Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias

αὕτη γάρ τις βοήθεια: the use of τὶς instead of the art. shows that Socrates feels he is stretching language a little. The dat. is after the analogy of the preceding dat. with the partic.; but see on 513 b.

ἐξελέγχοι: should confute me by showing. Hence the partic. follows the analogy of verbs of showing.

20 f.

καὶ ἐν πολλοῖς καὶ ἐν ὀλίγοις: “whether . . . or.”

μόνος ὑπὸ μόνου: the disgrace, to the mind of Socrates, consists, not in the fact that one suffers a defeat at the hands of his adversary ἐναντίον πολλῶν, but in the unsuspected weakness which is thus laid bare. Hence, so far as the purpose in hand is concerned, ταύτην τὴν ἀδυναμίαν would be equivalent to ἀδικίαν.

εἰ δὲ κολακικῆς κτἑ.: so Socrates also declares after his sentence, Apol. 38 d ἀπορίᾳ μὲν ἑάλωκα, οὐ μέντοι λόγων, ἀλλὰ τόλμης καὶ ἀναισχυντίας καὶ τοῦ ἐθέλειν λέγειν πρὸς ὑμᾶς τοιαῦτα, οἰ̔̂ ἂν ὑμῖν ἥδιστ᾽ ἦν ἀκούειν, and in 38 e, after he has given a characterization of that rhetoric to the use of which he would not lower himself, οὔτε νῦν μοι μεταμέλει οὕτως ἀπολογησαμένῳ, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον αἱροῦμαι ὧδε ἀπολογησάμενος τεθνάναι ἢ ἐκείνως ζῆν.