Plato, Alcibiades 1, section 127b

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[127b]

Alcibiades
It seems not.

Socrates
Nor are men by women, in so far as they do theirs.

Alcibiades
No.

Socrates
And states, therefore, are not well ordered in so far as each person does his own business?¹

Alcibiades
I think they are, Socrates.

Socrates
How can you say that? Without the presence of friendship, which we say must be there if states are well ordered, as otherwise they are not?

Alcibiades
But it seems to me that friendship arises among them just on that account—that each of the two parties does its own business.

1 Cf. Plat. Charm. 161e, Plat. Rep. 1.332 ff.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955.

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