[548b]
and any others they please with great
expenditure.” “Most true,” he said.
“And will they not be stingy about money, since they prize it and
are not allowed to possess it openly, prodigal of others' wealth1
because of their appetites, enjoying2 their pleasures stealthily, and
running away from the law as boys from a father,3 since they have not been educated by
persuasion4 but by force
because of their neglect of the true Muse, the companion of discussion and
philosophy,
1 φιλαναλωταί, though different, suggests Sallust's “alieni appetens sui profusus” (Cat. 5). Cf. Cat. 52 “publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam.”
2 Cf. 587 A, Laws 636 D, Symp. 187 E, Phaedr. 251 E.
3 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1270 b 34 with Newman's note; and Euthyphro 2 C “tell his mother the state.”
4 Cf. Laws 720 D-E. This is not inconsistent with Polit. 293 A, where the context and the point of view are different.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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