That, I suppose, is to be inferred.
Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.
That is implied in the argument.
Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; [B]for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that
‘He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.’
And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that 10 justice is an art of theft; to be practised however ‘for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,’—that was what you were saying?
No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words.
[C]Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming?
Justice an art of theft to be practised for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. But who are friends and enemies? Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?