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[683a] about which you said truly that it and Crete were settled under kindred laws. From the wandering course of our argument, and our excursion through various polities and settlements, we have now gained this much: we have discerned a first, a second and a third State,1 all, as we suppose, succeeding one another in the settlements which took place during vast ages of time. And now there has emerged this fourth State—or “nation,” if you so prefer—which was once upon a time in course of establishment and is now established.

1 i.e., (I) the family or clan, under patriarchal “headship”; (2) the combination of clans under an aristocracy (or monarchy); (3) the “mixed” state (or “city of the plain,” like Troy); and (4) the confederacy, consisting, in the example, of three States leagued together.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.

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