Did we not arrive at the conclusion that parents ought to govern their children, and the elder the younger, and the noble the ignoble?
And there were many other principles, if you remember, and they were not always consistent.

One principle was this very principle of might, and we said that Pindar considered violence natural and justified it.
CLEINIAS: Yes; I remember.
ATHENIAN: Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted.

For there is a thing which has occurred times without number in states-- CLEINIAS: What thing?
ATHENIAN: That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain the upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all share to the defeated party and their descendants--they live watching one another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that some one who has a recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up against them.

Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular classes and not for the good of the whole state.

States which have such laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are simply unmeaning.