unless it be accompanied by temperance. 'Explain.' No one would like to
live in the same house with a courageous man who had no control over
himself, nor with a clever artist who was a rogue. Nor can justice and
wisdom ever be separated from temperance. But considering these qualities
with reference to the honour and dishonour which is to be assigned to them
in states, would you say, on the other hand, that temperance, if existing
without the other virtues in the soul, is worth anything or nothing? 'I
cannot tell.' You have answered well. It would be absurd to speak of
temperance as belonging to the class of honourable or of dishonourable
qualities, because all other virtues in their various classes require
temperance to be added to them; having the addition, they are honoured not
in proportion to that, but to their own excellence. And ought not the
legislator to determine these classes? 'Certainly.' Suppose then that,
without going into details, we make three great classes of them. Most
honourable are the goods of the soul, always assuming temperance as a
condition of them; secondly, those of the body; thirdly, external
possessions. The legislator who puts them in another order is doing an
unholy and unpatriotic thing.

These remarks were suggested by the history of the Persian kings; and to
them I will now return. The ruin of their empire was caused by the loss of
freedom and the growth of despotism; all community of feeling disappeared.
Hatred and spoliation took the place of friendship; the people no longer
fought heartily for their masters; the rulers, finding their myriads
useless on the field of battle, resorted to mercenaries as their only
salvation, and were thus compelled by their circumstances to proclaim the
stupidest of falsehoods--that virtue is a trifle in comparison of money.

But enough of the Persians: a different lesson is taught by the Athenians,
whose example shows that a limited freedom is far better than an