James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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357A - 358E Socrates had thought the conversation at an end, but Glauco revives the theory of Thrasymachus. A threefold classification of goods is first agreed upon. Goods are desirable either (1) for their own sakes, or (2) both for their own sakes and for their consequences, or (3) for their consequences alone. Justice is placed by Socrates in the second and noblest of these three classes. Glauco on the other hand asserts that the Many place it in the third, and proposes to advocate the belief of the Many, not as holding it himself, but in order to compel Socrates to defend Justice and condemn Injustice solely on their merits. Thrasymachus, he thinks, has cried off too soon.

ἐγὼ κτλ. λόγου is abstract =τοῦ λέγειν, not ‘the discussion’ (Jowett), which would be τοῦ λόγου. For τὸ δέ see on I 340 D.

ἦν ἄρα: ‘was after all,’ as in IV 443 C τὸ δέ γε ἦν ἄρα—εἴδωλόν τι τῆς δικαιοσύνης and Soph. Tr. 1172 τὸ δ᾽ ἦν ἄρ᾽ οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν θανεῖν ἐμέ. With προοίμιον cf. infra VII 531 D, Aesch. P. V. 740 f. ο<*>ς γὰρ νῦν ἀκήκοας λόγους | εἶναι δοκεῖ σοι μηδέπω ᾿ν προοιμίοις, and Shakespeare Macbeth I 3 “As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme.” For the sense see the last note on Book I. There is no good ground for supposing (with von Sybel De Platonis Proemiis Academicis） that either Book I of the Republic or the rest of Plato's dialogues were intended merely as προοίμια or ‘Programs’ to attract pupils to his lectures.

βούλει κτλ. The antithesis is between δοκεῖν πεπεικέναι and πεῖσαι, and βούλει is used in its natural sense, not (as Ast thinks) with the force of μᾶλλον βούλει.