[336a]
“Do you know,” said I, “to
whom I think the saying belongs—this statement that it is just to
benefit friends and harm enemies?” “To whom?”
he said. “I think it was the saying of Periander or Perdiccas or
Xerxes or Ismenias1 the Theban or some other rich man who had great
power in his own conceit.”2“That is most true,” he replied.
“Very well,” said I, “since it has been made
clear that this too is not justice and the just, what else is there that we
might say justice to be?”3
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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