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.