[548c]
and because of their
preference of gymnastics to music?” “You perfectly
describe,” he said, “a polity that is a mixture1 of good and
evil.” “Why, yes, the elements have been
mixed,” I said, “but the most conspicuous2 feature in it is one thing
only, due to the predominance of the high-spirited element, namely
contentiousness and covetousness of honor.3” “Very much
so,” said he. “Such, then, would be the origin and
nature of this polity if we may merely outline the figure
1 This is of course not the mixed government which Plato approves Laws 691-692, 712 D-E, 759 B. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 629.
2 For διαφανέστατον cf. 544 D. The expression διαφανέστατον . . . ἕν τι μόνον, misunderstood and emended by ApeIt, is colored by an idea of Anaxagoras expressed by Lucretius i. 877-878: “illud Apparere unum cuius sint plurima mixta. Anaxag. Fr. 12. Diels 1.3, p. 405ἀλλ᾽ ὅτων πλεῖστα ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἓν ἕκαστον ἐστι καὶ ἦν. Cf. Phaedr. 238 A, Cratyl. 393 misunderstood by Dümmler and emended (ἐναργής for ἐγκρατής)with the approval of Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 350.
3 There is no contradiction between this and Laws 870 C if the passage is read carefully.
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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