ACHIEVEMENT...............6
Socrates : Speak I must, I suppose. Now, although it is hard for a lover to parley with a man who does not yield to lovers, I must make bold nevertheless to put my meaning into words. For if I saw you, Alcibiades, content with the things I set forth just now, and minded to pass your life in enjoying them, I should long ago have put away my love, [105a] so at least I persuade myself : but as it is, I shall propound to your face quite another set of your thoughts, whereby you will understand that I have had you continually before my mind. For I believe, if some god should ask you : “Alcibiades, do you prefer to live with your present possessions, or to die immediately if you are not to have the chance of acquiring greater things ?” I believe you would choose to die. But let me tell you what I imagine must be the present hope of your life. You think that if you come shortly before the Athenian Assembly — which [105b] you expect to occur in a very few days — you will stand forth and prove to the people that you are more worthy of honor than either Pericles or anyone else who has ever existed, and that having proved this you will have the greatest power in the state ; and that if you are the greatest here, you will be the same among all the other Greeks, and not only Greeks, but all the barbarians who inhabit the same continent with us. And if that same god should say to you again, that you are to hold sway here in Europe, [105c] but are not to be allowed to cross over into Asia and to interfere with the affairs of that region, I believe you would be equally loth to live on those sole conditions either — if you are not to fill, one may say, the whole world with your name and your power ; and I fancy that, except Cyrus and Xerxes, you think there has never existed a single man who was of any account. So then that this is your hope, I know well enough ; I am not merely guessing. And I daresay you will reply, since you know that what I say is true : “Well, [105d] Socrates, and what has that to do with your point ?” I am going to tell you, dear son of Cleinias and Deinomache. Without me it is impossible for all those designs of yours to be crowned with achievement ; so great is the power I conceive myself to have over your affairs and over you, and it is for this very reason, I believe, that the god has so long prevented me from talking with you, and I was waiting to see when he would allow me. For as [105e] you have hopes of proving yourself in public to be invaluable to the state and, having proved it, of winning forthwith unlimited power, so do I hope to win supreme power over you by proving that I am invaluable to you, and that neither guardian nor kinsman nor anyone else is competent to transmit to you the power that you long for except me, with the god’s help, however. In your younger days, to be sure, before you had built such high hopes, the god, as I believe, prevented me from talking with you, in order that I might not waste my words : but now he has set me on ; [106a] for now you will listen to me.	ALCIBIADES I
Socrates : Yes, and mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and Daedalus to Hephaestus, son of Zeus ! But take the lines of those people, going back from them : you have a succession of kings reaching to Zeus — on the one hand, kings of Argos and Sparta ; on the other, of Persia, which they have always ruled, and frequently Asia also, as at present ; whereas we are private persons ourselves, and so were our fathers. And then, [121b] suppose that you had to make what show you could of your ancestors, and of Salamis as the native land of Eurysaces, or of Aegina as the home of the yet earlier Aeacus, to impress Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, how you must expect to be laughed at ! Why, I am afraid we are quite outdone by those persons in pride of birth and upbringing altogether. Or have you not observed how great are the advantages of the Spartan kings, and how their wives are kept under statutory ward of the ephors, in order that every possible precaution may be taken against the king being born [121c] of any but the Heracleidae ? And the Persian king so far surpasses us that no one has a suspicion that he could have been born of anybody but the king before him ; and hence the king’s wife has nothing to guard her except fear. When the eldest son, the heir to the throne, is born, first of all the king’s subjects who are in his palace have a feast, and then for ever after on that date the whole of Asia celebrates the king’s birthday with sacrifice and feasting : but when we are born, as the comic poet says, [121d] even the neighbors barely notice it, Alcibiades. After that comes the nurture of the child, not at the hands of a woman-nurse of little worth, but of the most highly approved eunuchs in the king’s service, who are charged with the whole tendance of the new-born child, and especially with the business of making him as handsome as possible by moulding his limbs into a correct shape ; and while doing this they are in high honor. [121e] When the boys are seven years old they are given horses and have riding lessons, and they begin to follow the chase. And when the boy reaches fourteen years he is