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[336a] “Do you know,” said I, “to whom I think the saying belongs—this statement that it is just to benefit friends and harm enemies?” “To whom?” he said. “I think it was the saying of Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias1 the Theban or some other rich man who had great power in his own conceit.”2“That is most true,” he replied. “Very well,” said I, “since it has been made clear that this too is not justice and the just, what else is there that we might say justice to be?”3

1 Cf. Thompson, Meno xl.

2 It is a Socratic paradox that “doing as one likes” is not power or freedom unless one likes the good. Cf. Gorgias 467 A, 577 D.

3 Cf. Introduction pp. ix-x.

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