[
547a]
Hesiod's and
our races of gold, silver, bronze and iron.
1 And this intermixture of the iron with the silver
and the bronze with the gold will engender unlikeness
2 and an unharmonious
unevenness, things that always beget war and enmity wherever they arise.
“‘Of this lineage, look
you,’”
Hom. Il. 6.211 we must aver
the dissension to be, wherever it occurs and always.”
“‘And rightly too,’” he said,
“we shall affirm that the Muses answer.” “They
must needs,” I said, “since they are
3 Muses.”
[
547b]
“Well, then,” said he,
“what do the Muses say next?” “When strife
arose,” said I, “the two groups were pulling against
each other, the iron and bronze towards money-making and the acquisition of
land and houses and gold and silver, and the other two, the golden and
silvern, not being poor, but by nature rich in their souls,
4 were trying to draw them back to
virtue and their original constitution, and thus, striving and contending
against one another, they compromised
5 on the plan of
distributing and taking for themselves the land and the houses,
[
547c]
enslaving and subjecting as perioeci and
serfs
6 their former
friends
7 and
supporters, of whose freedom they had been the guardians, and occupying
themselves with war and keeping watch over these subjects.”
“I think,” he said, “that this is the
starting-point of the transformation.” “Would not this
polity, then,” said I, “be in some sort intermediate
between aristocracy and oligarchy ?” “By all
means.”
“By this
change, then, it would arise. But after the change
[
547d]
what will be its way of life? Is it not obvious that in
some things it will imitate the preceding polity, in some the oligarchy,
since it is intermediate, and that it will also have some qualities peculiar
to itself?” “That is so,” he said.
“Then in honoring its rulers and in the abstention of its warrior
class from farming
8
and handicraft and money-making in general, and in the provision of common
public tables
9 and the devotion to physical
training and expertness in the game and contest of war—in all
these traits it will copy the preceding state?”
“Yes.” “But in its fear
[
547e]
to admit clever men to office, since the men it has of
this kind are no longer simple
10 and strenuous but of mixed strain, and in its inclining rather to
the more high-spirited and simple-minded type, who are better suited for war