taken over by the royal tutors, as they call them there : these are four men chosen as the most highly esteemed among the Persians of mature age, namely, the wisest one, the justest one, the most temperate one, [122a] and the bravest one. The first of these teaches him the magian lore of Zoroaster, son of Horomazes ; and that is the worship of the gods : he teaches him also what pertains to a king. The justest teaches him to be truthful all his life long ; the most temperate, not to be mastered by even a single pleasure, in order that he may be accustomed to be a free man and a veritable king, who is the master first of all that is in him, not the slave ; while the bravest trains him to be fearless and undaunted, telling him that to be daunted is to be enslaved. But you, [122b] Alcibiades, had a tutor set over you by Pericles from amongst his servants,who was old as to be the most useless of them, Zopyrus the Thracian. I might describe to you at length the nurture and education of your competitors, were it not too much of a task ; and besides, what I have said suffices to show the rest that follows thereon. But about your birth, Alcibiades, or nurture or education, or about those of any other Athenian, one may say that nobody cares, unless it be some lover whom you chance to have. And again, if you chose to glance at the wealth, the luxury, [122c] the robes with sweeping trains, the anointings with myrrh, the attendant troops of menials, and all the other refinements of the Persians, you would be ashamed at your own case, on perceiving its inferiority to theirs. Should you choose, again, to look at the temperance and orderliness, the facility and placidity, the magnanimity and discipline, the courage and endurance, and the toil-loving, success-loving, honor-loving spirit of the Spartans, you would count yourself but a child[122d] in all these things. If again you regard wealth, and think yourself something in that way, I must not keep silence on this point either, if you are to realize where you stand. For in this respect you have only to look at the wealth of the Spartans, and you will perceive that our riches here are far inferior to theirs. Think of all the land that they have both in their own and in the Messenian country : not one of our estates could compete with theirs in extent and excellence, nor again in ownership of slaves, and especially of those of the helot class, nor yet of horses, [122e] nor of all the flocks and herds that graze in Messene. However, I pass over all these things : but there is more gold and silver privately held in Lacedaemon than in the whole of Greece ; for during many generations treasure has been passing in to them from every part of Greece, and often from the barbarians also, but not passing out to anyone ; and just as in the fable of Aesop, [123a] where the fox remarked to the lion on the direction of the footmarks, the traces of the money going into Lacedaemon are clear enough, but nowhere are any to be seen of it coming out ; so that one can be pretty sure that those people are the richest of the Greeks in gold and silver, and that among themselves the richest is the king ; for the largest and most numerous receipts of the kind are those of the kings, [123b] and besides there is the levy of the royal tribute in no slight amount, which the Spartans pay to their kings. Now, the Spartan fortunes, though great compared with the wealth of other Greeks, are nought beside that of the Persians and their king. For I myself was once told by a trustworthy person, who had been up to their court, that he traversed a very large tract of excellent land, nearly a day’s journey, which the inhabitants called the girdle of the king’s wife, and another which was similarly called her veil ; [123c] and many other fine and fertile regions reserved for the adornment of the consort ; and each of these regions was named after some part of her apparel. So I imagine, if someone should say to the king’s mother Amestris, who was wife of Xerxes, “The son of Deinomache intends to challenge your son ; the mother’s dresses are worth perhaps fifty minae at the outside, while the son has under three hundred acres at Erchiae,” she would wonder to what on earth this [123d] Alcibiades could be trusting, that he proposed to contend against Artaxerxes ; and I expect she would remark — “The only possible things that the man can be trusting to for his enterprise are industry and wisdom ; for these are the only things of any account among the Greeks.” Whereas if she were informed that this Alcibiades who is actually making such an attempt is, in the first place, as yet barely twenty years old, and secondly, altogether uneducated ; and further, that when his lover tells him that he must first learn, and take pains over himself, and practise, [123e] before he enters on a contest with the king, he refuses, and says he will do very well as he is ; I expect she would ask in surprise, “On what, then, can the youngster rely ?” And if we told her, “On beauty, stature, birth, wealth, and mental gifts,” she would conclude we were mad, Alcibiades, when she compared the advantages of her own people in all these respects. And I imagine that even Lampido, daughter of Leotychides [124a] and