The Scythian or Consul (22)

Virtue then seems to me like a city whose inhabitants are happy (as your teacher, who has come from there, wherever it may be, would say), outstanding in their wisdom, all of them brave, just, prudent, almost gods. All those things that you find here—robbery, violence, cheating—they say you would find none of them ventured in that city; no, they live together in peace and harmony naturally enough; for what, I suppose, in other cities produces strife and discord, plot and counter-plot, is entirely absent. They do not any longer look on gold, pleasures, or glory as things to quarrel about—they drove them from the city long ago, thinking them unnecessary to their common life. So they live a calm and perfectly happy life with good government, equality, freedom, and the other blessings.