James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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προαγορεύουσι κτλ. Athens is plainly in Plato's mind. The Athenians carefully guarded their constitution by means of the γραφὴ παρανόμων and the εἰσαγγελία (see Gilbert's Gk. Const. Ant. E.T. pp. 299, 304 ff.); but nowhere were ψηφίσματα so common, and in these the demagogue found a wide field for exercising the arts of flattery and insinuation. Cf. Gilbert Beiträge zur innern Gesch. Athens pp. 73—93. With ἀποθανουμένους ὅς cf. III 411 C note, VIII 566 D (πάντας ᾧ ἂν περιτυγχάνῃ).

ὃς δ᾽ ἂν σφᾶς κτλ. Dümmler (l.c.) takes this to be Isocrates, who is also—so he thinks—satirised in the similar passage VI 493 A ff., and elsewhere. If so, σοφὸς τὰ μεγάλα, οἴονται τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πολιτικοὶ εἶναι, and ἢ οἴει—περὶ αὑτοῦ (D, E) are sufficiently true and scathing. We must however observe that Plato is describing a type, and the type is that of the demagogue rather than the merely academic and sophistical rhetorician, as appears from δεινὸς ᾖ ἀποπληροῦν and 426 E. These two types are cast in similar moulds; and Dümmler may be right in supposing that Plato thought of Isocrates as he wrote this satire, and pointed his shafts accordingly. If so, they hit the mark, and rankled, as it was natural they should. Isocrates apparently attempts a reply in his Antidosis (Dümmler l.c. p. 9).

οὗτος ἄρα -- ἔσται. To insert ὡς after οὗτος (as Richards proposes) would spoil the effect, and be grammatically awkward. Plato wishes to suggest the language of a proclamation ‘he shall be a good man and true,’ etc. ἄρα is enough (as Hartman notes) to mark the indirect: cf. II 358 C note