Republic

For example, if an answer were demanded to the question concerning that city and the man whose birth and breeding was in harmony with it, whether we believe that such a man, entrusted with a deposit[*](Cf. on 332 A and Aristotle Rhet. 1383 b 21.) of gold or silver, would withhold it and embezzle it, who do you suppose would think that he would be more likely so to act than men of a different kind?No one would, he said. And would not he be far removed from sacrilege and theft and betrayal of comrades in private life or of the state in public? He would. And, moreover, he would not be in any way faithless either in the keeping of his oaths or in other agreements. How could he? Adultery, surely, and neglect of parents and of the due service of the gods would pertain to anyone rather than to such a man. To anyone indeed, he said. And is not the cause of this to be found in the fact that each of the principles within him does its own work in the matter of ruling and being ruled? Yes, that and nothing else. Do you still, then, look for justice to be anything else than this potency which provides men and cities of this sort? No, by heaven, he said, I do not. Finished, then, is our dream and perfected —the surmise we spoke of,[*](ὅ: Cf. on 434 D.) that, by some Providence, at the very beginning of our foundation of the state, we chanced to hit upon the original principle and a sort of type of justice. Most assuredly. It really was, it seems, Glaucon, which is why it helps,[*](The contemplation of the εἴδωλον, image or symbol, leads us to the reality. The reality is always the Platonic Idea. The εἴδωλον, in the case of ordinary things, is the material copy which men mistake for the reality (516 A). In the case of spiritual things and moral ideas, there is no visible image or symbol (Politicus 286 A), but imperfect analogies, popular definitions, suggestive phrases, as τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, well-meant laws and institutions serve as the εἴδωλα in which the philosophic dialectician may find a reflection of the true idea. Cf. on 520 C, Sophist 234 C, Theaetetus 150 B.) a sort of adumbration of justice, this principle that it is right for the cobbler by nature to cobble and occupy himself with nothing else, and the carpenter to practice carpentry, and similarly all others. But the truth of the matter[*](Cf. Timaeus 86 D, Laws 731 E, Apology 23 A. The reality of justice as distinguished from the εἴδωλον, which in this case is merely the economic division of labor. Adam errs in thinking that the real justice is justice in the soul, and the εἴδωλον is justice in the state. In the state too the division of labor may be taken in the lower or in the higher sense. Cf. on 370 A, Introduction p. xv.) was, as it seems, that justice is indeed something of this kind, yet not in regard to the doing of one’s own business externally, but with regard to that which is within and in the true sense concerns one’s self, and the things of one’s self—it means that[*](μὴ ἐάσαντα . . . δόχαν 444 A: Cf. Gorgias 459 C, 462 C. A series of participles in implied indirect discourse expand the meaning of τὴν ἐντός (πρᾶξιν), and enumerate the conditions precedent (resumed in οὕτω δή443 E; Cf. Protagoras 325 A) of all action which is to be called just if it tends to preserve this inner harmony of the soul, and the reverse if it tends to dissolve it. The subject of πράττειν is anybody or Everyman. For the general type of sentence and the Stoic principle that nothing imports but virtue cf. 591 E and 618 C.) a man must not suffer the principles in his soul to do each the work of some other and interfere and meddle with one another, but that he should dispose well of what in the true sense of the word is properly his own,[*](Cf. on 433 E.) and having first attained to self-mastery[*](Cf. Gorgias 491 D where Callicles does not understand.) and beautiful order[*](Cf. Gorgias 504.) within himself,[*](Cf. 621 C and on 352 A.) and having harmonized[*](The harmony of the three parts of the soul is compared to that of the three fundamental notes or strings in the octave, including any intervening tones, and so by implication any faculties of the soul overlooked in the preceding classification. Cf. Plutarch, Plat. Quest. 9. Proclus, p. 230 Kroll. ὥσπερ introduces the images, the exact application of which is pointed by ἀτεχνῶς. Cf. on 343 C. The scholiast tries to make two octaves (δὶς διὰ πασῶν) of it. The technical musical details have at the most an antiquarian interest, and in no way affect the thought, which is that of Shakespeare’s For government, though high and low and lower,Put into parts, doth keep one in concent,Congreeing in a full and natural closeLike music. (Henry V. I. ii. 179) Cf. Cicero, De rep. ii. 42, and Milton (Reason of Church Government), Discipline . . . which with her musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together.) these three principles, the notes or intervals of three terms quite literally the lowest, the highest, and the mean, and all others there may be between them, and having linked and bound all three together and made of himself a unit,[*](Cf. Epin. 992 B. The idea was claimed for the Pythagoreans; cf. Zeller I. i. p. 463, Guyau, Esquisse d’une Morale, p. 109 La moralité n’est autre chose que l’unité de l’être. The key to effective life is unity of life, says another modern rationalist.) one man instead of many, self-controlled and in unison, he should then and then only turn to practice if he find aught to do either in the getting of wealth or the tendance of the body or it may be in political action or private business, in all such doings believing and naming[*](ὀνομάζοντα betrays a consciousness that the ordinary meaning of words is somewhat forced for edification. Cf. Laws 864 A-B and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 9, n. 21. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1138 b 6) would regard all this as mere metaphor.) the just and honorable action to be that which preserves and helps to produce this condition of soul, and wisdom the science that presides over such conduct; and believing and naming the unjust action to be that which ever tends to overthrow this spiritual constitution, and brutish ignorance, to be the opinion[*](ἐπιστήμην . . . δόχαν: a hint of a fundamental distinction, not explicitly mentioned before in the Republic. Cf. Meno 97 B ff. and Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 47-49. It is used here rhetorically to exalt justice and disparage injustice. ἀμαθία is a very strong word, possibly used here already in the special Platonic sense: the ignorance that mistakes itself for knowledge. Cf. Sophist.) that in turn presides[*](ἐπιστατοῦσαν: Isocrates would have used a synonym instead of repeating the word.) over this.

