[565d]
said I, “that when a tyrant arises he
sprouts from a protectorate root1 and from nothing
else.” “Very plain.” “What, then, is
the starting-point of the transformation of a protector into a tyrant? Is it
not obviously when the protector's acts begin to reproduce the legend that
is told of the shrine of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia2?” “What is that?” he said.
“The story goes that he who tastes of the one bit of human
entrails minced up with those of other victims
1 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1310 b 14οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν τυράννων γεγόνασιν ἐκ δημαγωγῶν, etc., ibid. 1304 b 20 ff.
2 Cf. Frazer on Pausanias viii. 2 (vol. iv. p. 189) and Cook's Zeus, vol. i. p. 70. The archaic religious rhetoric of what follows testifies to the intensity of Plato's feeling. Cf. the language of the Laws on homicide, 865 ff.
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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