancestors threw themselves at danger to achieve what they did. Great enterprises in fact always involve great danger. Had they been guided by your frame of mind this would not have happened. Like them we proceed in this campaign to subdue all Europe before returning home. We carry supplies and will also live off the land which is tilled and not prairie. Art.: Since nothing may deter you, take one piece of advice. Great enterprises call for correspondingly extensive calculation.27 Cyrus reduced Ionia to tributary status-all of it except Athens. Do not-so I advise -do not by any means lead forth the Ionians against their parents. We don't need them to win. If they join our expedition either (a) they will put themselves completely in the wrong by enslaving their metropolis or (b) they will put themselves completely in the right by conspiring with her to defend her freedom. In the case of (a) they will add no advantage to us; in the case of (b) they will gain the capability of doing

2obrK6Tos Aev a(' ye roVTWV fKarca taupeCat, 7.50.1. 2'7rkXeva X6yov cKrepvaL, 7.51.1.

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severe damage to your expedition.28 Remember the old saying: you don't see all the end at the beginning. X.: Of the ideas so far expounded by you29 this last one which expresses fear of revolt by the Ionians is particularly erroneous. They gave us supreme proof, witnessed by yourself and others, when during Darius' incursion into Scythia they could have destroyed the entire expedition and come out on top themselves. What they in fact responded with was dikaiosune and loyalty with every sign of courtesy.30 Besides, they have left children, wives, and property behind them to remind them not to revolt. Abandon these fears. I want you to protect my household and throne. You are my sole regent. Whereupon Artabanus was sent back to Susa.

These nine chapters furnish only one occurrence of dikaiosune, but, as in the case of passage A, the occurrence may be seen to gain signi- ficance once the extended context is taken into consideration.

E. HERODOTUS 7.163-164

Greece, confronting Xerxes' invasion, had invited Gelo ruler of Syracuse to lend her military and naval assistance, but had refused his conditions for doing this. After the departure homeward of the Greek embassy, Gelo concluded that the Greeks would probably be beaten; it was safest to play a waiting game. He accordingly despatched an agent, one Cad- mus, a native of Cos, to Delphi entrusting to him a large supply of funds. His instructions were to maintain good relations with everybody but to await the issue. If Persia won, he was to give the fund to Xerxes with the usual tokens of submission. If the Greeks won he was to return with the money. He chose Cadmus because of his past history. Having inherited the kingdom of Cos in good condition from his father, Cadmus had "deposited" his authority over Cos with the commons and gone off to Sicily. His action was entirely voluntary and prompted by dikaio- sune.3' (In Sicily he acquired Zankle from Samos and made a settlement there. The town changed its name to Messene.) Gelo was well aware that his arrival under these circumstances was only one instance of a general dikaiosune in him. That is why he used him as emissary. Cadmus crowned the record of rightful acts emanating from him by the following supreme example:32 he completely controlled the large funds entrusted

28 yap oaeSas ... fcl a&KTLTovs veTOaa. .. . 6tKaLora rovs ... .LKWTaro ALv vvv 7YWbPevot OVbIE KEp86S l.'ya L/.Lv rpoap/OaXXoovaC, 8LKaLoTrarTL 8e yVLpEVO otot re 6rflXraao-Oa. . . 7.51.2.

29T'V a7T?rerjvao yvwcEcv, 7.52.1.

300o 6 SlKaLoatrvv)V Kal tar6OTr7Ta EVe&OKav, aXapL 6 oVt6cv, 7.52.1. 3'vro LKcaWoavvr)s is j4aov KC'OLCTL K(aTaOeLS 7)v &px?rv . . , 7.164.1. 32. S . L& LKaiLoavv7Iv T'V OF aVt6S AXXr)v avvo'Se eo'vaav, rtCl, rej. 6s e tL TroLo

aiXXOLaL SKalolal TO7LaO e EWVTOUv pylaapToiOL. Kal rT6e OVK XaXLTaTOV TOUVTW (XAreTO, 7.164.2.

