James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ἐνέσονται . ἐγγενήσονται is conjectured by Richards, who compares 521 C and VIII 552 E, 557 C. The proposal is attractive, but involves too great a departure from the MSS. ἐνέσονται moreover is better suited to καὶ κατὰ ποίας—ἁπτόμενοι than ἐγγενήσονται would be. τίνα τρόπον ἐνέσονται means, I think, not how they will be produced (that is expressed in ἐκ τίνων—ἐπιτηδευμάτων), but how they will be in the city, i.e. the whole subject of their position and standing in the State. It is this, as well as their education, which is described in the sequel. The present sentence is intended as a full and accurate forecast of the rest of VI and VII. Ξ has ἔσονται, which was read till Bekker restored ἐνέσονται.

οὐδὲν κτλ. Cf. 497 C, D notes There, as here, the κατάστασις τῶν ἀρχόντων and the position of women and children etc. are treated as parts of one and the same question. The first obscure hint of this connexion is in IV 423 E, but it is not till V 471 C ff. that we begin to see the intimate relation between the two subjects. In V 450 C Socrates for the first time touches on the question ‘Are our proposals about women’ etc. ‘possible?’ The same question reappears in 471 C, but with a larger scope ‘Is the perfect city possible as a whole?’ The reply is ‘Yes, if Philosophers are Kings’; and thus is re-opened the whole subject of the κατάστασις τῶν ἀρχόντων. Plato is therefore justified in connecting, as he does, the two topics here mentioned. But he overstates the case when he asserts that the κατάστασις τῶν ἀρχόντων has been omitted in Books III and IV (see III 412 B ff.), or slurred over in the same way as the Community of Wives and Children, in spite of various hints of a fuller treatment still to come (III 414 A: cf. IV 442 C note). See also on 503 A and Krohn Pl. St. p. 127, Pfleiderer Zur Lösung etc. p. 28, with the replies of Grimmelt de reip. Pl. comp. et unit. p. 49 and Westerwick de rep. Pl. comm. pp. 54 ff.

τὴν -- κατάστασιν=‘the appointment of the Rulers’ is equivalent, as in the title or heading of a chapter, to τὸ περὶ τῆς—καταστάσεως. Of this subject the Rulers' education naturally forms the most important part; but we ought not to explain τῶν ἀρχόντων as brachylogical for τῆς τῶν ἀρχόντων παιδείας (with Krohn Pl. St. p. 126).

παντελῶς ἀληθής. The adjective should be translated literally, so as to suggest that the best κατάστασις is also the truest. The ideal is the true in Plato: cf. V 473 A note