What you say is entirely true, Socrates.Well, said I, if we should affirm that we had found the just man and state and what justice really is[*](Cf. 337 B.) in them, I think we should not be much mistaken. No indeed, we should not, he said. Shall we affirm it, then? Let us so affirm. So be it, then, said I; next after this, I take it, we must consider injustice. Obviously. Must not this be a kind of civil war[*](στάσιν: cf. 440 E. It is defined in Sophist 228 B. Aristotle would again regard this as mere metaphor.) of these three principles, their meddlesomeness[*](πολυπραγμοσύνην:434 B and Isocrates viii. 59.) and interference with one another’s functions, and the revolt of one part against the whole of the soul that it may hold therein a rule which does not belong to it, since its nature is such that it befits it to serve as a slave to the ruling principle? Something of this sort, I fancy, is what we shall say, and that the confusion of these principles and their straying from their proper course is injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and brutish ignorance and, in general,[*](συλλήβδην: summing up, as in Phaedo 69 B.) all turpitude. Precisely this, he replied. Then, said I, to act unjustly and be unjust and in turn to act justly the meaning of all these terms becomes at once plain and clear, since injustice and justice are so. How so? Because, said I, these are in the soul what[*](ὡς ἐκεῖνα: a proportion is thus usually stated in an ancoluthic apposition.) the healthful and the diseaseful are in the body; there is no difference. In what respect? he said. Healthful things surely engender health[*](The common-sense point of view, fit fabricando faber. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1103 a 32. In Gorgias 460 B, Socrates argues the paradox that he who knows justice does it. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 11, n. 42.) and diseaseful disease. Yes. Then does not doing just acts engender justice and unjust injustice? Of necessity. But to produce health is to establish the elements in a body in the natural relation of dominating and being dominated[*](Cf. the generalization of ἔρως to include medicine and music in Symposium 186-187, and Timaeus 82 A, Laws 906 C, Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 500.) by one another, while to cause disease is to bring it about that one rules or is ruled by the other contrary to nature. Yes, that is so. And is it not likewise the production of justice in the soul to establish its principles in the natural relation of controlling and being controlled by one another, while injustice is to cause the one to rule or be ruled by the other contrary to nature? Exactly so, he said. Virtue, then, as it seems, would be a kind of health[*](The identification of virtue with spiritual health really, as Plato says (445 A), answers the main question of the Republic. It is not explicitly used as one of the three final arguments in the ninth book, but is implied in 591 B. It is found already in Crito 47 D-E. Cf. Gorgias 479 B) and beauty and good condition of the soul, and vice would be disease,[*](κακία . . . αἶσχος: Sophist 228 E distinguishes two forms of κακία· νόσος or moral evil, and ignorance or αἰσχος. Cf. Gorgias 477 B.) ugliness, and weakness. It is so. Then is it not also true that beautiful and honorable pursuits tend to the winning of virtue and the ugly to vice? Of necessity.