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to him and could have appropriated them, but he refused. After Salamis and the departure of Xerxes he departed too, but this time to Sicily, and brought all the money back with him.

These five contexts yield a total of eight occurrences of the term dikaiosune, three of them concentrated in C. They are distributed through Books One, Two, Six, and Seven, producing the impression that the usage of the term may be casual if not accidental. But compari- son between the five reveals some shared characteristics which are curious.

In A, B, and E dikaiosune is an "attribute" (we use this term to avoid further definition at this point) employed by kings to gain power (Deio- ces), to keep it (the twelve kings), or (apparently) to relinquish it (Cadmus). In C and D it occurs as a term placed in the mouth of kings (Leotychides and Xerxes); this may be fortuitous, but again perhaps not. Admittedly in these two examples it is assigned to persons other than kings. The "kings" in examples A and B won power through election or popular approval (this also covers the case of the boy Cyrus), and Leotychides and Cadmus represent the attitudes not of absolutism but limited monarchy. In these four examples dikaiosune as a conception suffers no impairment. Xerxes in D on the other hand, speaking as an absolute monarch, posits the presence of a dikaiosune (in the Ionians) which is to be falsified by events.33

All these passages have a paradigmatic flavour. The dikaiosune of Herodotus is not a virtue of common men. It appears in history as the property of persons who are treated as exemplars. The unique reputation of Deioces among his fellow men is stressed (A), as is that of Glaucus (C) and Cadmus (E), in each case providing a model of dikaiosune which effectively guides and governs the attitude of others toward the exemplar. In B this coloration pertains to the peaceful and harmonious reign of the twelve kings conducted jointly according to three principles previously adopted.34 Sometimes it is suggested that the example nar- rated has in fact passed into history. Thus, in C, a long Spartan tradition is stressed as the ground of the tale, which is itself narrated as a "hap- pening" of unusual significance. In D, Xerxes invokes the personal witness of those who were present at the crisis of the Danube bridge in Darius' reign. In E, the hero's act of integrity crowns a previous record. Nor is it irrelevant to note the air of historical romance with which

"That is, if the dialogue looks forward to Mycale; if only to Salamis, then Xerxes states a view confirmed by the event (and perhaps offered to justify it?).

4Egyptian dikaiosune turns up again in the Aegyptica of Hecateaus of Abdera (Diels- Kranz, Vorsokr. 2.242, lines 13, omitted in index, and 23). The absence of the term in other Presocratic literature (above n. 4) may suggest that Hecataeus and Herodotus drew on a common source (Protagoras? See the conclusion of this article).

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all five contexts are invested. In A and B the exemplars of dikaiosune are furnished by the histories of Persia and Egypt respectively.

The extended contexts (A and B) in which these first two instances happen to occur may not at first sight seem directly relevant to the occurrence. Yet comparison between them again yields some curious and unexpected results. In A, the continuity between the romance of Deioces and the romance of Cyrus is interrupted, but on examination both turn out to be stories which explore or illustrate the application of dike and dikaion as operative principles in history. Deioces from the beginning is guided by the conviction that "right" and "wrong" are irreconcilable. His ascent to power is made logical because he makes himself the effective instrument for implementing "right" judicially and administratively, and the monarchy he finally establishes concentrates itself upon these aims, with the accompanying suppression of hybris. The boy Cyrus, like Deioces, is first discovered operating in a village. His election as king becomes the occasion for the enforcement of orders against a subject, and when called to account he cites the claim of dike as his justification. After the success of his conspiracy against the Median dynasty, his trusted minister and the deposed monarch con- front each other in a dialogue which pits the right and the wrong, the intelligent and the stupid in dialectical confrontation with each other. The schematism of the passage exploits that device of formal antithesis already noted as an intellectual influence on the early career of Deioces.