wife of Archidamus and mother of Agis, who have all been kings, would wonder in the same way, when she compared her people’s resources, at your intention of having a contest with her son despite your bad upbringing. And yet, does it not strike you as disgraceful that our enemies’ wives should have a better idea of the qualities that we need for an attempt against them than we have ourselves ? Ah, my remarkable friend, listen to me and the Delphic motto, [124b] “Know thyself” ; for these people are our competitors, not those whom you think ; and there is nothing that will give us ascendancy over them save only pains and skill. If you are found wanting in these, you will be found wanting also in achievement of renown among Greeks and barbarians both ; and of this I observe you to be more enamored than anyone else ever was of anything.	ALCIBIADES I
To them, therefore, we award in this our speech the first prize for valor, and the second to those who fought and won the sea-fights off Salamis [241a] and at Artemisium. And truly concerning these men also one might have much to relate, regarding the manner of onsets they endured both by land and sea, and how they repelled them ; but the achievement I shall mention is that which was, in my judgement, the noblest that they performed, in that it followed up the achievement of the men of Marathon. For whereas the men of Marathon had only proved to the Greeks thus much, — that it was possible to repel [241b] the barbarians by land though few against many, yet the prospect in a sea-fight remained still doubtful, and the Persians still retained the reputation of being invincible by sea, in virtue of their numbers and their wealth, their naval skill and strength. For this, then, the men who fought those sea-fights merit our praise, that they delivered the Greeks from the second of their fears, and put an end to the terrors inspired by multitudes of ships and men. So it came about, by the action of both — the soldiers who fought at Marathon and the sailors who fought at Salamis — , [241c] that the rest of the Greeks were trained and accustomed to have no fear of the barbarians, neither by land, as our soldiers taught them, nor yet, as our sailors taught them, by sea.	MENEXENUS
To them, therefore, we award in this our speech the first prize for valor, and the second to those who fought and won the sea-fights off Salamis [241a] and at Artemisium. And truly concerning these men also one might have much to relate, regarding the manner of onsets they endured both by land and sea, and how they repelled them ; but the achievement I shall mention is that which was, in my judgement, the noblest that they performed, in that it followed up the achievement of the men of Marathon. For whereas the men of Marathon had only proved to the Greeks thus much, — that it was possible to repel [241b] the barbarians by land though few against many, yet the prospect in a sea-fight remained still doubtful, and the Persians still retained the reputation of being invincible by sea, in virtue of their numbers and their wealth, their naval skill and strength. For this, then, the men who fought those sea-fights merit our praise, that they delivered the Greeks from the second of their fears, and put an end to the terrors inspired by multitudes of ships and men. So it came about, by the action of both — the soldiers who fought at Marathon and the sailors who fought at Salamis — , [241c] that the rest of the Greeks were trained and accustomed to have no fear of the barbarians, neither by land, as our soldiers taught them, nor yet, as our sailors taught them, by sea.	MENEXENUS
Soc. Such are the mid-wives, whose task is a very important one but not so important as mine ; for women do not bring into the world at one time real children, and at another time counterfeits which are with difficulty distinguished from them ; if they did, then the, discernment of the true and false birth would be the crowning achievement of the art of midwifery — you would think so ?	THEAETETUS
Athenian : You know that there are eight powers of those contained in the whole heaven which are cognate to each other : these I have observed, and it is no great achievement ; for it is easy enough [986b] for anybody. Three of them are that of the sun, for one, that of the moon for another, and a third that of the stars which we mentioned a little while ago ; and there are five others besides. Now in regard to all these and those beings who either have their own motion in these, or are borne in vehicles so as to make their progress thus, let none of us all ever idly suppose that some of them are gods, while others are not, or that some are genuine, while others are of a certain kind which it is not permissible to any of us even to express ; but let us all declare and say that they are all cognate [986c] and have cognate lots, and let us render them due honor, not by giving to one a year, to another a month ; but to none of them let us appoint either a certain lot or a certain time in which it travels through its particular orbit, completing the system which the divinest reason of all appointed to be visible. This first the man who is blest admires, and then he feels a passion for understanding so much as is possible for mortal nature, believing that thus he will best and most happily pass through life, [986d] and at the end of his days will arrive at regions meet for virtue ; and having been truly and really initiated, and won his individual intelligence, and become for the rest of time a spectator of what is fairest, so far as sight can go, in this state he continues.	EPINOMIS XII
