[551c]
it had?”“To begin with,” said I,
“consider the nature of its constitutive and defining principle.
Suppose men should appoint the pilots1 of ships in this way,
by property qualification, and not allow2 a poor man to
navigate, even if he were a better pilot.” “A sorry
voyage they would make of it,” he said. “And is not the
same true of any other form of rule?” “I think
so.” “Except of a city,” said I, “or
does it hold for a city too?” “Most of all,”
he said, “by as much as that is the greatest and most
difficult3 rule of
all.”
1 Cf. 488, and Polit. 299 B-C, What Plato Said, p. 521, on Euthydem. 291 D.
2 Stallbaum says that ἐπιτρέποι is used absolutely as in 575 D, Symp. 213 E, Lysis 210 B, etc. Similarly Latin permitto. Cf. Shorey on Jowett's translation of Meno 92 A-B, A. J. P. xiii. p. 367. See too Diog. L. i. 65.
3 Men are the hardest creatures to govern. Cf. Polit. 292 D, and What Plato Said, p. 635, on Laws 766 A.
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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