Although the scenes of A and B are laid in different countries and alien histories, they both turn out to be instances where an ethnic group gains its freedom after a period of subjection and then is rescued from misgovernment by a monarchy which practises dikaiosune.35 In the case of A dikaiosune reflects the relationship between judge and litigant or between monarch and subject; in B it marks the maintenance of a cove- nanted partnership in power based on an agreement which is kept until finally abrogated at the expense of one of the partners, who becomes the victim of hybris, thus gaining the right of retaliation, which leads to dissolution of the partnership and the re-establishment of an un- divided monarchy. Thus the overall context resembles that of the first part of A, a story illustrating the effect and also the difficulty of im- plementing dikaion as a principle of government.

The story of Glaucus, told in C, is embedded in an account of a judgment of hybris formally passed against Athens, but a judgment countered by an Athenian claim of dikaion. This in turn is countered by a challenge phrased by Leotychides in terms of a schematic anti-

"3The rebellion led by Cyrus likewise conferred "freedom" on the Persians (Hdt. 1.126.6; 127.1). This example of monarchical leadership as an instrument of liberation is recalled in the conclusion of the constitutional debate (3.82.5).

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thesis. The plot of the story which he then tells to support the challenge turns on a contrast between political and social anarchy (in Ionia) and its opposite (in the Peloponnese). Dikaiosune, as in the two previous examples, is to be found in a context of political stability. However, the story about Glaucus proves ineffective. The narrative concludes by returning to the point where it began: the Athenians previously wronged by the Aeginetans repudiate the judgment against them; the Aeginetans in turn now claim to have been wronged, and to have "right" on their side, they demand redress, and they prepare to retaliate. They sound much like Psammetichus preparing his retaliation against the eleven.

The context of item D is supplied by a lengthy dialogue between Xerxes and his uncle Artabanus who (as previously, in chapters eight to nineteen of Book Seven) is cast in the role of a cautionary counsellor offering to his monarch a review of the possible obstacles to Xerxes' policies. In the final exchange between them the point Artabanus chooses to make is one of policy but also morality: what will be the moral posture of the Ionians if compelled to serve against their kindred? Once more, as in previous examples, the problem is schematized as a choice poised upon an antithesis between the dikaion and the adikon, each again pushed to the superlative degree. This time the dialectical dilemma is "solved," so to speak, by Xerxes' complacent reliance on the proposition that the Ionians have already demonstrated their dikaiosune by their loyalty to Persia in a similar crisis. The dialogue ends there, but it should be noted that any reader of Herodotus, aware of the fallibility of Xerxes' judgment, would realize that this piece of dialogue in effect presents an unsolved dilemma; conduct which is alleged to exhibit dikaiosune in one instance may when repeated exhibit the reverse in another.

Since it is the dialogue format which makes possible this type of dialectical confrontation, it is relevant to consider the entire exchange which has led up to this concluding dilemma. It was provoked by an inconsistency of behaviour amounting to a flat contradiction, noted by speaker A and explained by the other in terms of a "calculation" he was making, which itself is then made the subject of further commentary by A. That commentary is then approved by X as a "correct definition" of matters which are accordingly dismissed, in order to introduce a second topic of discourse. This when taken up by speaker A is developed by considering a pair of elements and the role they are respectively likely to play. Once more speaker X rejoins by approving the correct- ness of A's "definition" within the terms so offered. But X now adds a set of further considerations which are intended to outweigh what A has just said. So finally A is induced to propound his third proposition, the problem of "right" as it concerns the Ionians. In short, the single

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instance of dikaiosune which occurs only in the conclusion of this entire context can be seen to occur not only in a schematized context of its own but in a dialogue setting which has a strongly dialectical flavour through- out. It may be pertinent to recall the traces of dialogue format which are perceptible in the latter half of A, as well as the triple dialogue which comprises C.

The story of Cadmus on the other hand as told in E is a straight- forward narration innocent of verbal schematism and with no dialectical overtones. Yet it should be noted that the dikaiosune in question appears to have been first authenticated in the political sphere as was the case in examples A and B, even though its expression-the voluntary trans- fer of power to the commons-reverses the pattern illustrated in A and B.

