James Adam, The Republic of Plato

αὐτὸς γὰρ κτλ. ‘I frequently experience what you describe when I am on my way to the country,’ sc. through the congested streets of Athens. Jowett's ‘when I take a country walk’ is hardly accurate. The present πορευόμενος should be taken in its full force.

κἂν ὁτιοῦν κτλ. If the middle is to be pressed, we must translate: ‘if any man applies to himself the very least degree of slavery’ etc. That is to say, they are so sensitive that they cannot bear to see any one making himself even a willing slave. In the sacred name of Freedom, Democracy, which is now on the verge of Tyranny, puts freedom down. The sentiment is perhaps a little exaggerated, but otherwise suitable enough; only we should rather have expected Plato to express this meaning by αὐτὸς α<*>τῷ προσφέρῃ. If there were any well-authenticated examples of the middle of προσφέρειν used for the active, it would be better to construe προσφέρηται as if it were προσφέρῃ, and suppose that the slavery is applied to others: but the instances of προσφέρεσθαι=προσφέρειν in Stephanus-Hase s. v. are either dubious or from late authors. The syllable -ται at the end of a line is sometimes abbreviated in uncial MSS (see Bond and Thompson Public. of the Pal. Soc. I Plate 106), and this fact lends additional plausibility to W. H. Thompson's conjecture, that we should write προσφέρῃ for προσφέρηται. I once proposed τισί, and the proposal is approved by a critic in Hermathena XXIV p. 252. The citizens become so sensitive that the least degree of pressure applied to any section of them rouses them all. Meantime, as neither of these conjectures is quite convincing, I have retained the MS reading pro tempore, although I think Thompson's conjecture represents what Plato meant to say.

τελευτῶντες γὰρ κτλ. There is steady deterioration; and the last stage of democracy is the worst. Aristotle holds the same opinion: see Pol. Δ 6. 1293^{a} 1 ἡ τελευταία τοῖς χρόνοις ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι γεγενημένη along with 1291^{b} 30 —1292^{a} 37.

οὐδὲ τῶν νόμων κτλ. Cf. Laws. 701 B and Xen. Hell. I 7. 12 ff. Such a democracy works by means of ψηφίσματα rather than laws, and is ἀνάλογον τῶν μοναρχιῶν τῇ τυραννίδι (Arist. l.c. Cf. also Gilbert Beiträge zur inn. Gesch. Athens pp. 79 ff.).