STRANGER: But what would you say of some other serviceable officials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they, and what services do they perform?
STRANGER: There are heralds, and scribes perfected by practice, and divers
others who have great skill in various sorts of business connected with the
government of states--what shall we call them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They are the officials, and servants of the rulers, as you
just now called them, but not themselves rulers.
STRANGER: There may be something strange in any servant pretending to be a
ruler, and yet I do not think that I could have been dreaming when I
imagined that the principal claimants to political science would be found
somewhere in this neighbourhood.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Well, let us draw nearer, and try the claims of some who have
not yet been tested: in the first place, there are diviners, who have a
portion of servile or ministerial science, and are thought to be the
interpreters of the gods to men.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: There is also the priestly class, who, as the law declares, know
how to give the gods gifts from men in the form of sacrifices which are
acceptable to them, and to ask on our behalf blessings in return from them.
Now both these are branches of the servile or ministerial art.
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