ACHIEVEMENTS..............1
Wherefore the forefathers of these men and of us, and these men themselves, having been reared up thus in complete freedom, and being nobly born, achieved before all men many noble deeds both individual and national, [239b] deeming it their duty to fight in the cause of freedom alike with Greeks on behalf of Greeks and with barbarians on behalf of the whole of Greece. The story of how they repulsed Eumolpus and the Amazons, and still earlier invaders, when they marched upon our country, and how they defended the Argives against the Cadmeians and the Heracleidae against the Argives, is a story which our time is too short to relate as it deserves, and already their valor has been adequately celebrated in song by poets who have made it known throughout the world ; [239c] consequently, if we should attempt to magnify the same achievements in plain prose, we should probably find ourselves outmatched.	MENEXENUS
ACHIEVING.................1
The policy which would best serve to secure your real “well-doing” is that which I shall now endeavor as best I can to describe to you. And I hope that my advice will not only be salutary to you (though to you in special), but also [8.352c] to all the Syracusans, in the second place, and, in the third, to your enemies and your foes, unless any of them be a doer of impious deeds ; for such deeds are irremediable and none could ever wash out their stain. Mark, then, what I now say. Now that the tyranny is broken down over the whole of Sicily all your fighting rages round this one subject of dispute, the one party desiring to recover the headship, and the other to put the finishing touch to the expulsion of the tyrants. Now the majority of men always believe that the right advice about these matters [8.352d] is the advising of such action as will do the greatest possible harm to one’s enemies and the greatest possible good to one’s friends ; whereas it is by no means easy to do much harm to others without also suffering in turn much harm oneself. And without going far afield one may see such consequences clearly in the recent events in Sicily itself, where the one faction is trying to inflict injury and the other to ward off the injurers ; and the tale thereof, if ever you told it to others, [8.352e] would inevitably prove a most impressive lesson. Of such policies, one may say, there is no lack ; but as for a policy which would prove beneficial to all alike, foes as well as friends, or at least as little detrimental as possible to either, such a policy is neither easy to discern, nor, when discerned, easy to carry out ; and to advise such a policy or attempt to describe it is much like saying a prayer. Be it so, then, that this is nothing but a prayer (and in truth every man ought always [8.353a] to begin his speaking and his thinking with the gods) ; yet may it attain fulfilment in indicating some such counsel as this : — Now and almost ever since the war began both you and your enemies have been ruled continuously by that one family which your fathers set on the throne in the hour of their greatest distress, when Greek Sicily was in the utmost danger of being entirely overrun by the Carthaginians and barbarized. On that occasion they chose Dionysius because of his youth and warlike prowess to take charge of [8.353b] the military operations for which he was suited, with Hipparinus, who was older, as his fellow-counsellor, appointing them dictators for the safeguarding of Sicily, with the title, as men say, of “tyrants.” But whether one prefers to suppose that the cause which ultimately brought about their salvation was divine Fortune and the Deity, or the virtue of the rulers, or possibly the combination of both assisted by the citizens of that age — as to this let everyone form his own notion ; in any case this was the way in which salvation for the men of that generation came about. Seeing, then, that they proved themselves men of such a quality, [8.353c] it is surely right that they should be repaid with gratitude by all those whom they saved. But if in after times the tyrant’s house has wrongly abused the bounty of the city, the penalty for this it has suffered in part, and in part it will have to pay. What, then, is the penalty rightly to be exacted from them under existing circumstances ? If you were able to get quit of them easily, without serious dangers and trouble, or if they were able to regain the empire without difficulty, then, in either case, it would not have been possible for me so much as to offer the advice which I am now about to utter ; but as it is, both of you ought to bear in mind [8.353d] and remember how many times each party has hopefully imagined that it lacked but a little of achieving complete success almost every time ; and, what is more, that it is precisely this little deficiency which is always turning