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δεσπότας. Demosthenes remarks that the subjects in an oligarchy are ‘cowards and slaves’ (ἄνανδροι καὶ δοῦλοι). See in Timocr. 75 and Whibley Gk. Oligarchies p. 143. ἄρχοντας. Plato is thinking of the Athenian Archons. The object of this chapter, which seems at first sight somewhat loosely constructed, is to prove that συμπάθεια prevails to a unique extent in the Platonic city. The appellations σωτῆρες and ἐπίκουροι, on the one hand, and μισθοδόται and τροφεῖς on the other, involve a greater degree of interdependence than is expressed by the corresponding names in other cities. The archons too are more than fellow-rulers: they are fellow guardians, their official designation among one another serving continually to remind them of their duty to the lower classes. Among themselves they use the terms of family relationship, and with these their actions correspond. Thus the distinction between meum and tuum is more nearly obliterated than in any other city. Everything is meum.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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