James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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οὗ μὲν μᾶλλον κτλ. See again Whibley l.c. pp. 126—132. As an example of a moderate oligarchy (in the Platonic sense) we may take the Solonian constitution, which was, broadly speaking, the ideal of the moderate oligarchs at Athens towards the end of the fifth century (Beloch Att. Pol. p. 74: cf. Thuc. VIII 97. 2), and is commended by Plato in Laws 698 B ff.

ἢ βίᾳ κτλ. “To an Athenian, as to ourselves, this would naturally suggest a revolution against a democratic system such as took place at the establishment of the Four Hundred in 411 B.C., or of the Thirty in 404 B.C., and constantly throughout Greece during the Peloponnesian war” (Bosanquet). The remark applies with equal force to πρὸ τούτου φοβήσαντες (cf. Thuc. VIII 66. 2), and it can scarcely be doubted that the familiar struggles of oligarchy against democracy in his own as well as other times supplied Plato with this detail of the picture. But the employment of force would be equally necessary in order to transform a timarchy into an oligarchy, owing to the opposition to be apprehended from the impoverished and relatively poorer sections of the timarchs, who would under an oligarchy be formally and for ever excluded from office. The conspiracy of Cinadon partly illustrates Plato's point; for it was supported by ὑπομείονες, and suppressed by force (Xen. Hell. III 3. 4—11 with Grote IX pp. 70 ff.). Krohn (Pl. St. p. 211) asserts that Plato has already forgotten 545 C, D, where constitutional change was said to originate from στάσις in the ruling class. But the struggle between those timarchs who have, and those who have not, the proposed τίμημα, is in reality στάσις between the rulers, for until timarchy is abrogated by law, the poor, if otherwise qualified, are de iure rulers as well as the rich. In Sparta it would be otherwise, because those who failed to pay their contributions to the ξυσσίτια ceased ipso facto to be rulers; only Plato's timarchy is not in this particular a copy of Sparta, but rather resembles Crete (547 D, 551 A notes). See also on 545 C.

κατεστήσαντο κτλ. For the aorist cf. 548 D note ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν is illustrated on I 341 B. ἔφαμεν refers to 544 C.