out to be the cause of great and numberless evils. And of these evils no limit is ever reached, but what seems to be the end of the old is always being linked on to the beginning of a new brood ; and because of this endless chain of evil [8.353e] the whole tribe of tyrants and democrats alike will be in danger of destruction. But should any of these consequences — likely as they are though lamentable — come to pass, hardly a trace of the Greek tongue will remain in all Sicily, since it will have been transformed into a province or dependency of Phoenicians or Opicians. Against this all the Greeks must with all zeal provide a remedy. If, therefore, any man knows of a remedy that is truer and better than that which I am now about to propose, [8.354a] and puts it openly before us, he shall have the best right to the title “Friend of Greece.” The remedy, however, which commends itself to me I shall now endeavor to explain, using the utmost freedom of speech and a tone of impartial justice. For indeed I am speaking somewhat like an arbitrator, and addressing to the two parties, the former despot and his subjects, as though each were a single person, the counsel I gave of old. And now also my word of advice to every despot would be that he should shun the despot’s title and his task, and change his despotism for kingship. [8.354b] That this is possible has been actually proved by that wise and good man Lycurgus ; for when he saw that the family of his kinsmen in Argos and in Messene had in both cases destroyed both themselves and their city by advancing from kingship to despotic power, he was alarmed about his own city as well as his own family, and as a remedy he introduced the authority of the Elders and of the Ephors to serve as a bond of safety for the kingly power ; and because of this they have already been kept safe [8.354c] and glorious all these generations since Law became with them supreme king over men instead of men being despots over the laws. And now also I urgently admonish you all to do the same. Those of you who are rushing after despotic power I exhort to change their course and to flee betimes from what is counted as “bliss” by men of insatiable cravings and empty heads, and to try to transform themselves into the semblance of a king, and to become subject to kingly laws, owing their possession of the highest honors to the voluntary goodwill of the citizens and to the laws. And [8.354d] I should counsel those who follow after the ways of freedom, and shun as a really evil thing the yoke of bondage, to beware lest by their insatiable craving for an immoderate freedom they should ever fall sick of their forefathers’ disease, which the men of that time suffered because of their excessive anarchy, through indulging an unmeasured love of freedom. For the Siceliots of the age before Dionysius and Hipparinus began to rule were living blissfully, as they supposed, being in luxury and ruling also over their rulers ; and they even stoned to death the ten generals [8.354e] who preceded Dionysius, without any legal trial, to show that they were no slaves of any rightful master, nor of any law, but were in all ways altogether free. Hence it was that the rule of the despots befell them. For as regards both slavery and freedom, when either is in excess it is wholly evil, but when in moderation wholly good ; and moderate slavery consists in being the slave of God, immoderate, in being the slave of men ; [8.355a] and men of sound sense have Law for their God, but men without sense Pleasure. Since these things are naturally ordained thus, I exhort Dion’s friends to declare what I am advising to all the Syracusans, as being the joint advice both of Dion and myself ; and I will be the interpreter of what he would have said to you now, were he alive and able to speak. “Pray then,” someone might say, “what message does the advice of Dion declare to us concerning the present situation ?” It is this : “Above all else, O ye Syracusans, accept such laws [8.355b] as do not appear to you likely to turn your minds covetously to money-making and wealth ; but rather — since there are three objects, the soul, the body, and money besides, — accept such laws as cause the virtue of the soul to be held first in honor, that of the body second, subordinate to that of the soul, and the honor paid to money to come third and last, in subjection to both the body and the soul. The ordinance which effects this [8.355c] will be truly laid down by you as law, since it really makes those who obey it blessed ; whereas the phrase which terms the rich “blessed” is not only a miserable one in itself, being the senseless phrase of women and children, but also renders those who believe it equally miserable. That this exhortation of mine is true you will learn by actual experience if you make trial of what I am now saying concerning laws ; for in all matters experience is held to be the truest test. And when you have accepted laws of this kind, inasmuch as [8.355d] Sicily is beset with dangers, and you are neither complete victors nor utterly vanquished, it will be, no doubt, both just and profitable for you all to pursue a middle course — not only those of you who flee from the harshness of the tyranny, but also