edes and the Eunuch, as they called him, who despised the folly of
Cambyses.

CLEINIAS: So runs the tale, and such probably were the facts.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and the tradition says, that the empire came back to the
Persians, through Darius and the seven chiefs.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Let us note the rest of the story. Observe, that Darius was
not the son of a king, and had not received a luxurious education. When
he came to the throne, being one of the seven, he divided the country
into seven portions, and of this arrangement there are some shadowy
traces still remaining; he made laws upon the principle of introducing
universal equality in the order of the state, and he embodied in his
laws the settlement of the tribute which Cyrus promised,--thus creating
a feeling of friendship and community among all the Persians, and
attaching the people to him with money and gifts. Hence his armies
cheerfully acquired for him countries as large as those which Cyrus had
left behind him. Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes; and he again
was brought up in the royal and luxurious fashion. Might we not most
justly say: 'O Darius, how came you to bring up Xerxes in the same way
in which Cyrus brought up Cambyses, and not to see his fatal mistake?'
For Xerxes, being the creation of the same education, met with much the
same fortune as Cambyses; and from that time until now there has never
been a really great king among the Persians, although they are all
called Great. And their degeneracy is not to be attributed to chance, as
I maintain; the reason is rather the evil life which is generally led
by the sons of very rich and royal persons; for never will boy or man,
young or old, excel in virtue, who has been thus educated. And this,
I say, is what the legislator has to consider, and what at the present
moment has to be considered by us. Justly may you, O Lacedaemonians, be
praised, in that you do not give special honour or a special education
to wealth rather than to poverty, or to a royal rather than to a private
station, where the divine and inspired lawgiver has not originally
commanded them to be given. For no man ought to have pre-eminent honour
in a state because he surpasses others in wealth, any more than because
he is swift of foot or fair or strong, unless he have some virtue in
him; nor even if he have virtue, unless he have this particular virtue
of temperance.

MEGILLUS: What do you mean, Stranger?

ATHENIAN: I su