James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ὃ οὐ πάνυ ῥᾴδιον. Cf. 499 C note Plato's κάθαρσις is sufficiently drastic. He would rusticate the entire population above ten years of age, and bring up the remainder in the principles of his καλλίπολις (VII 540 E ff. note).

διενέγκοιεν. See cr. n. Schneider retains διενεγκεῖν, comparing other passages in which ὅτι is followed by an infinitive. Instances of this irregularity occasionally occur (Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 877), but it is unusually awkward here, and the majority of editors are probably right in following q. With the sentiment cf. Laws 735 B—736 C, where the necessity of an initial κάθαρσις is equally insisted on, and various forms of legislative purgation are described.

μήτε ἰδιώτου κτλ. The individual is cleansed by the Socratic elenchus, which purges him of his false persuasion of knowledge: cf. Soph. 230 B—E, where this kind of κάθαρσις is expounded in detail. Gildersleeve (A. J. Ph. III p. 201) points out that the ‘articular infinitive’ with ἄν is rare in Plato.

γράφειν νόμους: ‘to paint or draft laws.’ Richards is inclined to cancel μηδὲ—νόμους as involving “a most awkward and inartistic confusion of the figure (painting) with the thing figured (legislation).” Nothing is more usual in Plato than such a ‘confusion,’ if the phrase employed bears, like γράφειν νόμους, or is capable of bearing, like ἀνδρείκελον below, a meaning of its own as well as an application in the simile, and it is a narrow conception of art which pronounces the idiom inartistic. Cf. 507 A note and Euthyph. 3 A with my note ad loc., and see also on V 451 B. Cobet's ἐγγράφειν νόμους, which Baiter adopts, is another unsuccessful attempt to obliterate this characteristic feature of Plato's stvle.

παραλαβεῖν καθαράν. Plato would cite as examples a tutor who is entrusted with the sole authority over a child, and legislators who (as in the Laws 702 B ff.) receive autocratic power in order to found a colony. Cf. 499 B note