A single proverb occupies almost all of the notes on On Justice: that poets tell many lies. The scholiast explains that poets once told the truth but turned to invention once prizes were set in the contests, and records that Philochorus mentioned the saying in the first book of his Atthis, and Solon in his elegies, before a last gloss on a reply of assent.
Plato Commentary Old Scholia on Plato: On Justice in Greek in PDF
Plato Commentary Old Scholia on Plato: On Justice in Greek in MD
Part of Old Scholia on Plato
ΕΙΣ ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΝ ΠΕΡΙ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ
πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί.
σημείωσαι παροιμία· πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί.
παροιμία, ὅτι πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί, ἐπὶ τῶν κέρδους ἕνεκα καὶ ψυχαγωγίας ψευδῆ λεγόντων. φασὶ γὰρ τοὺς ποιητὰς πάλαι λέγοντας τἀληθῆ, ἄθλων ὕστερον αὐτοῖς ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι τιθεμένων ψευδῆ καὶ πεπλασμένα λέγειν αἱρεῖσθαι, ἵνα διὰ τούτων ψυχαγωγοῦντες τοὺς ἀκροωμένους τῶν ἄθλων τυγχάνωσιν. ἐμνήσθη ταύτης καὶ Φιλόχωρος ἐν Ἀτθίδος αʹ καὶ Σόλων Ἐλεγείαις καὶ Πλάτων ἐνταῦθα.
ἀδικοῦσιν; ναί. ναί.
