The Republic - Notes

The men who gather here in happy days for a theoretical
conversation are soon to fall on evil ones in the practice of
politics. The problems of that practice, which are later to
be revealed in deed, are here discussed. This is the drama
of the Republic, without which its teaching cannot
be understood. This friendly association of ten men with whom
Socrates talks in the Piraeus will be replaced by a committee
of ten men who brutally rule there in the name of the "Thirty"
and put the host of this meeting to death. The participants
discuss the best regime but are to experience the worst.