James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ff. We have now discussed ὁ κάκιστος, and it only remains to compare him with ὁ ἄριστος in respect of happiness and misery. The present chapter is introductory to the triad of arguments by means of which Plato proves that the victory rests with ὁ ἄριστος. His description of the misery of the tyrant is based, as he virtually tells us, on the evidence of his own eyes (577 A, B notes), but we should of course remember that in such cases we are apt to see what we wish to see, and Plato's description, regarded as a portrait of Dionysius I, though it doubtless possesses a certain historical value, may well be somewhat overdrawn.

τοῖς δὲ πολλοῖς κτλ. = ‘although the multitude are multitudinous also in their views’ expresses the antithesis implied in the emphatic τῇ ἀληθείᾳ )( τῇ δόξῃ. Herwerden's conjecture τοῖς δὲ πολλοῖς ἄλλα δοκεῖ is singularly feeble and inelegant. The Scholiast neatly remarks πολλὰ δοκεῖ: ἀντὶ τοῦ ψευδῆ: τὸ γὰρ ψεῦδος πολυχοῦν, ‘ἁπλοῦς δ᾽ ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ.’ On Plato's contempt of the many see VI 494 A note

ταῦτα refers to the two questions, not to τοῖς—δοκεῖ. If otherwise, Plato would, I think, have written τοῦτο here.

ὁμοιότητι, though doubted by Ast, Cobet, Herwerden, and others, is sound enough: see on VIII 555 A.