which is to be assigned to them in states, would you say, on the other hand, that temperance, if existing without the other virtues in the soul, is worth anything or nothing?  ’I cannot tell.’  You have answered well.  It would be absurd to speak of temperance as belonging to the class of honourable or of dishonourable qualities, because all other virtues in their various classes require temperance to be added to them; having the addition, they are honoured not in proportion to that, but to their own excellence.  And ought not the legislator to determine these classes?  ‘Certainly.’  Suppose then that, without going into details, we make three great classes of them.  Most honourable are the goods of the soul, always assuming temperance as a condition of them; secondly, those of the body; thirdly, external possessions.  The legislator who puts them in another order is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing.

These remarks were suggested by the history of the Persian kings; and to them I will now return.  The ruin of their empire was caused by the loss of freedom and the growth of despotism; all community of feeling disappeared.  Hatred and spoliation took the place of friendship; the people no longer fought heartily for their masters; the rulers, finding their myriads useless on the field of battle, resorted to mercenaries as their only salvation, and were thus compelled by their circumstances to proclaim the stupidest of falsehoods—­that virtue is a trifle in comparison of money.

But enough of the Persians:  a different lesson is taught by the Athenians, whose example shows that a limited freedom is far better than an unlimited.  Ancient Athens, at the time of the Persian invasion, had such a limited freedom.  The people were divided into four classes, according to the amount of their property, and the universal love of order, as well as the fear of the approaching host, made them obedient and willing citizens.  For Darius had sent Datis and Artaphernes, commanding them under pain of death to subjugate the Eretrians and Athenians.  A report, whether true or not, came to Athens that all the Eretrians had been ‘netted’; and the Athenians in terror sent all over Hellas for assistance.  None came to their relief except the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived a day too late, when the battle of Marathon had been already fought.  In process of time Xerxes came to the throne, and the Athenians heard of nothing but the bridge over the Hellespont, and the canal of Athos, and the innumerable host and fleet.  They knew that these were intended to avenge the defeat of Marathon.  Their case seemed desperate, for there was no Hellene likely to assist them by land, and at sea they were attacked by more than a thousand vessels;—­their only hope, however slender, was in victory; so they relied upon themselves and upon the Gods.  Their common danger, and the influence of their ancient constitution, greatly tended to promote harmony among them.  Reverence and fear—­that