James Adam, The Republic of Plato

373D - 376C In consequence of the increase of population we shall require more land. We must accordingly appropriate some of our neighbours' territory, just as under similar conditions they will lay hands upon ours. Herein we have the genesis of War. The duties of War— according to our principle of the subdivision of labour—will involve us in a standing army of professional soldiers or ‘Guardians.’ Now as War demands not only concentration and application, but also a certain natural aptitude, our Guardians must be qualified by Nature for their duties: that is to say, like generous dogs, they must be quick to perceive, swift to pursue, and strong in actual fight. They should also be brave and spirited, but gentle to their fellow-citizens and one another. The union of gentieness with spirit in the same nature is rare, but not unknown among men, any more than it is among dogs. Our Guardians must in fact be ‘philosophic’ (φιλόσοφοι), like the dog, who is a true philosopher when he defines friend and foe respectively by knowledge and by ignorance, hating the unknown, and welcoming the known. In brief, we shall require a guardian to be naturally philosophic, spirited, swift, and strong.

λέγομεν . λέγωμεν may be right, but the first hand of A was apt to err in these subjunctive forms (Introd. § 5), and the Indicative is somewhat more natural here: cf. (with Schneider) 377 E ἀλλὰ πῶς δὴ λέγομεν καὶ ποῖα;