James Adam, The Republic of Plato

ἐν πόλει κτλ. Compare the melancholy picture of Athens in Isocrates Areop. 83 τότε μὲν οὐδεὶς ἦν τῶν πολιτῶν ἐνδεὴς τῶν ἀναγκαίων, οὐδὲ προσαιτῶν τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας τὴν πόλιν κατῄσχυνε, νῦν δὲ πλείους εἰσὶν οἱ σπανίζοντες τῶν ἐχόντων: οἷς ἄξιόν ἐστι πολλὴν συγγνώμην ἔχειν, εἰ μηδὲν τῶν κοινῶν φροντίζουσιν ἀλλὰ τοῦτο σκοποῦσιν, ὁπόθεν τὴν ἀεὶ παροῦσαν ἡμέραν διάξουσιν. The Areopagiticus was published about 354 B.C.

ὀλίγου γε -- ἀρχόντων. Plato's description may be illustrated from the state of Athens just before Solon's legislation: see Solon Fr. 36 ed. Bergk = Arist. Ath. Pol. 12. 4. The words χρησμὸν λέγοντας (in line 9 of the fragment) are certainly not, as some have thought, a corruption of χρείους φυγόντας (as in Aristotle's text), but point to a different recension. χρῃσμὸν λέγοντας ‘gathering alms’ has been suggested (cf. χρῄζω, χρησμοσύνη), and may I think be the original from which the first of the two variants comes.

μὴ οὖν οἰώμεθα: ‘are we, then, not to suppose?’ μή is not ‘num,’ but the negative and goes with οἰώμεθα: cf. I 337 B μὴ ἀποκρίνωμαι ὧν προεῖπες μηδέν; and infra 554 B with other examples cited by Stallbaum: see also Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 187. The positive counterpart of this idiom is οἰώμεθα or βούλει οἰώμεθα: and the negative is due to the jussive idea on which the subjunctive logically depends. οἰόμεθα (see cr. n.) is retained by Schneider and others, μή being construed as ‘num.’ But ‘we do not, then, suppose, do we,’ overdoes the irony, and Stallbaum's explanation is better in every way. On the interchange of ο and ω in Paris A see Introd. § 5.