James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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σὲ δὲ τίς κτλ. Yet it is a genuinely Greek sentiment that ‘Poets are the unacknowledged’—a Greek would have said ‘acknowledged’—‘legislators of the world’ (Shelley).

Χαρώνδαν κτλ. Charondas, of Catana in Sicily, the legislator of the Chalcidian colonies in Italy and Sicily, is not elsewhere mentioned by Plato, though frequently by Aristotle: see Susemihl and Hicks on Arist. Pol. A 2. 1252^{b} 14. The date of Charondas is probably the sixth century B.C.: see Niese in Pauly-Wissowa art. Charondas, where the authorities relating to this early legislator are cited and reviewed. It is worth noting, in view of Ἰταλία here and elsewhere in Plato (Laws 777 C, Tim. 20 A: cf. also Laws 659 B), that an argument against the genuineness of the seventh Platonic Epistle has been derived from the fact that it mentions Italy (326 B, 339 D): see Hermann, Gesch. u. System p. 591 note 213.

Ὁμηριδῶν: ‘votaries of Homer,’ ‘Homer's devotees.’ So the word is rightly explained by Heine (de rat. quae Pl. c. poet. Gr. intercedit pp. 18—22), and also by Jebb (Homer p. 78). Cf. Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέταις 606 E and the use of Ὁμηρίδαι in Ion 530 E, Phaedr. 252 B. The original meaning of Ὁμηρίδαι is discussed by Jebb l.c.

ἀλλὰ δή like ἀλλὰ γάρ=‘at enim’ (II 365 C note).