Page - 1326 - in The Complete Plato

universally called civil war, and is as we were just now saying, of all wars the worst; the other, as we should all admit, in which we fall out with other nations who are of a different race, is a far milder form of warfare. Cleinias. Certainly, far milder. Athenian. Well, now, when you praise and blame war in this high–flown strain, whom are you praising or blaming, and to which kind of war are you referring? I suppose that you must mean foreign war, if I am to judge from expressions of yours in which you say that you abominate those Who refuse to look upon fields of blood, and will not draw near and strike at their enemies. And we shall naturally go on to say to him—You, Tyrtaeus, as it seems, praise those who distinguish themselves in external and foreign war; and he must admit this. Cleinias. Evidently. Athenian. They are good; but we say that there are still better men whose virtue is displayed in the greatest of all battles. And we too have a poet whom we summon as a witness, Theognis, citizen of Megara in Sicily: Cyrnus, he who is faithful in a civil broil is worth his weight in gold and silver. And such an one is far better, as we affirm, than the other in a more difficult kind of war, much in the same degree as justice and temperance and wisdom, when united with courage, are better than courage only; for a man cannot be faithful and good in civil strife without having all virtue. But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks, many a mercenary soldier will take his stand and be ready to die at his post, and yet they are generally and almost without exception insolent, unjust, violent men, and the most senseless of human beings. You will ask what the conclusion is, and what I am seeking to prove: I maintain that the divine legislator of Crete, like any other who is worthy of consideration, will always and above all things in making laws have regard to the greatest virtue; which, according to Theognis, is loyalty in the hour of danger, and may be truly called perfect justice. Whereas, that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly praises is well enough, and was praised by the poet at the right time, yet in place and dignity may be said to be only fourth rate. Cleinias. Stranger, we are degrading our inspired lawgiver to a rank which is far beneath him. Athenian. Nay, I think that we degrade not him but ourselves, if we imagine that Lycurgus and Minos laid down laws both in Lacedaemon and Crete mainly with a view to war. Cleinias. What ought we to say then? 1326