266
Str. Our human race shares the same lot and runs in the same heat as the most excellent and at the same time most easy-going race of creatures. The animal referred to is the pig. See P. Shorey, Classical Philology,1917, July, p. 308.
266
Y. Soc. Yes, I see that; it is a very queer result.
266
Str. Indeed? But is it not reasonable that they arrive last, who are the slowest?
266
Y. Soc. Yes, that is true.
266
Str. And do we fail to notice this further point, that the king appears in a still more ridiculous light, running along with the herd and paired in the race with the man of all others who is most in training for a life of careless ease? i.e. the swineherd, the pig belonging to γένει εὐχερεστάτῳ.
266
Y. Soc. Certainly he does.
266
Str. For now, Socrates, we have shown more clearly the truth of that which we said yesterday in our search for the sophist. See Plat. Soph. 227B.
266
Y. Soc. What was it?
266
Str. That this method of argument pays no more heed to the noble than to the ignoble, and no less honor to the small than to the great, but always goes on its own way to the most perfect truth.
266
Y. Soc. So it seems.
266
Str. Then shall I now, without waiting for you to ask me, guide you of my own accord along that shorter way referred to a moment ago that leads to the definition of the king?
266
Y. Soc. By all means.
266
Str. I say, then, that we ought at that time to have divided walking animals immediately into biped and quadruped, then seeing that the human race falls into the same division with the feathered creatures and no others, we must again divide the biped class into featherless and feathered, and when that division is made and the art of herding human beings is made plain, we ought to take the statesmanlike and kingly man and place him as a sort of charioteer therein, handing over to him the reins of the state, because that is his own proper science.
267
Y. Soc. You have cleared up the argument finely, and as if it were a debt you were paying, you threw in the digression as interest and for good measure.
