Republic

What distinction do you intend by that? he said. I will try to tell you, I said. It is surely the most monstrous and shameful thing in the world for shepherds to breed the dogs who are to help them with their flocks in such wise and of such a nature that from indiscipline or hunger or some other evil condition the dogs themselves shall attack the sheep and injure them and be likened to wolves[*](Aristotle’s objection (Politics 1264 a 24) that the Platonic state will break up into two hostile camps, is plagiarized in expression from Plato’s similar censure of existing Greek cities (422 E) and assumes that the enforced disinterestedness, the higher education, and other precautions of the Platonic Republic will not suffice to conjure away the danger to which Plato first calls attention.) instead of dogs. A terrible thing, indeed, he said. Must we not then guard by every means in our power against our helpers treating the citizens in any such way and, because they are the stronger, converting themselves from benign assistants into savage masters? We must, he said. And would they not have been provided with the chief safeguard if their education has really been a good one? But it surely has, he said. That, said I, dear Glaucon, we may not properly affirm,[*](This is not so much a reservation in reference to the higher education as a characteristic refusal of Plato to dogmatize. Cf. Meno 86 B and my paper Recent Platonism in England, A.J.P. vol. ix. pp. 7-8.) but what we were just now saying we may, that they must have the right education, whatever it is, if they are to have what will do most to make them gentle to one another and to their charges. That is right, he said. In addition, moreover, to such an education a thoughtful man would affirm that their houses and the possessions provided for them ought to be such as not to interfere with the best performance of their own work as guardians and not to incite them to wrong the other citizens. He will rightly affirm that. Consider then, said I, whether, if that is to be their character, their habitations and ways of life must not be something after this fashion. In the first place, none must possess any private property[*](Plato’s communism is primarily a device to secure disinterestedness in the ruling class, though he sometimes treats it as a counsel of perfection for all men and states. Cf. Introduction p. xv note a.) save the indispensable. Secondly, none must have any habitation or treasure-house which is not open for all to enter at will. Their food, in such quantities as are needful for athletes of war[*](Cf. 403 E.) sober and brave, they must receive as an agreed[*](Cf. 551 B, Meno 91 B, Thucydides i. 108, G.M.T. 837.) stipend[*](They are worthy of their hire. Cf. on 347 A. It is a strange misapprehension to speak of Plato as careless of the welfare of the masses. His aristocracy is one of social service, not of selfish enjoyment of wealth and power.) from the other citizens as the wages of their guardianship, so measured that there shall be neither superfluity at the end of the year nor any lack.[*](This is precisely Aristophanes’ distinction between beggary and honorable poverty, Plutus 552-553.) And resorting to a common mess[*](As at Sparta. Cf. 458 C, Newman, Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, p. 334.) like soldiers on campaign they will live together.

Gold and silver, we will tell them, they have of the divine quality from the gods always in their souls, and they have no need of the metal of men nor does holiness suffer them to mingle and contaminate that heavenly possession with the acquisition of mortal gold, since many impious deeds have been done about the coin of the multitude, while that which dwells within them is unsullied. But for these only of all the dwellers in the city it is not lawful to handle gold and silver and to touch them nor yet to come under the same roof[*](As if the accursed and tainted metal were a polluted murderer or temple-robber. Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 2. 27 sub isdem trabibus, Antiphon v. 11.) with them, nor to hang them as ornaments on their limbs nor to drink from silver and gold. So living they would save themselves and save their city.[*](Cf. 621 B-C, and Laws692 A.) But whenever they shall acquire for themselves land of their own and houses and coin, they will be house-holders and farmers instead of guardians, and will be transformed from the helpers of their fellow citizens to their enemies and masters,[*](δεσπόται. Cf. Menexenus 238 E.) and so in hating and being hated,[*](Cf. Laws 697 D in a passage of similar import, μισοῦντες μισοῦνται.) plotting and being plotted against they will pass their days fearing far more and rather[*](more and rather: so 396 D, 551 B.) the townsmen within than the foemen without—and then even then laying the course[*](The image is that of a ship nearing the fatal reef. Cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides 562. The sentiment and the heightened rhetorical tone of the whole passage recalls the last page of the Critias, with Ruskin’s translation and comment in A Crown of Wild Olive.) of near shipwreck for themselves and the state. For all these reasons, said I, let us declare that such must be the provision for our guardians in lodging and other respects and so legislate. Shall we not? By all means, said Glaucon.