Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias

ῥήματι: in an expression. See on 450 e. Callicles takes his stand on the identity, which he had maintained, of βελτίων and κρείττων, but reverses the relation of these words to each other; for while above he considered βελτίων to be synonymous with κρείττων, now he wishes κρείττων to be understood in the sense of βέλτίων.

οὐ πάλαι σοι λέγω: he adds, in order to cover this change of conception. See on 456 a.

ἢ οἴει κτἑ.: Callicles allows himself to be clearly recognized as a member of that political party which applied to itself by preference the name οἱ καλοὶ κἀγαθοί, and which both during the latter part and after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war obtained for a brief period the ascendency in Athens.

σύρφετος: from σύρω, sweep. Cf. the English colloquial words ‘off-scourings’ and ‘scum.’

ἀξίων πλήν: without a following gen., instead of which we find τῷ σώματι ἰσχυρίσασθαι by means of their bodily strength. Others construe τῷ with σώματι, making the inf. depend upon some word of ability to be taken from ἀξίων, but this is harsh.

αὐτὰ ταῦτα εἶναι νόμιμα: construe with λέγειν as an indignant disclaimer in the shape of a question. “Or think you I mean that if a rabble be got together, of slaves and all sorts of wretches, good for nothing unless perhaps for feats of physical strength, and these people say this or that, that these their mere dicta are to have the force of law?” Thompson.

αἰτὸς πάλαι τοπάζω: why So