[426c]
which being badly
governed forewarn their citizens not to meddle1 with the general
constitution of the state, denouncing death to whosoever attempts
that—while whoever most agreeably serves2 them governed as
they are and who curries favor with them by fawning upon them and
anticipating their desires and by his cleverness in gratifying them, him
they will account the good man, the man wise in worthwhile things,3 the man
they will delight to honor?” “Yes,” he said,
“I think their conduct is identical, and I don't approve it in the
very least.”
1 Cf. 497 B, Aristotle Politics 1301 b 11. Cf. the obvious imitation in the (probably spurious)Epistle vii. 330 E. For the thought, from the point of view of an enemy of democracy, cf. the statement in [Xenophon]Rep. Ath. 3. 9, that the faults of Athens cannot be corrected while she remains a democracy. The Athenians naturally guarded their constitution and viewed with equal suspicion the idealistic reformer and the oligarchical reactionary.
2 Cf. , p. 65 note d, and Laws 923 B. The phraseology here recalls Gorgias 517 B, Aristophanes Knights 46-63. Cf. “Plato's Laws and the Unity of Plato's Thought,”Class Phil. vol. ix. (Oct. 1914) p. 363, n. 3.
3 Almost technical. Cf. 538 B.
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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