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[543a]

Socrates

“Very good. We are agreed then, Glaucon, that the state which is to achieve the height of good government must have community1 of wives and children and all education, and also that the pursuits of men and women must be the same in peace and war, and that the rulers or kings2 over them3 are to be those who have approved themselves the best in both war and philosophy.” “We are agreed,” he said. “And we further granted this,

1 Strictly speaking, this applies only to the guardians, but Cf. Laws 739 C ff. Aristotle, Pol. 1261 a 6 and 1262 a 41, like many subsequent commentators, misses the point.

2 Cf. 445 D and What Plato Said, p. 539, on Menex. 238 C-D.

3 So Jowett. Adam ad loc. insists that the genitive is partitive, “those of their number are to be kings.”

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