those who crave to win back that tyranny — the men whose ancestors in those days performed the mightiest deed in saving the Greeks from the barbarians, with the result that it is possible for us now to talk about constitutions ; whereas, if they had then been ruined, no place would have been left at all for either talk or hope. So, then, let the one party of you gain freedom by the aid of kingly rule, [8.355e] and the other gain a form of kingly rule that is not irresponsible, with the laws exercising despotic sway over the kings themselves as well as the rest of the citizens, in case they do anything illegal. On these conditions set up kings for all of you, by the help of the gods and with honest and sound intent, — my own son first in return for twofold favors, namely that conferred by me and that conferred by my father ; for he delivered the city from barbarians in his own day, while I, in the present day, have twice delivered it from tyrants, [8.356a] whereof you yourselves are witnesses. And as your second king create the man who possesses the same name as my father and is son to Dionysius, in return for his present assistance and for his pious disposition ; for he, though he is sprung from a tyrant’s loins, is in act of delivering the city of his own free will, gaining thereby for himself and for his race everlasting honor in place of a transitory and unrighteous tyranny. And, thirdly, you ought to invite to become king of Syracuse — as willing king of a willing city — him who is now [8.356b] commander of your enemies’ army, Dionysius, son of Dionysius, if so be that he is willing of his own accord to transform himself into a king, being moved thereto by fear of fortune’s changes, and by pity for his country and the untended state of her temples and her tombs, lest because of his ambition he utterly ruin all and become a cause of rejoicing to the barbarians. And these three, — whether you grant them the power of the Laconian kings or curtail that power by a common agreement, — you should establish as kings in some such manner as the following, [8.356c] which indeed has been described to you before, yet listen to it now again. If you find that the family of Dionysius and Hipparinus is willing to make an end of the evils now occurring in order to secure the salvation of Sicily provided that they receive honors both in the present and for the future for themselves and for their family, then on these terms, as was said before, convoke envoys empowered to negotiate a pact, such men as they may choose, whether they come from Sicily or from abroad or both, and in such numbers as may be mutually agreed. [8.356d] And these men, on their arrival, should first lay down laws and a constitution which is so framed as to permit the kings to be put in control of the temples and of all else that fitly belongs to those who once were benefactors. And as controllers of war and peace they should appoint Law-wardens, thirty-five in number, in conjunction with the People and the Council. And there should be various courts of law for various suits, but in matters involving death or exile the Thirty-five should form the court ; and in addition to these there should be judges selected [8.356e] from the magistrates of each preceding year, one from each magistracy — the one, that is, who is approved as the most good and just ; and these should decide for the ensuing year all cases which involve the death, imprisonment or transportation of citizens ; and it should not be permissible for a king to be a judge of such suits, but he, like a priest, [8.357a] should remain clean from bloodshed and imprisonment and exile. This is what I planned for you when I was alive, and it is still my plan now. With your aid, had not Furies in the guise of guests prevented me, I should then have overcome our foes, and established the State in the way I planned ; and after this, had my intentions been realized, I should have resettled the rest of Sicily by depriving the barbarians of the land they now hold — excepting those who fought in defence of the common liberty against the tyranny — [8.357b] and restoring the former occupiers of the Greek regions to their ancient and ancestral homes. And now likewise I counsel you all with one accord to adopt and execute these same plans, and to summon all to this task, and to count him who refuses as a common enemy. Nor is such a course impossible ; for when plans actually exist in two souls, and when they are readily perceived upon reflection to be the best, he who pronounces such plans impossible is hardly a man of understanding. And by the “two souls” [8.357c] I mean the soul of Hipparinus the son of Dionysius and that of my own son ; for should these agree together, I believe that all the rest of the Syracusans who have a care for their city will consent. Well then, when you have paid due honor, with prayer, to all the gods and all the other powers to whom, along with the gods, it is due, cease not from urging and exhorting both friends and opponents by gentle means and every means, until, like a heaven-sent dream presented to waking eyes, [8.357d] the plan which I have pictured in words be wrought by you into plain deeds and brought to a happy consummation.”	LETTERS 8