Politics

​And we must not fail to know this very thing, that one ought to pay attention to the long time and the many years, in which it would not have remained unnoticed if these things were good. For almost all things have indeed been discovered, but some have not been gathered together, and others people do not use although they know them. And this would become most manifest if one were to see such a constitution being actually constructed in practice. For he will not be able to make the city without dividing and separating it, some into common meals, and others into phratries and tribes. So that nothing else will turn out to have been legislated except that the guardians are not to farm, which is just what the Lacedaemonians even now attempt to do. However, as to what the manner of the whole constitution will be for those who participate in it, Socrates has neither said, nor is it easy to say. And yet almost the multitude of the city becomes the multitude of the other citizens, concerning whom nothing has been defined, whether for the farmers also property must be common or private for each individual, and further whether their wives and children are to be private or common. For if indeed everything is common to all in the same manner, how will these differ from those guardians? Or what more will there be for them in enduring their rule, or what is their reason for enduring the rule, unless they use some such artifice as the Cretans? For those, while permitting other things in the same way to their slaves, have only forbidden them the gymnasia and the possession of arms. But if, just as in other cities, such things are to exist among them, what will be the manner of their community? For in one city it is necessary that there be two cities, and these contrary to one another. For he makes the guardians like a garrison, and the farmers, artisans, and other citizens; and complaints, lawsuits, and all the other evils which he says exist in cities, will all exist among these too. And yet Socrates says that because of their education they will not need many regulations, such as those of police, market, and other such things, though he attributes the education only to the guardians. Furthermore, he makes the farmers who pay tribute the masters of the property; but it is likely that they will be much more difficult and full of pride than the Helots, Penestae, and slaves among some peoples. However, whether these things are equally necessary or not, nothing has now been defined. And also concerning the connected matters, what is the constitution and education of these people, and what laws they will have. And it is neither easy to find, nor is the difference a small one, as to what kind of people these should be for the preservation of the community of the guardians.