297
Str. I will tell you what we must investigate; it is not at all familiar or easy to see, but let us try to grasp it nevertheless. Tell me this: Assuming that the form of government we have described is the only right form, don’t you see that the other forms must employ its written laws if they are to be preserved by doing that which is approved of nowadays, although it is not perfectly right?
297
Y. Soc. What is not perfectly right?
297
Str. That no citizen shall dare to do anything contrary to the laws, and that he who does shall be punished by death 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?
297
Y. Soc. By all means.
297
Str. Let us return once more to the images which we always have to use in portraying kingly rulers.
297
Y. Soc. What images?
297
Str. The noble captain of a ship and the physician who is worth as much as many others. 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. Let us make a simile of them and use it to help us to discover something.
297
Y. Soc. What is your simile?