The historian's style is discursive, admitting not only frequent narra- tive digression but also the inclusion of descriptive materials drawn from a variety of sources. The fact that these five contexts themselves wear the air of intrusion in his narrative is therefore no anomaly, nor of itself does it indicate a common source. But the kind of coincidences between them which our examination has revealed does permit the hypothesis of a common source and permits also the conclusion that these eight occurrences of the term dikaiosune (in view of its rarity otherwise) were also supplied from this source. The precise meaning intended by the term is not altogether clear, or perhaps we should say, the emphasis varies. In A it is the property of a judge who demonstrates the clarity of distinction between dikaion and adikon by the probity of his legal administration36 which becomes the direct vehicle of his election to supreme political power; his political administration continues to enforce the same kind of legal probity, though his dikaiosune is not again men- tioned, nor is it mentioned in the account of the administration of Cyrus and his seizure of power, despite the fact that this part of the narrative is preoccupied with acts which express dike and dikaion, or are evaluated by their light. In view of the common legal context of the two terms from Homer onwards we need not be surprised if dikaiosune at its first appearance in extant Greek literature denotes the quality resident in a judge who (following Homeric models) is also a prince, the repository of political power built on legal authority and designed to enforce it. Yet though this kind of paradigm suggests a positive evaluation of monarchy as the instrument replacing disorder by social stability,37 Deioces himself is cast in the role of a power-hungry plotter, whose

"6Cf. also the proceedings of the Spartan tribunal in example C. "See A. T. Cole, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology (American Philo-

logical Association 1967) 120-130.

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dikaiosune serves his personal aggrandisement. Has the historian's tale combined two disparate versions? Or did his source consider that dikaio- sune was properly an instrument at the disposal of ambition and of absolute authority?

It certainly remains the instrument for maintaining political power in example B but the context of its operation is more complex. This time a partnership agrees to keep a compact concluded under three heads: two of these are negative, prohibiting intrigue to undermine authority and aggression to overthrow it; the third enunciates a general principle of social and political goodwill. These are three guarantees of social harmony and stability, and the dikaiosune employed by the part- ners is by inference at least definable as the maintenance of this harmony.

Examples C and E, however, transfer its operation from the political to the commercial sphere. It becomes that attribute of a man which makes him a reliable trustee. To be sure, in E the notion of "deposit" is applied to politics; Cadmus voluntarily transferred or deposited his power with the commons, and this political act earned him that reputa- tion for dikaiosune which commended him as a trustee. The case of Glaucus the Spartan is more complex. He is a member of a secure society, as opposed to the insecurity of Ionia, the country of the depo- sitor. Hence his dikaiosune exists in a given political context. But the story concentrates on the problem of his financial probity and reveals an intriguing complication. The original depositor has died. His heirs make the claim of redemption. This has some parallel in the situation of Leo- tychides confronting Athens; one of the original depositors had died. Does this in any way release the trustee from an obligation contracted with a previous party? (The tokens proffered might have been stolen, after all.) So the dialogue between the trustee and the depositors is succeeded by one between the trustee and the religious authority of Delphi. The first response is characteristically ambiguous, biit when the trustee interprets it as a reproof and offers redress he unexpectedly discovers it is too late, because according to the moral of the tale as underlined by Leotychides, a trustee must be faithful in intention38 as well as in deed. Are we meant to connect this principle with that dikaio- sune which as it turns out had failed the test? Is there a hint here of a conception of "righteousness" which is internalized, its existence to be tested by character rather than external observance? The tale itself does not make this explicit and the denouement is all the more surprising. The moral has no effect on the Athenian case, which in despite of it is sustained on other grounds.

As for example D, the dikaiosune attributed to the lonians by Xerxes "8Compare the absence of "intention" in example B, n. 14, above.

