ho have met
together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of
them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who
lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to
choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be
called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort
of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships,
and in this altered state of the government they will live.

CLEINIAS: Yes, that would be the natural order of things.

ATHENIAN: Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in which
all other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the
second. This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded
Dardania:--

'For not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a
city of speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of
many-fountained Ida.'

For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he
speaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race, and
often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they
attain truth.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which
will probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed
design:--Shall we do so?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in
a large and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers
descending from Ida.

CLEINIAS: Such is the tradition.

ATHENIAN: And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages
after the deluge?

ATHENIAN: A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would
appear to have come over them, when they placed their town right under
numerous streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security
to not very high hills, either.

CLEINIAS: There must have been a long interval, clearly.

ATHENIAN: And, as population increased, many other cities would begin to
be inhabited.

CLEINIAS: Doubtless.

ATHENIAN: Those cities made war against Troy--by sea as well as
land--for at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.

CLEINIAS: Clearly.

ATHENIAN: The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were be