[337b]
strife and enmity and hatred and suspicion are wont to keep for ever recurring in cities when their inner state is of this kind.1Now those who have gained the mastery, whenever they become desirous of safety, ought always to choose out among themselves such men of Greek origin as they know by inquiry to be most excellent—men who are, in the first place, old, and who have wives and children at home, and forefathers as numerous and good and famous as possible, and who are all in
1 cf. Plat. Laws 715a ff.