and others more
difficult; and some of them, and the best and most difficult of them,
the legislator, if he be also a despot, may be able to effect; but the
legislator, who, not being a despot, sets up a new government and laws,
even if he attempt the mildest of purgations, may think himself happy if
he can complete his work. The best kind of purification is painful, like
similar cures in medicine, involving righteous punishment and inflicting
death or exile in the last resort. For in this way we commonly dispose
of great sinners who are incurable, and are the greatest injury of the
whole state. But the milder form of purification is as follows:--when
men who have nothing, and are in want of food, show a disposition to
follow their leaders in an attack on the property of the rich--these,
who are the natural plague of the state, are sent away by the legislator
in a friendly spirit as far as he is able; and this dismissal of them is
euphemistically termed a colony. And every legislator should contrive to
do this at once. Our present case, however, is peculiar. For there is
no need to devise any colony or purifying separation under the
circumstances in which we are placed. But as, when many streams flow
together from many sources, whether springs or mountain torrents, into a
single lake, we ought to attend and take care that the confluent waters
should be perfectly clear, and in order to effect this, should pump and
draw off and divert impurities, so in every political arrangement there
may be trouble and danger. But, seeing that we are now only discoursing
and not acting, let our selection be supposed to be completed, and the
desired purity attained. Touching evil men, who want to join and be
citizens of our state, after we have tested them by every sort of
persuasion and for a sufficient time, we will prevent them from coming;
but the good we will to the utmost of our ability receive as friends
with open arms.

Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were
saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours,--that we have
escaped division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are
always a source of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by
necessity to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways
to continue, nor yet venture to alter them. We must have recourse to
prayers, so to speak, and hope that a slight change may be cautiously
effected in a length of time