Politics

​the virtue of a citizen and of a good man would not be one and the same. For that of the excellent citizen must belong to all (for in this way the city must of necessity be best), but that of the good man is impossible, unless it is necessary for all citizens in the excellent city to be good. Further, since the city consists of unlike parts—just as an animal consists immediately of soul and body, and a soul of reason and desire, and a household of man and woman, and property of master and slave—in the same way also a city is composed of all of these, and in addition to these, of other unlike kinds, so it is necessary that the virtue of all the citizens is not one, just as indeed that of the leader of a chorus and of the one standing next to him is not. Therefore, that they are not simply the same is clear from these things. But will there be some person for whom the virtue of an excellent citizen and of an excellent man is the same? Now we say that the excellent ruler is good and prudent, but that the citizen is not of necessity prudent. And indeed some say that the education of a ruler is different from the beginning, just as the sons of kings are seen to be educated in horsemanship and war, and Euripides says: “Give me not clever things, but what a city needs,” as though there were some education peculiar to a ruler. But if the virtue of a good ruler and of a good man is the same, and the one ruled is also a citizen, the virtue of a citizen and of a man would not be simply the same, but yet that of some citizen; for that of a ruler and of a citizen is not the same, and for this reason perhaps Jason said he was hungry when he was not tyrant, as not knowing how to be a private individual. But indeed, to be able both to rule and to be ruled is praised, and the virtue of a citizen seems to be to be able both to rule and to be ruled well. If, then, we set down the virtue of the good man as that of ruling, but that of the citizen as both, they would not both be praised in like manner. Since, therefore, both are sometimes required, and the ruler and the ruled should not learn the same things, but the citizen must know both and share in both, one might see it from this. For there is a masterly rule; and this we say concerns the necessary things, which the ruler need not know how to perform, but rather how to use; and the other part is even slavish. And by “the other” I mean to be able actually to perform the menial actions. But we say there are several kinds of slave; for the types of work are several. One part of these is occupied by the manual laborers, and these are, as indeed their name signifies, those who live from their hands,