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is linked by him with the expression of "loyalty" and "courtesy." Nar- rowly considered in this context, it seems almost synonymous with personal civility, a fresh overtone to the word, though we recall its link with amity in example B. However, the matching reference to the same episode in the history of Persian-Ionian relations (Hdt. 7.10) makes it clear that the loyalty on this occasion was a piece of prudence exercised by a vassal (Histiaeus) who preferred to sustain his overlord in order to guarantee his own security. So the remark of Xerxes may in fact charac- terize as dikaiosune simply the maintenance of a compact between ruler and subject or between two partners-a usage analogous to B. But in any case the objections of Artabanus are clearly intended to cast doubt on the status of such a dikaiosune: a relationship which is righteous in one case may turn out to be completely wrong in another.39

The net effect of the slight ambiguities surrounding several of these contexts reinforces the impression that the common source was dia- lectical, presenting the concepts of dikaion and dikaiosune as problem- atic and perhaps relativistic.

These eight occurrences can be supplemented by four more culled from surviving prose sources of the pre-Platonic period.

F. THE PAPYRUS ANTIPHON (Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. 87 B 44; 2.346)

. . . Dikaiosune . . . to avoid breaking the lawful usages of the (parti- cular) city where citizenship is operative. If a human being is to employ (that form of) dikaiosune most conformable with interest he should, when attended by the testimony of reporters, treat the customs-and- laws as sovereign, but when (he finds himself) isolated from reporters (he should substitute) the (rule) of nature.40

G. THRASYMACHUS (as cited by a commentator on Plato) (Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. 85 B 8)

He wrote in one of his own treatises somewhat to the following effect: the gods do not look upon the human condition. For they would not have failed to observe that supreme good found among human beings, namely dikaiosune. We can observe that human beings evidently refuse to employ it.41

"gThe dilemma may point up an implicit conflict between the claims of dikaiosune as between friends and allies (cf. the reference to Xerxes as an authority on this sub- ject, Plato Resp. 336A 5) and those of dikaion which regulate relationships of blood kin.

4o... 5LKatoavvrl oviv rT rTS Tiro6Xews v6bLoa..... . TapafaiveLv. XpwT' &v oiv avOpcoros /UaXtroa eavurc) VlC(Ep6vrTU &6LKatLO(avv7, l....

4loiv yip av rT6 laEiytLro TWV ~v &vp avpOroT &ayaOCwv Trapelbov Tr)V 8LKaLOa'vvlv'

6pwiiev yap Tros avOpWjrovs rTaVTp l ) Xppcovovs.

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H. DAMON (as cited in a Philodemus papyrus) (Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. 37 B 4)

... to the inquiry: does music conduce to all virtues or a few, he says: "Damon the mousikos thinks they conduce to practically all; that is, he says, it is appropriate that the young person as he chants and plays the kithara should display the presence not only of courage and (temper- ance) but also (dikaiosune)."42

J. THUCYDIDES 3.63.3-4 (Thebans responding to Plataeans)

You say: it is dishonourable to betray benefactors (sc. the Athenians). We reply: it is more dishonourable and more wrongful to betray

all Greece. Nor is the courtesy you render reciprocally to them either equated or

exempt from dishonour. You say: you had wrong done to you and so called them in. We reply: you made yourselves accomplices of those who do wrong

to others. As for dishonour: this consists in a failure to render reciprocally

courtesies which match each other. However, the obligation of a courtesy incurred when accompanied by

dikaiosune should not be reciprocated when the result is going to be adikia (i.e., the opposite).43

Antiphon (F) would appear to supply a formal definition of dikaiosune, and a fairly narrow one, restricting it to obedience to law. This recalls the ambience of the term in contexts A, B, and C above, where its exercise served to replace anomia by eunomia (A), maintained consti- tutionai harmony (B), and afforded refuge to those living under unstable conditions (C). But Antiphon's full statement leaves open an ambiguity which may enlarge the application of the term. Does the sophist, when giving his own prescription for correct behaviour, intend that the rules of dikaiosune and those of nature be mutually exclusive? Or does he intend to suggest (as our bracketed additions to the text imply) that the rules of nature are themselves an expression of dikaiosune-but a truer expression? The point has to be raised because of other statements in the papyrus which, while not employing the abstract noun, indicate that Antiphon "wants to keep and to use the terms right and righteous and to define them normatively."44 Arguing for instance against those

