in his own state; and when occurring, every one would wish to be
quit of as soon as possible?

  Cle. He would have the latter chiefly in view.

  Ath. And would he prefer that this civil war should be terminated by
the destruction of one of the parties, and by the victory of the
other, or that peace and friendship should be re-established, and
that, being reconciled, they should give their attention to foreign
enemies?

  Cle. Every one would desire the latter in the case of his own state.

  Ath. And would not that also be the desire of the legislator?

  Cle. Certainly.

  Ath. And would not every one always make laws for the sake of the
best?

  Cle. To be sure.

  Ath. But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the
need of either is to be deprecated; but peace with one another, and
good will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be
regarded as a really good thing, but as a necessity; a man might as
well say that the body was in the best state when sick and purged by
medicine, forgetting that there is also a state of the body which
needs no purge. And in like manner no one can be a true statesman,
whether he aims at the happiness of the individual or state, who looks
only, or first of all, to external warfare; nor will he ever be a
sound legislator who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for
the sake of peace.

  Cle. I suppose that there is truth, Stranger, in that remark of
yours; and yet I am greatly mistaken if war is not the entire aim
and object of our own institutions, and also of the Lacedaemonian.

  Ath. I dare say; but there is no reason why we should rudely quarrel
with one another about your legislators, instead of gently questioning
them, seeing that both we and they are equally in earnest. Please
follow me and the argument closely:-And first I will put forward
Tyrtaeus, an Athenian by birth, but also a Spartan citizen, who of all
men was most eager about war: Well, he says, "I sing not, I care
not, about any man, even if he were the richest of men, and
possessed every good (and then he gives a whole list of them), if he
be not at all times a brave warrior." I imagine that you, too, must
have heard his poems; our Lacedaemonian friend has probably heard more
than enough of them.

  Meg. Very true.

  Cle. And they have found their way from Lacedaemon to Crete.

  Ath. Come now and let us all join in asking this question of
Tyrtaeus: O most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise
which you have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently
proves that you are wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias
of Cnosus do, as I believe, entirely agree with you. But we should
like to be quite sure that we are speaking of the same men; tell us,
then, do you agree with us in thinking that there are two kinds of
war; or what would you say? A far inferior man to Tyrtaeus would
have no difficulty in replying quite truly, that war is of two kinds
one which is 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.

  Cle. Certainly, far milder.

  Ath. 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.

  Cle. Evidently.

  Ath. 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