William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

5. ἀτελεῖς...γιγνομένους, becoming exempt (from all ‘liturgies’) by small payments. As all the members of a συντέλεια (under the former system) were assessed equally for the support of their ship, the richer συντελεῖς might satisfy the law (as in the case supposed in § 104) by paying 1/16 of the expense of one ship; and as no one could be required to take more than one ‘liturgy’ in the same year, they would thus be exempt from all other services. But the richest of all, the leaders of the symmories (§ 103.4), sometimes ingeniously used their legal duty of advancing the money for the trierarchy in case of special necessity as a means of avoiding even their own legal share of the expense. They could bargain with a contractor to do all the work for a fixed sum (e.g. a talent), which they advanced, afterwards assessing this whole sum, or an unfair part of it, on their poorer colleagues. See Dem. XXI. 155.

7. τὰ ὄντ᾽ ἀπολλύοντας, losing what they had: a strong expression of the injustice to which the poorer συντελεῖς were liable.—ὑστερίζουσαν ...τῶν καιρῶν, as we say, behind time.

9. [τοὺς πλουσίους]: these words probably crept into the text as an explanation of τοὺς μὲν, which needs no such note. The text is very doubtful, though the sense is clear.