Athenian
Ath. There lies a cause, as I affirm, in those non-polities which I have often mentionedPlat. Laws 712c ff., Plat. Laws 713e ff. in our previous discourse,—namely, democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. For none of these is a polity, but the truest name for them all would be faction-State; for none of them is a form of voluntary rule over willing subjects, but a voluntary rule over unwilling subjects accompanied always by some kind of force; and the ruler, through fear of the subject, will never voluntarily allow him to become noble or wealthy or strong or brave or in any way warlike. These, then, are the two main causes of nearly everything, and certainly of the conditions we described. The polity, however, for which we are now legislating has escaped both these causes; for not only does it enjoy a great amount of leisure,Cp. Plat. Laws 806d, Plat. Laws 828d, Plat. Laws 828e, etc. but the citizens also are free from one another’s domination, and as a consequence of these laws of ours they will be the least likely of men to be money-lovers. Hence it is both natural and logical that of all existing polities this type alone should welcome the system above described, which combines military schooling with sport, when we have rightly completed that description.