e his art?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And all the other artists just now mentioned, if they were
bidden to offer up each their special prayer, would do so?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: And the legislator would do likewise?

CLEINIAS: I believe that he would.

ATHENIAN: 'Come, legislator,' we will say to him; 'what are the
conditions which you require in a state before you can organize it?' How
ought he to answer this question? Shall I give his answer?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: He will say--'Give me a state which is governed by a tyrant,
and let the tyrant be young and have a good memory; let him be quick
at learning, and of a courageous and noble nature; let him have that
quality which, as I said before, is the inseparable companion of all the
other parts of virtue, if there is to be any good in them.'

CLEINIAS: I suppose, Megillus, that this companion virtue of which the
Stranger speaks, must be temperance?

ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias, temperance in the vulgar sense; not that which
in the forced and exaggerated language of some philosophers is called
prudence, but that which is the natural gift of children and animals, of
whom some live continently and others incontinently, but when isolated,
was, as we said, hardly worth reckoning in the catalogue of goods. I
think that you must understand my meaning.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then our tyrant must have this as well as the other qualities,
if the state is to acquire in the best manner and in the shortest time
the form of government which is most conducive to happiness; for there
neither is nor ever will be a better or speedier way of establishing a
polity than by a tyranny.

CLEINIAS: By what possible arguments, Stranger, can any man persuade
himself of such a monstrous doctrine?

ATHENIAN: There is surely no difficulty in seeing, Cleinias, what is in
accordance with the order of nature?

CLEINIAS: You would assume, as you say, a tyrant who was young,
temperate, quick at learning, having a good memory, courageous, of a
noble nature?

ATHENIAN: Yes; and you must add fortunate; and his good fortune must be
that he is the contemporary of a great legislator, and that some happy
chance brings them together. When this has been accomplished, God has
done all that he ever does for a state which he desires to be eminently
prosperous; He has done second best for a state in which there are two
such rulers, and third best for a state in which t