R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato

ἀνόμοια...νοσήματα. “Divers diseases”: the adj. is similarly used in Arist. Poet. 24. 1459^{b} 30 ἐπεισοδιοῦν ἀνομοίοις ἐπεισοδίοις, “relieving the story with varying episodes” (Butcher): cp. id. H. An. IV. 1. 523^{b} 12: Hippocr. de flat. 3 δοκέει μὲν οὖν τὰ νουσήματα οὐδὲν ἀλλήλοισιν ἐοικέναι διὰ τὴν ἀλλοιότητα καὶ ἀνομοιότητα τῶν τόπων.

πάχναι...καὶ ἐρυσῖβαι. Timaeus defines thus: ἐρυσίβη μιλτώδης δρόσος: πάχνη δὲ δρόσος χιονώδης. Roman religion had a goddess Robigo. Ruhnken (ad Tim. p. 122) cites Orph. de lap. 15, v. 91 καὶ αἰθερίην ἐρυσίβην, | ἥτε κατουρανόθεν πταμένη ποτὶ καρπὸν ἐρυθρή, | ἀμφὶ περὶ σταχύεσσι περισμύχουσα κάθηται.

τῶν τοιούτων γίγνεται κτλ. There are two difficulties in this passage: (1) the singular verb after the plural subjects is harsh; to explain it we must assume a mental unification of the subjects, of which similar but easier instances occur in Rep. 363 A, 618 D, Laws 925 E. We might evade this difficulty by removing the colon at φυτοῖς, marking καὶ γὰρ...ἐρυσῖβαι as parenthetic, and thus construing ἄλλα...νοσήματα as the direct subject of γίγνεται. (2) We should naturally expect τοιούτων to have the same reference here as τῶν τοιούτων has above (viz. to the combinations of elements in which the bad Eros predominates), whereas it seemingly stands in agreement with <*>οωτικῶν: this being so, what does ἐρωτικῶν precisely mean? For it cannot well retain, in this connexion, its proper meaning as genitive of τὰ ἐρωτικά “the laws of affinity” (186 C, 187 C). Ought we, then, to put a stop after γίγνεται and begin a new sentence with ἐρωτικῶν οὖν ἐπιστήμη κτλ.?

ἀστρονομία. The term as here used includes what we should rather call “meteorology”: cp. Rep. 527 D τρίτον θῶμεν ἀστρονομίαν;...τὸ γὰρ περὶ ὥρας εὐαισθητοτέρως ἔχειν καὶ μηνῶν καὶ ἐνιαυτῶν...ναυτιλίᾳ προσήκει. For “astronomy” as a regular part of the school curriculum see n. on παιδεία 187 D, and cp. Theaet. 145 C, D; Protag. 318 E.

ἡ περὶ θεούς...κοινωνία. Simpler would have been ἡ θεῶν...κοινωνία, but, as Hug remarks, “Eryximachus liebt das unbestimmte περί c. accus.”