YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then the question arises:--which of these untrue forms of
government is the least oppressive to their subjects, though they are all
oppressive; and which is the worst of them? Here is a consideration which
is beside our present purpose, and yet having regard to the whole it seems
to influence all our actions: we must examine it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must.
STRANGER: You may say that of the three forms, the same is at once the
hardest and the easiest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I am speaking of the three forms of government, which I
mentioned at the beginning of this discussion--monarchy, the rule of the
few, and the rule of the many.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: If we divide each of these we shall have six, from which the
true one may be distinguished as a seventh.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you make the division?
STRANGER: Monarchy divides into royalty and tyranny; the rule of the few
into aristocracy, which has an auspicious name, and oligarchy; and
democracy or the rule of the many, which before was one, must now be
divided.
YOUNG SOCRATES: On what principle of division?
STRANGER: On the same principle as before, although the name is now
discovered to have a twofold meaning.
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