[552a]
financiers and soldiers all in one? Do you think that is right?”
“By no manner of means.” “Consider now whether
this polity is not the first that admits that which is the greatest of all
such evils.” “What?” “The allowing a
man to sell all his possessions,1 which
another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living in
the city, but as no part of it,2 neither a
money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a foot-soldier, but
classified only as a pauper3 and a dependent.”
1 So in the Laws the householder may not sell his lot, Laws 741 B-C, 744 D-E. Cf. 755 A, 857 A, Aristot.Pol. 1270 a 19, Newman i. p. 376.
2 Cf Aristot.Pol. 1326 a 20, Newman i. pp. 98 and 109. Cf Leslie Stephen, Util. ii. 111 “A vast populace has grown up outside of the old order.”
3 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1266 b 13.
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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