Though my opinion of them has been getting lower and lower, I was a little surprised not to find this quote from Phaedo 90 explained in the Platonic scholia: “ὥσπερ ἐν Εὐρίπῳ ἄνω κάτω στρέφεται καὶ χρόνον οὐδένα ἐν οὐδενὶ μένει.” I was able to find the proverb in scattered places in Greek literature through a TLG search, but nothing that explained it, and I eventually had to look it up in Burnet, who directs the reader to Strabo 9: “περὶ δὲ τῆς παλιρροίας τοῦ Εὐρίπου τοσοῦτον μόνον εἰπεῖν ἱκανόν, ὅτι ἑπτάκις μεταβάλλειν φασὶ καθ’ ἡμέραν ἑκάστην καὶ νύκτα· τὴν δ’ αἰτίαν ἐν ἄλλοις σκεπτέον.”
And in general I’ve been fairly disappointed with the Platonic scholia, compared to what I’ve found in Homer or the tragic playwrights. Should I look in the neo-Platonic tradition for decent Plato commentary?
Well, the scholiasts are simply not interested in answering the same sorts of questions that we as modern readers have regarding the text. The same with ancient commenteries (homilies) on the Bible. We have to take what they give us, but we are on our own for the rest.
I don’t know about that. I’ve found that the Homeric scholia tend to be much better, and the same for the scholia associated with the tragic dramatists. I don’t think that it would be an ancient/modern thing, so much as the scholarly traditions associated with each (that survived).
No scholia come close to matching the richness of the Homer scholia. But even they are severely cut down from fuller commentaries—we have substantial papyrus fragments of several. The Plato scholia are mostly wretched, as with most other ancient authors (Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica being an exception). The Euripus reference will have been explained in treatises and commentaries. Neo-Platonic material is plentiful, but that’s hardcore.