It is not without a certain reluctance that I address the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. While flattered and somewhat astonished that you would be interested in the musings of an old Greek whose life's span reaches back over two millennia, I am aware of some enormous difficulties and complexities (aporiae, I used to call them). The nature of modern weaponry, for example, and the extent of its destructive power far outstrip anything we could have imagined. Furthermore, the modern world contrasts so sharply with my times that I wonder if anything I said or could say would be retevant. The Greek city was small—deliberately so, in order to give citizens the opportunity to be involved in its decisions and acts. The most complex nation-state of today makes such participatory democracy almost impossible; hence, the wisdom of the former age shatters against the very size of the modern political entity.