And now at last, it seems, it remains for us to consider whether it is profitable to do justice and practice honorable pursuits and be just, whether[*](ἐάν τε . . . ἐάν τε: Cf. 337 C, 367 E, 427 D, 429 E.) one is known to be such or not, or whether injustice profits, and to be unjust, if only a man escape punishment and is not bettered by chastisement.[*](Cf. Gorgias 512 A-B, and on 380 B.)Nay, Socrates, he said, I think that from this point on our inquiry becomes an absurdity[*](Cf. on 456 D. On the following argumentum ex contrario Cf. on 336 E.)—if, while life is admittedly intolerable with a ruined constitution of body even though accompanied by all the food and drink and wealth and power in the world, we are yet to be asked to suppose that, when the very nature and constitution of that whereby we live[*](Cf. on 353 D and Aristotle De anima 414 a 12 ff. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 41.) is disordered and corrupted, life is going to be worth living, if a man can only do as he pleases,[*](Cf. 577 D, Gorgias 466 E. If all men desire the good, he who does evil does not do what he really wishes.) and pleases to do anything save that which will rid him of evil and injustice and make him possessed of justice and virtue—now that the two have been shown to be as we have described them. Yes, it is absurd, said I; but nevertheless, now that we have won to this height, we must not grow weary in endeavoring to discover[*](ὅσον . . . κατιδεῖν is generally taken as epexegetic of ἐνταῦθα. It is rather well felt with οὐ χρὴ ἀποκάμνειν.) with the utmost possible clearness that these things are so. That is the last thing in the world we must do, he said. Come up here[*](Cf. Apology 25 C.) then, said I, that you may see how many are the kinds of evil, I mean those that it is worth while to observe and distinguish.[*](ἅ γε δὴ καὶ ἄξια θέας: for καί Cf. Sophist 223 A, 229 D, Timaeus 83 C, Politicus 285 B, and 544 A, C-D. By the strict theory of ideas any distinction may mark a class, and so constitute an idea. (Cf. De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 22-25.) But Plato’s logical practice recognizes that only typical or relevant Ideas are worth naming or considering. The Republic does not raise the metaphysical question how a true idea is to be distinguished from a part or from a partial or casual concept. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 52-53, n. 381, Politicus 263 A-B.) I am with you, he said; only do you say on. And truly, said I, now that we have come to this height[*](Cf. 588 B, Emerson, Nominalist and Realist, ii. p. 256: We like to come to a height of land and see the landscape, just as we value a general remark in a conversation. Cf. Lowell, Democracy, Prose Works, vi. 8: He who has mounted the tower of Plato to look abroad from it will never hope to climb another with so lofty a vantage of speculation. From this and 517 A-B, the ἀνάβασις became a technical or cant term in Neoplatonism.) of argument I seem to see as from a point of outlook that there is one form[*](ἓν μέν, etc.: perhaps a faint remembrance of the line ἐσθλοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῶς, παντοδαπῶς δὲ κακοί, quoted by Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1106 b 35. It suggests Plato’s principle of the unity of virtue, as ἄπειρα below suggests the logical doctrine of the Philebus 16 and Parmenides 145 A, 158 B-C that the other of the definite idea is the indefinite and infinite.) of excellence, and that the forms of evil are infinite, yet that there are some four among them that it is worth while to take note of. What do you mean? he said. As many as are the varieties of political constitutions that constitute specific types, so many, it seems likely, are the characters of soul. How many, pray? There are five kinds of constitutions, said I, and five kinds of soul. Tell me what they are, he said. I tell you, said I, that one way of government would be the constitution that we have just expounded, but the names that might be applied to it are two.[*](The true state is that in which knowledge governs. It may be named indifferently monarchy, or aristocracy, according as such knowledge happens to be found in one or more than one. It can never be the possession of many. Cf. 494 A. The inconsistencies which some critics have found between this statement and other parts of the Republic, are imaginary. Hitherto the Republic has contemplated a plurality of rulers, and such is its scheme to the end. But we are explicitly warned in 540 D and 587 D that this is a matter of indefference. It is idle then to argue with Immisch, Krohn, and others that the passage marks a sudden, violent alteration of the original design.) If one man of surpassing merit rose among the rulers, it would be denominated royalty; if more than one, aristocracy. True, he said. Well, then, I said, this is one of the forms I have in mind. For neither would a number of such men, nor one if he arose among them, alter to any extent worth mentioning the laws of our city—if he preserved the breeding and the education that we have described. It is not likely, he said.

