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[317a]

Companion
Yes.

Socrates
And it is the cooks, they say, who know?

Companion
Yes, it is they who know.

Socrates
Very well; and now, whose are the treatises and accepted rules about the government of a state? Of the people who know how to control states, are they not?

Companion
I agree.

Socrates
And is it anyone else than statesmen and royal persons1 who know?

Companion
It is they, to be sure.

Socrates
Then what people call “laws” are treatises of state,—


1 Cf. Euthyd. 291 C, Politicus 266-7, where Plato identifies the statesman's and the king's art.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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