1. For Pallas as the divinity of seven, Ficino was probably indebted either to Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 10 ( Moralia 354F)—where the notion is attributed to the Pythagoreans; or to Macrobius, In Somnium Scipionis 1.6.11. Cf. Ficino's epitome for Plato's Republic 10 ( Opera , p. 1433): ''Attribuit Pythagorici eundem numerum [septenarium] Palladi, quia neque ex matre genita sit, neque genuerit." See Part One, Chapter 2, n. 74 above.

2. We should recall that optimates is a technical term for the Roman senatorial nobility.

3. It is associated at 544C and 545A with Crete and Sparta and usually referred to as a timocracy.

4. That is, oligarchies and democracies.

5. ab altiori ducit exordio is difficult but refers I take it to Socrates' jocose appeal to the Muses at 545D ff., just before he begins the passage on the geometric number, to address them "in a lofty tragic vein."

6. Politics 5.1316ab. Aquinas (or his continuator), who wrote on the geometric number but did not know Plato's views, complained that Aristotle's phrase was obscure because of its brevity: "Dicta Aristotelis hic obscura sunt valde propter brevitatem ipsorum" ( In Arist. Pol . lib. 5, lect. 13).

7. That is, in time itself. I take contentus here to be from contineo , not from contendo (though the latter with the dative is just possible).

8. That is, I take it, "by a particular arrangement of the stars."

9. I take the "immediate and civil faculty" to refer to Socrates' powers at this time as a political scientist. See Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance 1:330-333.

10. Cicero, Epistle to Atticus 7.13.5: "Enigma . . . plane non intellexi. Est enim numero Platonis obscurius."

11. For Ficino's translation of Theon's Expositio , see Part One, Chapter 1, pp. 31-33 above.

12. The reference is either to the De Vita Pythagorica 27.130-131 (ed. Deubner; trans. Clark, p. 58), or to the In Nicomachi Arithmeticam Introductionem Liber (ed. Pistelli), pp. 82.20-83.18 ff., both of which refer, obscurely, to the Republic 8.546B, though neither passage identifies the Number. See Part One, Chapter 1, p. 35 above.

13. Again a reference to 545E.

14. For Ficino's Timaeus Commentary, see above. This remark suggests that our argumentum was written while Ficino was still working on the Timaeus Commentary (an identical reference occurs incidentally in his epitome for the ninth book of the Republic, Opera , p. 1427). It is just possible that expositio here is referring to a separate numerological treatise that Ficino was thinking of extracting from the Timaeus Commentary, just as he was to extract the third book of the De Vita from his Commentary on the Enneads 3.4.

15. Republic 8.550E ff., cf. 555C, 556C.

16. Ibid. 551C.

17. Ibid. 560BC.

18. Ibid. 564A.

15. Republic 8.550E ff., cf. 555C, 556C.

16. Ibid. 551C.

17. Ibid. 560BC.

18. Ibid. 564A.

15. Republic 8.550E ff., cf. 555C, 556C.

16. Ibid. 551C.

17. Ibid. 560BC.

18. Ibid. 564A.

15. Republic 8.550E ff., cf. 555C, 556C.

16. Ibid. 551C.

17. Ibid. 560BC.

18. Ibid. 564A.

19. Plato, Eighth Letter 354D-355A; cf. Ficino's argumentum, Opera , p. 1535.2, "improbat et extremam libertatem sive licentiam . . . mediam vero probat." See also the Republic 564A.