Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias

τοῦθ᾽ ὅρα: returns to the beginning, since the sense has become somewhat obscured by the intervening additions. The use of σοὶ καὶ ἐμοί resumes the previous unemphatic σὲ, inasmuch as each one wishes to obtain the others' acceptance of his own view of life.

τὰς Θετταλίδας: the Thessalian women were very skilful in sorcery and poisoning. They stood in close relation to the night-goddess Hecate; hence people ascribed to them the power to draw the moon from the heavens. Strepsiades says in Ar. Nub. 749 γυναῖκα φαρμακίδ᾽ εἰ πριάμενος Θετταλὴν | καθέλοιμι νύκτωρ τὴν σελήνην κτἑ. Cf. Hor. Epod. 5. 45 quae sidera excantata voce Thessala | lunamque caelo deripit. For this, however, the goddess exacted punishment, for Suidas says αἱ τὴν σελήνην καθαιροῦσαι Θετταλίδες λέγονται τῶν ὀφθάλμων καὶ τῶν παίδων (v. l. ποδῶν) στερίσκεσθαι. εἴρηται ἐπὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῖς τὰ κακὰ ἐπισπωμένων ἡ παροιμία. Cf. also Plin. N. H. XXX. I. 2 (6). Aristophanes' designation of them under the name φαρμακίς, while it implies that their art consisted in the manipulation of drugs, does not limit us to that view, because Herodotus, vii. 114, uses the verb φαρμακεύειν in speaking of the sacrifice of white horses by the Magi to the river Strymon.

33 f.

σὺν τοῖς φιλτάτοις: at the risk of our dearest interests. For the asyn deton, see on 450 b.

τὰ φίλτατα: denotes the soul and its ἀρετή, as in Prot. 314 a ὅρα, ὦ μακάριε, μὴ περὶ τοῖς φιλτάτοις κυβεύῃς καὶ κινδυνεύῃς. In αἵρεσις lies a play on καθαιρεῖν.

ὁντινοῦν ἀνθρώπων: recalls the promises made for rhetoric by Gorgias.