to afford luxuries, it will need to expand, to develop a powerful military for taking and protecting more land than it strictly needs (373d–e). This is the origin of the infamous class system of Plato’s Republic, since it sets up a division of the city into two types of people, the guardian soldiers and the laborers. The guardians will rule over the craftsmen, and their rule will, as we’ll see shortly, be absolute and unquestioned.
