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[696a] but in the evil life which is usually lived by the sons of excessively rich monarchs; for such an upbringing can never produce either boy or man or greybeard of surpassing goodness. To this, we say, the lawgiver must give heed,—as must we ourselves on the present occasion. It is proper, however, my Lacedaemonian friends, to give your State credit for this at least,—that you assign no different honor or training whatsoever to poverty or wealth, to the commoner or the king, [696b] beyond what your original oracle1 declared at the bidding of some god. Nor indeed is it right that pre-eminent honors in a State should be conferred on a man because he is specially wealthy, any more than it is right to confer them because he is swift or comely or strong without any virtue, or with a virtue devoid of temperance.

Megillus
What do you mean by that, Stranger?

Athenian
Courage is, presumably, one part of virtue.

Megillus
Certainly.

Athenian
Now that you have heard the argument, judge for yourself whether you would welcome as housemate or neighbor a man who is extremely courageous, but licentious rather than temperate. [696c]

Megillus
Don't suggest such a thing!

Athenian
Well then,—a man wise in arts and crafts, but unjust.

Megillus
Certainly not.

Athenian
But justice, surely, is not bred apart from temperance.

Megillus
Impossible.

Athenian
Nor is he whom we recently proposed2 as our type of wisdom,—the man who has his feelings of pleasure and pain in accord with the dictates of right reason and obedient thereto.

Megillus
No, indeed. [696d]

Athenian
Here is a further point we must consider, in order to judge about the conferment of honors in States, when they are right and when wrong.

Megillus
What point?

Athenian
If temperance existed alone in a man's soul, divorced from all the rest of virtue, would it justly be held in honor or the reverse?

Megillus
I cannot tell what reply to make.

Athenian
Yet, in truth, you have made a reply, and a reasonable one. For if you had declared for either of the alternatives in my question, you would have said what is, to my mind, quite out of tune.

Megillus
So it has turned out to be all right.

Athenian
Very good. Accordingly, the additional element in objects deserving of honor [696e] or dishonor will be one that demands not speech so much as a kind of speechless silence.3

Megillus
I suppose you mean temperance.

Athenian
Yes. And of the rest, that which, with the addition of temperance, benefits us most would best deserve to be held in the highest honor, and the second in degree of benefit put second in order of honor; and so with each of the others in succession—to each it will be proper to assign the honor due to its rank.

1 The laws of Lycurgus.

2 Cp. Plat. Laws 689d.

3 i.e., “temperance,” regarded as merely an adjunct to civic merit, requires no further discussion at this point.

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