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ξενικούς -- παντοδαπούς. The body-guard of foreign mercenaries was a familiar feature in Greek tyrannies: see Xen. Hiero 5. 3 and (for Dionysius in particular) Grote X p. 221.

τί δέ;—ποιήσασθαι; The words from αὐτόθεν to ποιήσασθαι form a single sentence, πῶς being neglected: cf. πῇ δὴγίγνεται in 549 C, where see note and Jebb quoted ad loc. αὐτόθεν by its emphatic position already suggests what Socrates is about to say; and Adimantus' interruption, besides its stylistic effect, expresses the anxiety and horror with which the bare idea of such a proceeding would inspire a Greek. “Slaves were normally of non-Greek race; so this is what enlisting a band of negroes would be in the United States to-day” (Bosanquet). The best MSS read τίς δὲ αὐτόθεν κτλ., but τίς is indefensible, and retained by no editor. Schneider's τοὺς δὲ αὐτόθεν (with several MSS of inferior authority) seems to me grammatically awkward, as well as lifeless and dull. In Richards' proposal τί δέ; αὐτόθεν ἆῤ οὐκ ἂν ἐθελήσειέ πως τοὺς δούλους etc., the enclitic πως is singularly weak. J. and C., who print, with Hermann and Stallbaum, τί δέ; αὐτόθενἐθελήσειε; and a full-stop after ποιήσασθαι, supply “some general notion such as λαβεῖν or ποιήσασθαι” with ἐθελήσειεν “from μεταπέμψεται in the previous sentence”—surely an impossible solution. The punctuation in the text removes, I think, all difficulty, if the words are taken as I take them.

τοὺς δούλους κτλ. As Dionysius, for example, did (Grote X p. 221 and Freeman's Sicily IV p. 13).

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