42.r p6vOv av8pe(iav a)ai')veo6a Kai ow(oporivv)v, aXXa KaLL 8(KaLoaovvPlv). 4'Kalroi Tra 6otolas XapLras &j aVTr8t566tvaL alaXpov o iaXXov i r ras IeTa

6&KaLotovv7s Lev 6ocfeLXci0Eras, es abKiav 6i a7 ro&6Cojivas, 3.63.4. "E. A. Havelock, Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (London 1957) 260.

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legal procedures which forced witnesses into hostile relationship with the parties in court, he writes as follows: "if it is true that it is right to do wrong to no man if you are not wronged yourself, then if a man do the above he cannot be right."45 Clearly this kind of argument pro- poses not a rejection of the dikaion but a redefinition of it as the law of personal non-aggression. This would be Antiphon's own formula for dikaiosune. It may appear eccentric, but it is in conformity with that aspect of the term which was personal and which connected it with amity and civility (B and D). Moreover such usage would reflect an important fact, that by his day dikaiosune had become a prestigious term to which, whatever its precise meaning, all serious thinkers would wish to lay claim.

Such a conclusion throws light on example G. The quotation from Thrasymachus may be in part a paraphrase, but it would lose its entire point if dikaiosune was not employed in the original." In the eyes of this sophist, the term, whatever he means by it, does indeed identify a supreme human blessing-but it is honoured in the breach, and so we must conclude that heaven takes no interest in our human lot. It is easy to understand how Plato would find such religious and social cynicism repugnant and yet also how he would wish to be reconciled to such a thinker (Resp. 498c 9), whose despair masked but did not repudiate the existence of dikaiosune as a cardinal principle in human affairs.47

The case of context H considered as a piece of testimony is unsatis- factory. Damon's reputation as a musical theorist is well established. He was a Periclean figure presumably anterior to all authors in our list save Herodotus. But it is impossible to be sure whether when cited in

45Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr, 2.354, col. 1.10-15: 7TVro 7rovvv oV6 LKatOS :arral 6 Trotov, VirelTrep TOb , ab tKeEv lPabcva AiL a tbLKov,avov LTO atv tKaLtov riTL.

This is an objection made to the conventional view of dikaion previously cited: TOL &LKaiov... .OKOVVTOS TO AlapTupeLv Ev i\XX7XOLts Tr'aXr]6r 6'iKatov vo#lKaera ....

41Iape6ov.. . .6pi.sjv may conceivably echo the paronomasia of the original; cf. the style of Thrasymachus in B 1; Havelock, op. cit. (see n. 44) 231-233. The sentiment reads like a sophistic "improvement" upon Hesiod Op. 256-273.

47M. Untersteiner, The Sophists translated by K. Freeman (Oxford 1954) 325, tries to bring the statement into line with the position attributed to "Thrasymachus" in Repub- lic 1 by arguing that it describes a "tragedy for the intellect" undergone by a citizen who can only act freely when he acts as the majority wills, and so is paradoxically subject to "a coalition of the weak" who maintain the power of the law. This is fairly abstruse for a sophist. It is surely more probable that Thrasymachus argued that what existing society calls "dikaiosune" is really the interest of the stronger, but refrained from committing himself personally to the view that this should always be so; so that he was capable of using the term dikaiosune at two contrasting levels. Compare the similar ambiguity in Antiphon's terminology (above, notes 40, 45) and in Hesiod, loc. cit. The Marxist position is not very different.

