'Yes, Stranger, a little onward there are beautiful groves of cypresses, and green meadows in which we may repose.' My first question is, Why has the law ordained that you should have common meals, and practise gymnastics, and bear arms?
'My answer is, that all our institutions are of a military character.

We lead the life of the camp even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an army, and having meals in common; and as our country, owing to its ruggedness, is ill-suited for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our soldiers are archers, equipped with bows and arrows.

The legislator was under the idea that war was the natural state of all mankind, and that peace is only a pretence; he thought that no possessions had any value which were not secured against enemies.' And do you think that superiority in war is the proper aim of government?
'Certainly I do, and my Spartan friend will agree with me.' And are there wars, not only of state against state, but of village against village, of family against family, of individual against individual?
'Yes.' And is a man his own enemy?
'There you come to first principles, like a true votary of the goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner recognize the truth of what I am saying--that all men everywhere are the enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself; and, further, that there is a victory and defeat--the best and the worst--which each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of himself.' And does this extend to states and villages as well as to individuals?
'Certainly; there is a better in them which conquers or is conquered by the worse.' Whether the worse ever really conquers the better, is a question which may be left for the present; but your meaning is, that bad citizens do sometimes overcome the good, and that the state is then conquered by herself, and that when they are defeated the state is victorious over herself.

Or, again, in a family there may be several brothers, and the bad may be a majority; and when the bad majority conquer the good minority, the family are worse than themselves.

The use of the terms 'better or worse than himself or themselves' may be doubtful, but about the thing meant there can be no dispute.