[432a]
respectively made the city, the one wise and
the other brave. That is not the way of soberness, but it extends literally
through the entire gamut1
throughout, bringing about2
the unison in the same chant of the strongest, the weakest and the
intermediate, whether in wisdom or, if you please,3
in strength, or for that matter in numbers, wealth, or any similar
criterion. So that we should be quite right in affirming this unanimity4 to be soberness, the
concord of the naturally superior and inferior
1 δι᾽ ὅλης: sc.τῆς πόλεως, but as ἀτεχνῶς shows (Cf. on 419 E) it already suggets the musical metaphor of the entire octave διὰ πασῶν.
2 The word order of the following is noteworthy. The translation gives the meaning.ταὐτόν, the object of συνᾴδοντας, is, by a trait of style that grows more frequent in the Laws and was imitated by Cicero, so placed as to break the monotony of the accusative terminations.
3 For the comparison the kind of superiority is indifferent. See Thompson on Meno 71 E and compare the enumeration of claims to power in the Laws,ἀξιώματα . . . τοῦ ἀρχεῖν, Laws 690 A ff. and 434 B.
4 The final statement of the definition, which, however, has little significance for Plato's thought, when isolated from its explanatory context. Cf. Def. Plat. 413 E, Unity of Plato's Thought, pp. 15. f., n. 82. Quite idle is the discussion whether σωφροσύνη is otiose, and whether it can be absolutely distinguished from δικαιοσύνη. They are sufficiently distinguished for Plato's purpose in the imagery and analogies of the Republic.
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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