Book 4
712
Meg. Is it not proper that I, as the elder, should answer first?
712
Clin. No doubt.
712
Meg. In truth, Stranger, when I reflect on the Lacedaemonian polity, I am at a loss to tell you by what name one should describe it. It seems to me to resemble a tyranny, since the board of ephors it contains is a marvellously tyrannical feature; yet sometimes it strikes me as, of all States, the nearest to a democracy. Still, it would be totally absurd to deny that it is an aristocracy; while it includes, moreover, a life monarchy, and that the most ancient of monarchies, as is affirmed, not only by ourselves, but by all the world. But now that I am questioned thus suddenly, I am really, as I said, at a loss to say definitely to which of these polities it belongs.
712
Clin. And I, Megillus, find myself equally perplexed; for I find it very difficult to affirm that our Cnosian polity is any one of these.
713
Ath. Yes, my good Sirs; for you do, in fact, partake in a number of polities. But those we named just now are not polities, but arrangements of States which rule or serve parts of themselves, and each is named after the ruling power. But if the State ought to be named after any such thing, the name it should have borne is that of the God who is the true ruler of rational men.
713
Clin. Who is that God?
713
Ath. May we, then, do a little more story-telling, if we are to answer this question suitably?
713
Clin. Should we not do so?
713
Ath. We should. Long ages before even those cities existed whose formation we have described above, there existed in the time of Cronos, it is said, a most prosperous government and settlement, on which the best of the States now existing is modelled.Cp.Politic. 271.
713
Clin. Evidently it is most important to hear about it.
713
Ath. I, for one, think so; and that is why I have introduced the mention of it.
713
Meg. You were perfectly right to do so; and, since your story is pertinent, you will be quite right in going on with it to the end.