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the Hellenistic age his theories have been accommodated to an ethical terminology which Plato's influence had rendered familiar. Moreover the trilogy of three virtues which appears in our quotation depends upon a restoration of the text. If authentic, this is the first indication in Greek that dikaiosune had attained formal classification as a virtue, and that it has joined a canonical list perhaps as the most recent addi- tion. The nature of Damon's theory would strengthen the emphasis on dikaiosune as a personal attribute, though if we remember Plato's dic- tum (Resp. 424c 5) that "according to Damon the patterns of mousike are never changed without major involvement of the laws of the state" (with a possible pun on nomos) we can plausibly conclude that for Damon as for all thinkers of his time, the personal has not been isolated in separate conception from the social and civic. But Damon's role in our story, if indeed he had one, must remain speculative.

The reader of context J (our condensed version of a portion of a Thucy- didean speech) may note a dialectic which recalls th, flavour of some of the dialectic found in Herodotus (compare A and D). Competing moral claims are, as it were, paraded before the reader under competing banners labelled the honourable and rightful: which claim carries the correct banner? In this schematized context once more we confront a single instance of dikaiosune. The occasion for the use of the word is supplied by the term charis, combining the notions of service rendered, gratitude for the service, and courtesy tendered and received. The law of courtesy, say the Thebans, is symmetrical: it conforms to the rule of reciprocity set by dikaion, which demands that the response be morally equivalent to the stimulus. The original courtesy (from Athens to Plataea) involved dikaiosune. But the present response of Plataea to Athens involves adikia. So the law of moral symmetry is broken, the Plataeans are in the wrong.

Possibly the historian seized for this once on dikaiosune for purely stylistic reasons: he needed an abstraction to balance adikia. But the collocation with "courtesy," recalling as it does the language of Xerxes (Herodotus D) may point to a more deliberate choice of a term which had come to embrace the notion of a civility more generous and more personal in its application than the term dikaion would allow.

It is time to draw together some conclusions pertinent to the history of Greek ethical thought. The citations available to us from pre-Platonic literature reveal a term of somewhat Protean dimensions, indexing a type of behaviour proper to a judge and a ruler and a trustee, but also to a subject, an ally, and perhaps a personal friend. It generally becomes effective in social and political contexts. It is (as Aristotle noted, E.N. 1129b 26 ff.) par excellence a term of social orientation (irpbs iTepov). It

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is of major relevance to the maintenance of social order and political stability. Yet we have hints that it is a quality of the "heart," as we would say, and involves personal attitude and choice. Are we to style it a "virtue"? This became its classic category in the fourth century. We note that in these fifth-century instances it can be "employed" (xpiaOaL; items B, F, and G) and "practised" (&aKETv; item A) which might sup- port the authenticity of Damon's canon and suggest that dikaiosune enjoyed currency in ethical theory before Plato. Above all, it tends to be presented as a master-virtue, whether of state or individual, through personal examples famous in history, or by way of explicit statement that it indeed does enjoy or should enjoy a unique status.

When we compare this area of reference with that connoted by dike and dikaios and their derivatives and negatives, the traditional terms from which this abstraction was coined, we note the contrast between a conception of propriety based on the maintenance of reciprocal rights and requiring also the right of redress and hence of punishment as the mechanism of enforcement on the one hand-and on the other a more ambitious, generous, and ultimately inward-looking conception which we can conveniently identify as "morality" in the largest sense, or "righteousness." We spoke earlier of the habit, hard to resist, of render- ing the traditional terms as though they could express the values that were to gather around dikaiosune.48 A truer view of this matter would require a narrower restriction of the meaning of dike and the dikaion, not least in Greek tragedy, and a recognition that the idea of morality in the larger sense came into existence-was in fact invented-only through the intellectual processes of the Greek enlightenment in the last half of the fifth century before Christ. Hence the two citations of dikaiosune available from the poets are simply devoted to celebrating

48The article in LS7, s.v. 5cKatos illustrates the point. Meanings are listed as follows: under A "observant of custom and rule," a sense classified as Homeric and general; under B I "equal, even, well-balanced," a sense identified as "later," though Pindar is

cited; under B I b "legally exact, precise"; under B II "meet and right, fitting" and also "normal" and "real, genuine, equitable"; under C "personal: you are bound to .. I have a right to ... ," this usage being also listed in the neuter for tragedy.

