roaches which we
have to make against statesmen and legislators, as they are called, past
and present, if we would analyse the causes of their failure, and find
out what else might have been done. We said, for instance, just now,
that there ought to be no great and unmixed powers; and this was under
the idea that a state ought to be free and wise and harmonious, and that
a legislator ought to legislate with a view to this end. Nor is there
any reason to be surprised at our continually proposing aims for
the legislator which appear not to be always the same; but we should
consider when we say that temperance is to be the aim, or wisdom is
to be the aim, or friendship is to be the aim, that all these aims are
really the same; and if so, a variety in the modes of expression ought
not to disturb us.

CLEINIAS: Let us resume the argument in that spirit. And now, speaking
of friendship and wisdom and freedom, I wish that you would tell me at
what, in your opinion, the legislator should aim.

ATHENIAN: Hear me, then: there are two mother forms of states from which
the rest may be truly said to be derived; and one of them may be called
monarchy and the other democracy: the Persians have the highest form of
the one, and we of the other; almost all the rest, as I was saying, are
variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and the combination
of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these forms of government
in a measure; the argument emphatically declares that no city can be
well governed which is not made up of both.

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: Neither the one, if it be exclusively and excessively attached
to monarchy, nor the other, if it be similarly attached to freedom,
observes moderation; but your states, the Laconian and Cretan, have more
of it; and the same was the case with the Athenians and Persians of old
time, but now they have less. Shall I tell you why?

CLEINIAS: By all means, if it will tend to elucidate our subject.

ATHENIAN: Hear, then:--There was a time when the Persians had more of
the state which is a mean between slavery and freedom. In the reign of
Cyrus they were freemen and also lords of many others: the rulers gave
a share of freedom to the subjects, and being treated as equals, the
soldiers were on better terms with their generals, and showed themselves
more ready in the hour of danger. And if there was any wise man among
them, who was able to give good counsel, he imparted hi