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[297e] and the most extreme penalties. And this is perfectly right and good as a second choice, as soon as you depart from the first form of which we were just speaking. Now let us tell in some detail how this which we called the second choice comes about. Shall we do so?

Younger Socrates
By all means.

Stranger
Let us return once more to the images which we always have to use in portraying kingly rulers.

Younger Socrates
What images?

Stranger
The noble captain of a ship and the “physician who is worth as much as many others.1” Let us make a simile of them and use it to help us to discover something.

Younger Socrates
What is your simile?


1 Cf. Hom. Il. 12.514: ἰητρὸς γὰρ ἀνὴρ πολλῶν ἀντάξιος ἄλλων. The image of the physician was used above, 293. The image of the captain (for the Greek κυβερνήτης had an importance commensurate with that of the captain, rather than of the pilot, in modern times) has just been used. See also Plat. Rep. 6.488 A; Plat. Laws 12.963 B.

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

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