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οὔτε γε κτλ. καί appears before οὔτε in ΠΞ q and a majority of MSS, but the reading of A is, I now think, right. We should translate ‘At all events, said I, they are unwilling to extinguish this kind of mischief when it is beginning to break into a flame, either by preventing’ etc. If they quenched it in its earlier stages, then the πτωχοί would not be πολλοί: and πολύν bears the emphasis in both the previous sentences. For this use of γε see 559 B note, and cf. IX 581 C and (with Schneider) Isocr. Paneg. 153. With ἐκκαόμενον cf. Ar. Peace 1132. D. and V. understand the word of ‘cauterizing,’ wrongly, as ἀποσβεννύναι shews. ὅπῃ. I formerly, with two inferior MSS, Bekker and Ast, read ὅποι, which is certainly more exact: see the examples cited by Blaydes on Ar. Clouds 858 τὰς δ᾽ ἐμβάδας ποῖ τέτροφας; The verb βούλεται is however treated as more than a mere auxiliary, and the relative accommodated to it by a species of attraction, even at the cost of sacrificing something of the peculiar force of τρέπειν. Translate ‘to dispose of one's property as one likes.’ ἕτερον νόμον. Plato's language here and in ὃς μετ᾽ ἐκεῖνόν ἐστι δεύτερος seems to imply that such a law would not be altogether a novelty in Greece. According to Theophrastus (Frag. 97. 5 Wimmer=Stob. Flor. 44. 22), it found a place among the laws of Charondas: ἐὰν δέ τις πιστεύσῃ, μὴ εἶναι δίκην: αὐτὸν γὰρ αἴτιον εἶναι τῆς ἀδικίας. Plato makes a similar provision in Laws 742 C, 849 E, 915 E.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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