James Adam, The Republic of Plato

---

πονηροὶ γὰρ κτλ. Stallbaum (followed by D. and V.) wrongly takes αὐτοῖς as ‘in their eyes.’ The reasoning is difficult only from its brevity. If it is δίκαιον βλάπτειν ἀδίκους, and men sometimes suppose that a man is good when he is bad (πονηροὶ γὰρ αὐτοῖς εἰσὶν ‘for they have bad friends’), then since friend has been defined as one whom we suppose to be good (334 C), it is sometimes δίκαιον βλάπτειν φίλους. Stallbaum's view is quite inconsistent with the definition of friends in 334 C as οὓς ἄν τις ἡγῆται χρηστούς.

τὸν φίλον καὶ ἐχθρόν. Hartman (with some inferior MSS) wishes to insert τόν before ἐχθρόν; but cf. infra III 400 D and many other examples cited by himself. To pronounce them all corrupt is to destroy the basis on which our knowledge of Platonic idiom rests.

τὸν δοκοῦντά τε -- καὶ τὸν ὄντα. The meaning required—‘he who both seems and is good’—would be more correctly expressed by τὸν δοκοῦντά τε—καὶ ὄντα (so Ast and others), but “aliquid tribuendum interpositis ἧ δ᾽ ὅς, quae negligentiam repetendi, si est negligentia, saltem excusant” (Schneider, who compares also infra 341 B ποτέρως λεγεις τὸν ἄρχοντά τε καὶ τὸν κρείττονα). In τὸν δὲ δοκοῦντα μέν, ὄντα δὲ μή Polemarchus expresses himself more accurately.