[395c]
are to be expert craftsmen of
civic liberty,1 and pursue nothing else
that does not conduce to this, it would not be fitting for these to do nor
yet to imitate anything else. But if they imitate they should from childhood
up2 imitate what is
appropriate to them3—men, that is, who are brave, sober,
pious, free and all things of that kind; but things unbecoming the free man
they should neither do nor be clever at imitating, nor yet any other
shameful thing, lest from the imitation
1 Cf. the fine passage in Laws 817 Bἡμεῖς ἐσμεν τραγωδίας αὐτοὶ ποιηταί, [Pindar]apudPlut. 807 Cδημιουργὸς εὐνομίας καὶ δίκης.
2 Cf. 386 A.
3 i.e., δημιουργοῖς ἐλευθερίας
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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