Pagina 887 di 1391

Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer,

Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making

these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own

unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none

the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build

large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about

them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and

practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now,

they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the

favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than

mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting

guard?