previous next

[301b] and imitates the scientific ruler, we call him a king, making no distinction in name between the single ruler who rules by science and him who rules by opinion if they both rule in accordance with laws.

Younger Socrates
Yes, I think we do.

Stranger
Accordingly, if one man who is really scientific rules, he will assuredly be called by the same name, king, and by no other; and so the five names of what are now called the forms of government have become only one.1

Younger Socrates
So it seems, at least.

Stranger
But when a single ruler acts in accordance with neither laws nor customs, but claims,


1 What are called five distinct forms of government are resolved into one—the one right form of which all others are imitations (297 C). This is to be sought in some small number or one person (ibid.). We have found it in the really scientific monarchy, and the other so-called forms of government, being merely imitations of this, require no names of their own.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1903)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (3 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: