ἀπὸ σοῦ ἀρκξάμενος does it mean beginning with you? There is someone among the Athenians who, beginning with you, would accept… It does not make much sense.
This is cited in the LSJ:
ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ σοῦ. i.e. including yourself, Pl.Grg.471c.
The Brill dictionary also quotes it as ‘beginning with’ so whom to follow?
It means the same thing. It’s an idiom.
who is the subject of ἀρξάμενος? Can it be also interpreted as there is someone among the Athenians who beginning with you (that is taking you as an example) would …
ὅστις Ἀθηναίων is the subject. While literally the ἀρξάμενος should indicate a starting point, I believe it’s more of a starting point in a list, rather than a point of origin. You can’t really read the latter in e.g. Xen. Mem. 3.5.15:
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- πότε γὰρ οὕτως Ἀθηναῖοι ὥσπερ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἢ πρεσβυτέρους αἰδέσονται, οἳ ἀπὸ τῶν πατέρων ἄρχονται καταφρονεῖν τῶν γεραιτέρων
You could certainly translate the above as "they despise their elders beginning with their fathers, but I think it makes more sense to think of the start of a list of people the Athenians despise, number one on the list would be their own fathers.
If Plato wanted Polus to say that Socrates started the whole thing, I think he would have made that point more emphatically.
In this way, I think it’s not so different from, “What’s wrong with people today? Well, first of all, they…” It doesn’t mean that it comes chronologically first, but rather that it’s first in this mental list.
Just checked Dodds’ commentary:
c 8. ἀπὸ σοῦ ἀρκξάμενος, > “yourself included”: like > Symp. > 173 d δοκεῖς μοι πάντας ἀθλίους ἡγεῖσθαι πλὴν Σωκράτους, ἀπὸ σαυτοῦ ἀρξάμενος.
I haven’t ever read Gorgias, but I looked this up in my OCT, reading the speech of ΠΩΛ. starting in 471. It describes Archelaos, apparently, tyrant of Macedon, I guess, who received the kingdom unjustly and was happy to murder his own relatives to secure his rule. His acts of terrible injustice – like throwing the little 7-year-old boy who was rightful heir into a well, and lying to the boy’s mother Cleopatra that the kid was chasing something and fell in and drowned – makes him ἀθλιώτατος.
τοιγάρτοι νῦν, ἅτε μέγιστα ἠδικηκὼς τῶν ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ, ἀθλιώτατός ἐστιν πάντων Μακεδόνων, ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ εὐδαιμονέστατος,…
Therefore we now see, since he was the greatest injusticer in all Macedon, he is the most miserable of all the Macedonians, instead of [merely] ‘not being the happiest’,…
… καὶ ἴσως ἔστιν ὅστις Ἀθηναίων ἀπὸ σοῦ ἀρξάμενος δέξαιτ᾿ ἂν <ἢ> ἄλλος ὁστισοῦν Μακεδόνων γενέσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ Ἀρχέλαος.
…and so maybe there is somebody from among the Athenians, having started off with you, or another whoever it is from among the Macedonians, that might admit to have become “the happiest” more than Archelaos.
Maybe that <ἢ> that I stuck in isn’t really necessary, but it makes me happy.
Again, this is just my impression without having looked up the commentaries/translations. Take for what it’s worth (not much).
ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ εὐδαιμονέστατος doesn’t mean “instead of [merely] 'not being the happiest’” but simply “instead of the happiest" (though of course “happiest” isn’t quite right).
And adding ἢ to the other bit.makes grammatical nonsense.
ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ εὐδαιμονέστατος doesn’t mean…
Your dictionary does give that gloss. But an attentive reader of the LSJ will notice that in the examples, ἀλλά + neg. gets used for cases of “X opposite to Y” rather than simple “X not Y”.
LSJ examples:
ἀγαθῶν, ἀ. οὐχὶ κακῶν αἴτιον
τῶν σπουδαίων, ἀ. μὴ τῶν φαύλων (opposites here, see context in Ad Demonicum)
ἐκεῖθεν, ἀ. οὐκ ἐνθένδε ἡρπάσθη
And note that in the LSJ’s question examples, the simplistic “X not Y” fails entirely, and has to be replaced by something closer to my “instead of”:
τί δεῖ ἐμβαλεῖν λόγον περὶ τούτου, ἀ. οὐχὶ προειπεῖν;
Τίνας δὲ πώποθ’ ἑωράκασιν οἱ ταῦτα λέγοντες ἀναβαλλομένους καὶ θησαυριζομένους τὰς πονηρίας, ἀλλ’ οὐκ εὐθὺς τῇ φύσει τῇ παρούσῃ χρωμένους;
And adding ἢ to the other bit.makes grammatical nonsense.
In fact I posted the sense that I did make of it. I could well be in error. If you have something useful to help us decide that, then please provide it. But as it stands, the unsupported claim of “grammatical nonsense” is mindless contradiction presented with standard mwh flourish.
Oh Joel I was so hoping you wouldn’t, but I understand that’s your nature.
In 1), I wasn’t objecting to “instead of,” in fact I used it myself! It was your “[merely]” that was wrong.
In 2) I’m sorry you persist in this, which seems to me patently misguided, and the only defense of it you offer is that it makes you happy!
And now all we have done is succeeded in antagonizing each other.
You can have the last word. I’m through with this.
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It’s not “wrong”. It’s a plain-Jane way to bring out “X opposite Y” in English, and to express the highly contrasted ἀλλ᾿ οὐ, which is very forceful to my ear. You can disagree, but something like ἔστι μακρόν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐ μικρόν, sounds like this to me: “It’s big – not little!” If in answer to someone who has just claimed that it was little (as here), “it’s big, not just little!”
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The English translation was the real defense. “Makes me happy” was the chaff. I guess if it really needs the breakdown, I understood the core of the sentence to be:
ἔστιν ὅστις Ἀθηναίων δέξαιτ᾿ ἂν γενέσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ Ἀρχέλαος
There exists somebody of the Athenians who might admit to be so more than Archelaos.
The expansion with the following seems straightforward:
ὅστις Ἀθηναίων <ἢ> ἄλλος ὁστισοῦν Μακεδόνων
somebody of the Athenians or another, whoever at all, of the Macedonians
I thought all of that was clear from my Englishing. Maybe it wasn’t enough though, and all this was really needed.
Finally, I didn’t ask for the last word. I asked for a minimum of support for your strong contradiction. I have to answer you more frequently than I like, because whether you have noticed it or not, you add a “that’s not true!” to every post that I write. When this is thoughtful and worthwhile to read, it can be great and useful to everyone, but when it’s information-free and strongly worded contradiction, presented with enough rhetoric to make uncareful readers think that something has been said…well, that can be tiresome.