[577c]
“Come, then,” said
I, “examine it thus. Recall the general likeness between the city
and the man, and then observe in turn what happens to each of
them.” “What things?” he said. “In
the first place,” said I, “will you call the state
governed by a tyrant free or enslaved, speaking of it as a state?”
“Utterly enslaved,” he said. “And yet you see
in it masters and freemen.” “I see,” he said,
“a small portion of such, but the entirety, so to speak, and the
best part of it, is shamefully and wretchedly enslaved.1” “If, then,” I said,
1 In Menex. 238 E Plato says that other states are composed of slaves and master, but Athens of equals.
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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