Politics

​For if indeed the city is a certain partnership, and it is a partnership of citizens in a constitution, when the constitution becomes different in kind and changes, it would seem to be necessary that the city also is not the same, just as indeed we say that a chorus is different when it is at one time comic and at another tragic, even though the people are often the same, and likewise we say that every other partnership and composition is different if the kind of composition is different, just as we say that a harmony of the same notes is different if it is at one time Dorian and at another Phrygian. If indeed, then, this is the case, it is clear that we must say that the city is the same especially by looking to the constitution; and it is open to call it by a different name or the same name, both when the same people inhabit it and when entirely different humans do. But whether it is just to discharge or not to discharge contracts when the city changes into another constitution is another discussion. What follows closely upon what has just been said is to examine whether we must set down the same virtue for a good man and an excellent citizen, or not the same. But indeed, if this is to obtain inquiry, we must first grasp the virtue of the citizen in a certain outline. Just as, therefore, a sailor is one of the partners, so we say also of the citizen. And although sailors are unequal in their capacity (for one is a rower, another a pilot, another a lookout, and another has some other such title), it is clear that while the most precise definition of each will be peculiar to his own virtue, in like manner also some common definition will apply to all. For the safety of the voyage is the work of all of them; for each of the sailors strives for this. In like manner, therefore, also for the citizens, although they are unequal, the safety of the partnership is their work, and the partnership is the constitution; wherefore the virtue of the citizen must of necessity be in relation to the constitution. If therefore indeed there are several kinds of constitution, it is clear that it is not possible for the virtue of the excellent citizen to be a single one, the perfect one; but we say that a good man is so according to a single virtue, the perfect one. That it is possible, therefore, for one who is an excellent citizen not to possess the virtue according to which he is an excellent man, is clear; not but what we can also go over the same argument by raising difficulties in another way concerning the best constitution. For if it is impossible for a city to consist of all excellent men, yet each must perform his own work well, and this from virtue; since it is impossible for all the citizens to be alike,