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Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:—that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses.

As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this.

Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?—I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?

I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another.

And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city—men, women, and children—are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction?

They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies?

Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled?

And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?

And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as discord only—a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war?

And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples?

Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?

I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.

And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city?

Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other.

Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?

Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever.

But would you call the painter a creator and maker?

And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; and such enmity is to be called discord.

And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians?

And what shall we say of the carpenter—is not he also the maker of the bed?