are all alike to the philosopher. There may have been a time when the king
was a god, but he now is pretty much on a level with his subjects in
breeding and education. Man should be well advised that he is only one of
the animals, and the Hellene in particular should be aware that he himself
was the author of the distinction between Hellene and Barbarian, and that
the Phrygian would equally divide mankind into Phrygians and Barbarians,
and that some intelligent animal, like a crane, might go a step further,
and divide the animal world into cranes and all other animals. Plato
cannot help laughing (compare Theaet.) when he thinks of the king running
after his subjects, like the pig-driver or the bird-taker. He would
seriously have him consider how many competitors there are to his throne,
chiefly among the class of serving-men. A good deal of meaning is lurking
in the expression--'There is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name.'
There is a similar depth in the remark,--'The wonder about states is not
that they are short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the
badness of their rulers.'

V. There is also a paradoxical element in the Statesman which delights in
reversing the accustomed use of words. The law which to the Greek was the
highest object of reverence is an ignorant and brutal tyrant--the tyrant is
converted into a beneficent king. The sophist too is no longer, as in the
earlier dialogues, the rival of the statesman, but assumes his form. Plato
sees that the ideal of the state in his own day is more and more severed
from the actual. From such ideals as he had once formed, he turns away to
contemplate the decline of the Greek cities which were far worse now in his
old age than they had been in his youth, and were to become worse and worse
in the ages which followed. He cannot contain his disgust at the
contemporary statesmen, sophists who had turned politicians, in various
forms of men and animals, appearing, some like lions and centaurs, others
like satyrs and monkeys. In this new disguise the Sophists make their last