[936b]
and if he does so, he shall be held to be a base man and disobedient to the laws. The man who suffers from hunger or the like is not the man who deserves pity, but he who, while possessing temperance or virtue of some sort, or a share thereof gains in addition evil fortune; wherefore it would be a strange thing indeed if in a polity and State that is even moderately well organized, a man of this kind (be he slave or free man) should be so entirely neglected as to come to utter beggary. Wherefore the Lawgiver will be safe in enacting for such cases some such law as this:—
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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