These meanings are faithful to the original limitations of the adjective. But under A 2 LSJ inserts "observant of duty to gods and men: righteous"; the corresponding entries do not justify the moralistic implications of this translation. Under B I 2 LSy inserts "lawful, just": the entries indicate that the "justice" involved is still a function of propriety, reciprocity, and the like. The article s.v. "biKfr," on the other hand, though listing eight classifications of meaning, completely and correctly avoids the translations "justice," "righteousness."

Aristotle in his doctrine of distributive justice in effect rationalizes the original usage of dike and dikaion (E.N. 1130 14 ff.), while giving a preliminary nod towards justice as "complete virtue" (1129b 25 ff), that is, the dikaiosune of Plato.

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the prestige of this new discovery. Not unexpectedly it is Euripides49 rather than his predecessors who first recognizes the term. Its presence in the corpus attributed to Theognis50 cannot predate the same period. The age of Theognis himself was innocent of any such conception. But the corpus patently came to serve as a school textbook and as such was receptive to editorial interpolations, especially of a moralizing character. The language of the crucial line: "In dikaiosune, to sum up, does all (or every) virtue exist," is in fact philosopher's language, as the adverb may indicate.56

Therefore in preparing his mighty argument that righteousness is indeed a law of the soul, a law of society, and a law of the universe, Plato was not working in an intellectual vacuum. Amid the increasing cynicism of the intellectual atmosphere which surrounded his youth, he faced what he thought was a mortal danger, that the principle of general morality now adumbrated might be discredited as soon as it was born. Did such a morality after all profit a man? And so he set out, surrounded by what he saw as social disintegration, to rehabilitate it on intellectual foundations which should be permanent. In so doing, he rightly saw that neither Homer nor the poets could provide him with any secure prop for a conception which had come into existence at a time not far preceding his own birth, and which owed nothing to them.

Are there any clues which can point to any one thinker as the inventor par excellence of dikaiosune? To frame the question in this way is itself misleading, since such conceptions are not so much inventions as crystal- lizations formed in epochs which are preparing to receive them. Never- theless, one thinker more than most may have played a leading role in this story. The clues point to Protagoras. But their unravelling is a task of fresh complexity covering not only the testimonies so far

49Frag. 486 (Nauck). 5?Theog. 147-148. 147 is also attributed to Phocylides (frag. 10) and is quoted anony-

mously in Aristotle (E.N. 1129b 29) as a proverb, appropriately in his discussion of Platonic dikaiosune (above, n. 48).

61H. K. Usener, Kleine Schriften 1. 248, first suggested that it could have been a schoolmaster's interpolation, doubting authenticity because Theophrastus attributes it at one point to Theognis, at another to Phocylides, and also because of its prosaic character. P. Friedlinder, in Hermes 48 (1913) 587, n., agrees that this kind of "virtue" is not archaic. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1951) 35, accepts the line as "popular in that age," but identifies dikaiosune as characteristic of a guilt culture (which, on the view presented in this paper, he may place too early). oavXx7)3/rv occurs otherwise in contexts of a theoretic or argumentative character: Aesch. P.Y. 505 (concluding the kulturgeschichte); Eurip. frag. 362; Plato Protag. 324A, 325c; Resp. 344B, etc.; Lysias 13.47 and 62; compare also avXXacjl/3iL in this sense Hdt. 3.82.5 (concluding the constitutional debate; cf. n. 35 above), 7.16 (in an Artabanus-Xerxes dialogue).

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reviewed, and the documented tradition surrounding this thinker, but also much more in the text of Herodotus and of Plato himself, and even ranging as far down as the fifth book of Aristotle's Ethics. This explora- tion must await a separate treatment.52

YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN

52I gratefully acknowledge the assistance rendered by Mr Stephen Becroft towards the completion of this paper.