[563e]
so that forsooth they may have no master
anywhere over them.” “I know it very well,”
said he.“This, then, my
friend,” said I, “is the fine and vigorous root from
which tyranny grows, in my opinion.” “Vigorous
indeed,” he said; “but what next?”
“The same malady,” I said, “that, arising in
oligarchy, destroyed it, this more widely diffused and more violent as a
result of this licence, enslaves democracy. And in truth, any excess is wont
to bring about a corresponding reaction1 to the
opposite in the seasons,
1 Cf. Lysias xxv. 27, Isoc. viii. 108, vii. 5, Cic.De rep. i. 44 “nam ut ex nimia potentia principum oritur interitus principum, sic hunc nimis liberum . . . “ etc.
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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