James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ἀποτεθρυμμένοι: lit. ‘broken off’ i.e. ‘truncated,’ ‘maimed.’ The word is rare, and apparently used only here by Plato. Schneider thus explains the preposition: “quorum animis quasi arboribus cacumina defracta et vires ad enitendum necessariae debilitatae sunt.” A comparison of Theaet. 173 A πολλὰ κάμπτονται καὶ συγκλῶνται and Prot. 325 D ὥσπερ ξυλον διαστρεφόμενον καὶ καμπτόμενον εὐθύνουσιν ἀπειλαῖς καὶ πληγαῖς makes it not unlikely that the metaphor is as Schneider supposes. On the vox nihili ἀποτεθρυωμένοι (in the margin of Flor. A) see Ruhnken on Timaeus Lex. s.v. Timaeus seems to have found it in his text of the Republic.

διὰ τὰς βαναυσίας. Cf. Xen. Oec. 4. 2 αἵ γε βαναυσικαὶ καλούμεναι (sc. τέχναι）—καταλυμαίνονται—τὰ σώματα τῶν τε ἐργαζομένων καὶ τῶν ἐπιμελομένων, ἀναγκάζουσαι καθῆσθαι καὶ σκιατραφεῖσθαι, ἔνιαι δὲ καὶ πρὸς πῦρ ἡμερεύειν. τῶν δὲ σωμάτων θηλυνομένων καὶ αἱ ψυχαὶ πολὺ ἀρρωστότεραι γίγνονται. It is probable that βαναυσία was “primarily a military conception, dependent for its origin on the obvious fact that certain modes of life and the exercise of certain trades disqualify from prowess in the field” (Greenidge Gk. Const. History p. 22, quoting in support Hdt. II 165—167). “Sedentary and within-door arts,” says Bacon (quoted by Newman Politics of Aristotle I p. 105), “have in their nature a contrariety to a military disposition.” In practice the term is freely applied by the writers of the best period to every kind of mechanical or illiberal labour or pursuit. Aristotle defines βαναυσία in these words: βάναυσον δ᾽ ἔργον εἶναι δεῖ τοῦτο νομίζειν καὶ τέχνην ταύτην καὶ μάθησιν, ὅσαι πρὸς τὰς χρήσεις καὶ τὰς πράξεις τὰς τῆς ἀρετῆς ἄχρηστον ἀπεργάζονται τὸ σῶμα τῶν ἐλευθέρων ἢ τὴν ψυχὴν ἢ τὴν διάνοιαν (Pol. Θ 2. 1337^{b} 8 ff.). See also Whibley Gk. Olig. pp. 42 ff. and Newman l.c. pp. 104—115. The ancients mostly derived the word from βαῦνος ‘a furnace’ and αὔω, “quasi βάναυσος qui caminum accendit” (Stephanus-Hase Thes. s. v.). In view of the Boeotian βανά=γυνή and βανῆκας: γυναῖκας Βοιωτοί in Hesychius, I have conjectured in Cl. Rev. VII p. 112 that βάναυσος, which does not look like an Attic word, may be connected with βανά. If so, the word perhaps originally meant ‘effeminate’ ‘unmanly’: cf. θηλυνομένων in the extract quoted from Xenophon. In any case, however, the ancient etymology can hardly be right.

δοκεῖς οὖν τι κτλ. In the ‘little bald tinker’ several critics have recognised Isocrates: see for example Teichmüller Lit. Fehd. I p. 105 and Jackson's article on the Sophists in the Enc. Brit. ἐκ δεσμῶν λελυμένου—ἐν βαλανείῳ δὲ λελουμένου is an admirable example of rhetorical παρομοίωσις, and satirises the tricks of style for which Isocrates was notorious. But all the sophistical rhetoricians of the school of Gorgias affected meretricious ornaments of this kind (see Hug on Symp. 194 E ff. and especially Cope's Rhetoric of Aristotle III pp. 105, 106), and Plato's shafts are not levelled at Isocrates alone. As usual, he individualises the type, and if the resultant picture resembles Isocrates, so much the worse for him. Plato would not be sorry (cf. Euthyd. 305 ff., with Spengel's Isokr. u. Pl. pp. 36—40), and doubtless intended his readers to think of Isocrates, as they certainly would. See also on 498 E.

ἀργύριον κτλ. Cf. Cratin. Seriph. 2 Meineke ἀνδρῶν νεοπλουτοπονήρων | αἰσχρῶν.

φαλακροῦ καὶ σμικροῦ. Was Isocrates bald and short? The bust of him in the Villa Albani is not bald, and it would be pressing the personality to the verge of absurdity to take these words so seriously. The poverty (πενίαν etc.) and loneliness is of course the daughter's (cf. 495 C ἔρημον καὶ ἀτελῆ φιλοσοφίαν λείποντες), not her father's, as D. and V. suppose. In other words τοῦ δεσπότου belongs only to τὴν θυγατέρα.