102. _Cal._ I have already said that they are such as are wise and brave, with respect to the affairs of a city. For it belongs to them to govern cities, and it is just that they should have more than others, the governors than the governed. _Socr._ But what? my friend, as governing themselves, or being governed? _Cal._ What mean you? _Socr._ I mean that each person governs himself. Is there no occasion for this, that a man should govern himself, but only others? _Cal._ What do you mean by governing himself? _Socr._ Nothing uncommon; but as men frequently say, that a man is temperate, and master of himself, controlling the pleasures and desires that are within himself. _Cal._ How ridiculous you are! By the temperate you mean the foolish. _Socr._ How otherwise? There is no one but would know that that is my meaning[71]. ----- Footnote 71: I have followed Stallbaum’s reading, οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐκ ἂν γνοίη, ὅτι οὕτω λέγω . Socrates grants his opponent’s erroneous inference, that so he may be led on to a still greater absurdity. ----- _Cal._ Most assuredly, Socrates; since how can a man be happy who is a slave to any one? But this it is which is beautiful, and just according to nature, and which I now freely tell you, _namely_, that a man who lives rightly should suffer his desires to be as great as possible, and should not restrain them; but should be able, when they are at their height, to minister to them by his courage and prudence, and satisfy each desire as it springs up. 103. This, however, I think, is not possible for the generality of men; wherefore they blame such persons through shame, to conceal their own impotency, and say that intemperance is base; as I said before, enslaving men of a better nature, and themselves not being able to satisfy their own pleasures, they praise temperance and justice, on account of their own effeminacy. For to those whom it has befallen from the first either to be the sons of kings, or who are able by nature to procure for themselves a government, or tyranny, or dynasty, what can be more disgraceful and base than temperance? who, when it is in their power to enjoy the good things of this life, and no one hinders them, impose a master on themselves, the law, discourse, and censure of the multitude? Or how should they be otherwise than miserable through the beauty of justice and temperance, while they impart no more to their friends than to their enemies, and this though they have supreme power in their own city? Thus, then, it stands with the truth, Socrates, which you say you are in search of: luxury, intemperance, and liberty, if they have the proper aids, these are virtue and felicity; but all those other fine things, those compacts contrary to nature, are extravagancies of men, and of no value.