[544a]
but
at any rate you were saying that the others are aberrations,1 if this city is right. But regarding the other constitutions,
my recollection is that you said there were four species2 worth speaking
of3 and observing their
defects4 and the corresponding types of men,
in order that when we had seen them all and come to an agreement about the
best and the worst man, we might determine whether the best is the happiest
and the worst most wretched or whether it is otherwise.5 And when I was asking what were
1 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1285 b 1-2, 1289 b 9.
2 Aristot.Pol. 1291-1292 censures the limitation to four. But Cf. supra,Introd. p. xlv. Cf. Laws 693 D, where only two mother-forms of government are mentioned, monarchy and democracy, with Aristot.Pol. 1301 b 40δῆμος καὶ ὀλιγαρχία. Cf. also Eth. Nic. 1160 a 31 ff. The Politicus mentions seven (291 f., 301 f.). Isoc.Panath. 132-134 names three kinds—oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy—adding that others may say much more about them. See note ad loc. in Loeb Isocrates and Class. Phil. vol. vii. p. 91. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan 19 “Yet he that shall consider the particular commonwealths that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three . . . as, for example, elective kingdoms,” etc.
3 For ὧν καὶ πέρι λόγον ἄξιον εἴη Cf. Laws 908 Bἃ καὶ διακρίσεως ἄξια, Laches 192 Aοὗ καὶ πέρι ἄξιον λέγειν, Tim. 82ἓν γένος ἐνὸν ἄξιον ἐπωνυμίας. Cf. also Euthydem. 279 C, Aristot.Pol. 1272 b 32, 1302 a 13, De part. an. 654 a 13, Demosth. v. 16, Isoc. vi. 56. and Vol. I. p. 420, note f, on 445 C.
4 For the relative followed by a demonstrative cf. also 357 B.
5 Plato's main point again. Cf. 545 A, 484 A-B and Vol. I. p.xii, note d.
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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