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[120e] better natures, or not?

Alcibiades
Clearly, noble races would.

Socrates
And will not the well-born, provided they are well brought up, probably be perfected in virtue?

Alcibiades
That must be so.

Socrates
Then let us consider, by comparing our lot with theirs, whether the Spartan and Persian kings appear to be of inferior birth. Do we not know that the former are descendants of Hercules and the latter of Achaemenes, and that the line of Hercules and the line of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955.

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