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ἄλλα μυρία: is simply rhetorical exaggeration. The concluding summarizing clause deviates from the regular construction of the sentence, as also in a similar passage in Apol. 41 c ἐπὶ πόσῳ δ᾽ ἄν τις δέξαιτο ἐξετάσαι ἢ Ὀδυσσέα ἢ Σίσυφον, ἢ ἄλλους μυρίους ἄν τις εἴποι κτἑ.
οἶμαι: as well as ἴσως, a couple of lines below, merely softens the expression, without diminishing its positiveness. Cf. 473 a.τὴν τοῦ δικαίου: if these words, which we would rather miss, are genuine, we have a case of word-play, which may be justified on the ground of the proposition above, ἡ δέ γε . . . ἀδυνατωτέρου. The same force must be assigned to τοῦ δικαίου φύσει below (484 c), though the form is different.
ναὶ μὰ Δία κατὰ κτἑ.: a clever play upon the word νόμος. “Nature, too, has its law,—right and custom.”
ἡμεῖς: contains, by the implied contrast, a rebuke. Notice the heaping up of the participles, which, though connected with one verb, are subordinated one to another, quite after the Greek habit. See Kr. 56, 15, with notes.πλάττοντες: the side-idea of artificiality and amateurishness easily attaches itself to this verb. Cf. Apol. 17 c μειρακίῳ πλάττοντι λόγους. It is applied to laws, as here, also Leg. iv. 712 b πειρώμεθα καθάπερ παῖδες πρεσβῦται πλάττειν τῷ λόγῳ τοὺς νόμους.
15 f. ἐκ νέων λαμβάνοντες: cf. Apol. 18 b ἐκ παίδων παραλαβόντες. The usual word for ‘receiving into school’ is the compound. Cf. 516 b. The use of the simple verb here implies a forcible compulsory manner of treatment.
ὥσπερ λέοντας κατεπᾴδοντες: the comparison describes with bitterness the suppression of the so-called natural freedom, in that it compares education to the taming of wild beasts (καταδουλούμεθα). κατεπᾴδειν applies to soothing by certain formulae, or charms; γοητεύειν to the employment of forms of magic and witchcraft. Meno uses the same expression regarding the dialectic proof of Socrates, 80 a καὶ νῦν, ὥς γ᾽ ἐμοὶ δοκεῖς, γοητεύεις με καὶ φαρμάττεις καὶ ἀτεχνῶς κατεπᾴδεις. In a jesting way, without feeling, ἐπᾴδειν is used in Phaedo 77 e, ἐπῳδή in Charm. 155 e.
Gonzalez Lodge. Commentary on Plato Gorgias. Ginn & Company. Boston and London. 1891.
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