J. Adam, A. M. Adam, Commentary on Plato, Protagoras
J. Adam & A. M. Adam, Ed.

9. ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν εὑρὼν ἀπαλλελέω: after Bergk's emendation for the ἔπειθ᾽ ὑμῖν of the MSS., which cannot be made to scan: see Appendix I, p. 217. It might be possible (in view especially of φησίν in the next line) to regard ἔπειτα here as no part of the poem, were it not for 346D where it must be part. ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν is the most probable of the many emendations proposed and accounts by far the most easily for the reading of the MSS. ἐπί is to be taken with εὑρών, and τε is like the quasignomic τε in Homer, e.g. Il. I. 218 ὅς κε θεοῖς ἐπιπείθηται, μάλα τ᾽ ἔκλυον αὐτοῦ. Translate ‘“trust me, I will tell you when I've found your man”, says he’. ὑμῖν (a kind of ethic dative) does not belong so much to ἀπαλλελέω as to ἐφευρών. What Simonides himself wrote was no doubt ἐπί τ᾽ ὔμμιν (availing himself of the Aeolic form as in the next line); this Plato put in Attic as ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν, from which to ἔπειθ᾽ ὑμῖν the step was easy. Sauppe's ἐπὶ δή μιν εὑρών and Kroschel's ἐπεὶ οὔτιν᾽ εὑρών are hardly happy.

10. φησίν applies only to the last line: the former φησὶ γάρ covers the first sentence.

12. πάντας ὅστις: so below in l. 16 ὥστε τούτους φάναι ἐπαινεῖν ὃς ἄν and in l. 23 ὃς ἂν—τούτων: see also note on 319D

14. ἀνάγκῃ δ᾽ οὐδὲ θεοὶμάχονται. Proverbial: cf. Laws, VII. 818B ἔοικεν ὁ τὸν θεὸν πρῶτον παροιμιασάμενος—εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐδὲ θεὸς ἀνάγκῃ μή ποτε φανῇ μαχόμενος. Aars quotes the words of Agamemnon in Il. XIX. 86 ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι, ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς.

17. ὃς ἂν ἑκὼν—ποιῇ: but ἑκὼν ὅστις ἕρδῃ without ἄν above, as often in poetry: Goodwin, M.T. p. 208, § 540.

19. οὐδεὶς τῶν σοφῶν—ἑκόντα ἐξαμαρτάνειν. The doctrine that no one sins willingly—a corollary of the view that vice is only ignorance—is characteristic of the ethical teaching both of Socrates and Plato (compare note on 324Aand on Euthyphr. 2C), but not of all Greek sages, and it is only by the most perverse sophistry that Socrates here reads it into Simonides, ignoring entirely the words ἀνάγκῃ δ᾽ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται.