Book 8
5
Thus the other associations aim at some particular advantage; for example sailors combine to seek the profits of seafaring in the way of trade or the like, comrades in arms the gains of warfare, their aim being either plunder, or victory over the enemy or the capture of a cityLiterally plunder or victory or a city; the last words may refer either to colonists or exiles who obtain a new abode by conquest, or to civil war; but the expression is improbable, and perhaps should be emended to or to defend the city.; and similarly the members of a tribe or parishThe bracketed sentences, as Cook Wilson points out, look like an interpolated fragment of a parallel version. [And some associations appear to be formed for the sake of pleasure, for example religious guilds and dining-clubs, which are unions for sacrifice and social intercourse. But all these associations seem to be subordinate to the association of the State, which aims not at a temporary advantage but at one covering the whole of life.] combine to perform sacrifices and hold festivals in connection with them, thereby both paying honor to the gods and providing pleasant holidays for themselves. For it may be noticed that the sacrifices and festivals of ancient origin take place after harvest, being in fact harvest-festivals; this is because that was the season of the year at which people had most leisure.
6
All these associations then appear to be parts of the association of the State; and the limited friendships which we reviewed will correspond to the limited associations from which they spring.
1
Now there are three forms of constitution, and also an equal number of perversions or corruptions of those forms. The constitutions are Kingship, Aristocracy, and thirdly, a constitution based on a property classification, which it seems appropriate to describe as timocratic, although most people are accustomed to speak of it merely as a constitutional government or Republic.
