[1334a]
[1]
but not
for the sake of world-wide despotism; and thirdly to hold despotic power over
those who deserve to be slaves. Experience supports the testimony of theory, that it is the duty of the
lawgiver rather to study how he may frame his legislation both with regard to
warfare and in other departments for the object of leisure and of peace. Most
military states remain safe while at war but perish when they have won their
empire; in peace-time they lose their keen temper, like iron.1 The lawgiver is to blame, because
he did not educate them to be able to employ leisure.And since it appears that
men have the same end collectively and individually, and since the same
distinctive aim must necessarily belong both to the best man and to the best
government, it is clear that the virtues relating to leisure are essential2; since, as has been said repeatedly, peace is the end of
war, leisure of business. But the
virtues useful for leisure and for its employment are not only those that
operate during leisure but also those that operate in business; for many of the
necessaries must needs be forthcoming to give us opportunity for leisure.
Therefore it is proper for the state to be temperate,
[20]
brave and enduring; since, as the proverb goes,
there is no leisure for slaves, but people unable to face danger bravely are the
slaves of their assailants. Therefore courage and fortitude are needed for business, love of wisdom for
leisure, temperance and justice for both seasons, and more especially when men
are at peace and have leisure; for war compels men to be just and temperate,
whereas the enjoyment of prosperity and peaceful leisure tend to make them
insolent. Therefore much justice
and much temperance are needed by those who are deemed very prosperous and who
enjoy all the things counted as blessings, like the persons, if such there be,
as the poets say,3 that dwell in the Islands of the Blest; these will most need wisdom,
temperance and justice, the more they are at leisure and have an abundance of
such blessings. It is clear therefore why a state that is to be happy and
righteous must share in these virtues; for if it is disgraceful to be unable to
use our good things, it is still more disgraceful to be unable to use them in
time of leisure, and although showing ourselves good men when engaged in
business and war, in times of peace and leisure to seem no better than slaves.
Therefore we must not
cultivate virtue after the manner of the state of Sparta. The superiority of the Spartans
over other races does not lie
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.