[567e]
an alien1 and motley
crew.2” “You
think rightly,” he said. “But what of the home
supply,3 would he not choose to employ
that?” “How?” “By taking their
slaves from the citizens, emancipating them and enlisting them in his
bodyguard.” “Assuredly,” he said,
“since these are those whom he can most trust.”
“Truly,” said I, “this tyrant business4 is a blessed5 thing on your
showing, if such are the friends and ‘trusties’
1 Cf. the Scottish guards of Louis XI. of France, the Swiss guards of the later French kings, the Hessians hired by George III. against the American colonies, and the Asiatics in the Soviet armies.
2 παντοδαπούς: cf. on 557 C.
3 For αὐτόθεν cf. Herod. i. 64τῶν μὲν αὐτόθεν, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ Στρύμονος, Thuc. i. 11, Xen.Ages. 1. 28.
4 For the idiomatic and colloquial χρῆμα cf. Herod. i. 36, Eurip.Androm. 181, Theaet. 209 E, Aristoph.Clouds 1, Birds 826, Wasps 933, Lysistr. 83, 1085, Acharn. 150, Peace 1192, Knights 1219, Frogs 1278.
5 For the wretched lot of the tyrant cf. p. 368, note a.
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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