James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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κολακείας κτλ. πένητες has been variously explained as (1) for <αἷς ἔνοχοι ἂν εἶεν> πένητες or the like (Schneider), (2) in partitive apposition with the subject of ἀπηλλαγμένοι ἂν εἶεν (one of J. and C.'s alternatives), (3) nominative to ἴσχουσι (Shorey in A. J. Ph. XVI p. 237). J. and C. also suggest that κολακείας is “genitive singular in the same case as ὧν.” If so, we should read ἀλγηδόνος with q: but there is no room for doubt that κολακείας is the accusative plural. Of these interpretations (1) is too difficult, while (3) is hardly possible, unless πένητες is placed after ἴσχουσι, as was once proposed by Ast, who afterwards preferred to read ἀπηλλαγμένοι ἂν εἶεν <πένητες>, and finally wished to excise the word altogether. (2) is, I think, defensible, if we remember the Greek partiality for this kind of construction (IV 431 A note), and the occasional irregularities of Platonic style. See also on VIII 556 C, D. Jackson conjectures πένητος (‘the poor man's flatteries of the rich’), Stallbaum πενίας in the sense of πενήτων. I think πένητες is probably due to Plato: but if not, the word may be a gloss on κολακείας τε πλουσίων or on ἴσχουσι.

οἰκετῶν: not=οἰκείων as the Scholiast says, but domestici, ‘those of the household’ (οἱ κατὰ τὸν οἷκον πάντες Hesychius), including, of course, slaves. Where there is no οἰκία, as in Plato's eity, there can be no οἰκέται. Plato's communism involves the abolition of domestic slavery as well as of family ties. See also on 469 B, C.

τὰ μὲν -- παραδόντες: an interesting glimpse of the economic condition of the Athenian poor. Cf. Ar. Clouds 1172 ff. The agreement in tense makes it probable that πορισάμενοι, θέμενοι, and παραδόντες are grammatically coordinate; although the money must of course be procured before it is deposited. The asyndeton has a rhetorical effect: cf. II 362 B note Hartman would omit παραδόντες; but παραδιδόναι takes an infinitive more easily than τίθεσθαι.

ὅσα τε κτλ.: ‘and the various and manifold troubles which men suffer in connexion with such matters, all of them obvious enough and ignoble, and not worth spending words upon.’ δειλά τε for δῆλά τε δή has slight MS authority, but is only an absurd attempt to represent δἰ ἀπρέπειαν in C above. Still worse is the conjecture δοῦλά, which Herwerden approves.