might compare myself
to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by the
painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with a
desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or conflict
to which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling about the State
which we have been describing. There are conflicts which all cities
undergo, and I should like to hear some one tell of our own city
carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to
war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her
actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities
a result worthy of her training and education. Now I, Critias and
Hermocrates, am conscious that I myself should never be able to
celebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and I am
not surprised at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather that
the poets present as well as past are no better--not that I mean
to depreciate them; but every one can see that they are a tribe of
imitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which they
have been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man's
education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder
adequately to represent in language. I am aware that the Sophists have
plenty of brave words and fair conceits, but I am afraid that being only
wanderers from one city to another, and having never had habitations
of their own, they may fail in their conception of philosophers and
statesmen, and may not know what they do and say in time of war, when
they are fighting or holding parley with their enemies. And thus people
of your class are the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature and
education to take part at once both in politics and philosophy. Here is
Timaeus, of Locris in Italy, a city which has admirable laws, and who is
himself in wealth and rank the equal of any of his fellow-citizens; he
has held the most important and honourable offices in his own state,
and, as I believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy; and here
is Critias, whom every Athenian knows to be no novice in the matters
of which we are speaking; and as to Hermocrates, I am assured by many
witnesses that his genius and education qualify him to take part in any
speculation of the kind. And therefore yesterday when I saw that you
wanted me to describe the formation of the State, I readily assented,
being very