Note 110 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS.

Plato, Legg. iii. p. 690 C.

This enumeration by Plato of seven distinct and conflicting ἀξιώματα τοῦ ἄρχειν καὶ ἄρχεσθαι, deserves notice in many ways. All the seven are natural: nature is considered as including multifarious and conflicting titles (compare Xenophon, Memorab. ii. 6, 21), and therefore as not furnishing in itself any justification or ground of preference for one above the rest. The ἀξίωμα of superior force is just as natural as the ἀξίωμα of superior wisdom, though Plato himself pronounces the latter to be the greatest; that is — greatest, not φύσει but νόμῳ or τέχνῃ, according to his own rational and deliberate estimation. Plato is not uniform in this view, for he uses elsewhere the phrases φύσει and κατὰ φύσιν as if they specially and exclusively belonged to that which he approves, and furnished a justification for it (see Legg. x. pp. 889-890, besides the Republic and the Gorgias). Again the lot, or the process of sortition, is here described as carrying with it both the preference of the Gods and the principles of justice (τὸ δικαιότατον εἶναί φαμεν). The Gods determine upon whom the lot should fall — compare Homer, Iliad, vii. 179. This is a remarkable view of the lot, and represents a feeling much diffused among the ancient democracies.

The relation of master and slave counts, in Plato’s view, among the natural relations, with its consequent rights and obligations.

The force of εὐτυχία, as a title to command, is illustrated in the speech addressed by Alkibiades to the Athenian assembly. Thucyd. vi. 16-17: he allows it even in his competitor Nikias — ἀλλ’ ἕως τε ἔτι ἀκμάζω μετ’ αὐτῆς καὶ ὁ Νικίας εὐτυχὴς δοκεῖ εἶναι, ἀποχρήσασθε τῇ ἑκατέρου ἡμῶν ὠφελία. Compare also the language of Nikias himself in his own last speech under the extreme distress of the Athenian army in Sicily, Thucyd. vii. 77.

In the Politikus (p. 293 and elsewhere) Plato admits no ἀξίωμα τοῦ ἄρχειν as genuine or justifiable, except Science, Art, superior wisdom, in one or a few Artists of governing; the same in Republic, v. p. 474 C, respecting what he there calls φιλοσοφία.