To such a city, then, or constitution I apply the terms good[*](Cf. on 427 E, and Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 14; for ὀρθή, normal, see p. 423.) and right—and to the corresponding kind of man; but the others I describe as bad and mistaken, if this one is right, in respect both to the administration of states and to the formation[*](κατασκευήν: a highly general word not to be pressed in this periphrasis. Cf. Gorgias 455 E, 477 B.) of the character of the individual soul, they falling under four forms of badness.What are these, he said. And I was going on[*](Cf. 562 C, Theaetetus 180 C, Stein on Herodotus i. 5. For the transition here to the digression of books V., VI., and VII. cf. Introduction p. xvii, Phaedo 84 C. Digression need not imply that these books were not a part of the original design.) to enumerate them in what seemed to me the order of their evolution[*](μεταβαίνειν: the word is half technical. Cf. 547 C, 550 D, Laws 676 A, 736 D-E, 894 A.) from one another, when Polemarchus—he sat at some little distance[*](ἀπωτέρω absolutely. Cf. Cratinus 229 Kock ὄνοι κάθηνται τῆς λύρας ἀπωτέρω.) from Adeimantus—stretched forth his hand, and, taking hold of his garment[*](Cf. 327 B.) from above by the shoulder, drew the other toward him and, leaning forward himself, spoke a few words in his ear, of which we overheard nothing[*](Cf. 359 E.) else save only this, Shall we let him off,[*](Cf. on 327 C.) then, he said, or what shall we do? By no means, said Adeimantus, now raising his voice. What, pray,[*](Cf. 337 D, 343 B, 421 C, 612 C, Laches 188 E, Meno 80 B. There is a play on the double meaning, What, pray? and Why, pray?) said I, is it that you are not letting off? You, said he. And for what reason, pray? said I. We think you are a slacker, he said, and are trying to cheat[*](Cf. Sophocles Trach. 437.) us out of a whole division,[*](So Isocrates xv. 74 ὅλοις εἴδεσι.) and that not the least, of the argument to avoid the trouble of expounding it, and expect to get away with it by observing thus lightly that, of course, in respect to women and children it is obvious to everybody that the possessions of friends will be in common.[*](Cf. 424 A, Laws 739 C. Aristotle says that the possessions of friends should be separate in ownership but common in use, as at Sparta. Cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 201, Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius x. 11, Aristotle Politics 1263 a 30 ff., Euripides Andromache 270.) Well, isn’t that right, Adeimantus? I said. Yes, said he, but this word right,[*](Cf. 459 D, Laws 668 D, Aristotle Politics 1269 b 13, Shakespeare Tro. and Cre. I. i. 23 But here’s yet in the word hereafter the kneading, the making of the cake, etc.) like other things, requires defining[*](Cf. Laws 665 B 7.) as to the way[*](Cf. Aristotle Politics 1264 a 12.) and manner of such a community. There might be many ways. Don’t, then, pass over the one that you[*](Emphatic. Cf. 427 E.) have in mind. For we have long been lying in wait for you, expecting that you would say something both of the procreation of children and their bringing up,[*](γενομένους: a noun is supplied from the preceding verb. Cf. on 598 C, and on 341 D.) and would explain the whole matter of the community of women and children of which you speak. We think that the right or wrong management of this makes a great difference, all the difference in the world,[*](μέγα . . . καὶ ὅλον: cf. 469 C, 527 C, Phaedo 79 E, Laws 779 B, 944 C, Symposium 188 D, Demosthenes ii. 22, Aeschylus Prom. 961.) in the constitution of a state;

so now, since you are beginning on another constitution before sufficiently defining this, we are firmly resolved, as you overheard, not to let you go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest.Set me down, too, said Glaucon, as voting this ticket.[*](Cf. Protagoras 330 C.) Surely, said Thrasymachus, you may consider it a joint resolution of us all, Socrates. What a thing you have done, said I, in thus challenging[*](Cf. Theaetetus 184 C, Gorgias 469 C.) me! What a huge debate you have started afresh, as it were, about this polity, in the supposed completion of which I was rejoicing, being only too glad to have it accepted as I then set it forth! You don’t realize what a swarm[*](For the metaphor cf. Euripides Bacchae 710 and σμῆνος, Republic 574 D, Cratylus 401 C, Meno 72 A.) of arguments you are stirring up[*](Cf. Philebus 36 D, Theaetetus 184 A, Cratylus 411 A.) by this demand, which I foresaw and evaded to save us no end of trouble. Well, said Thrasymachus,[*](Thrasymachus speaks here for the last time. He is mentioned in 357 A, 358 B-C, 498 C, 545 B, 590 D.)do you suppose this company has come here to prospect for gold[*](Lit. to smelt ore. The expression was proverbial and was explained by an obscure anecdote. Cf. Leutsch, Paroemiographi, ii. pp. 91, 727, and i. p. 464, and commentators on Herodotus iii. 102.) and not to listen to discussions? Yes, I said, in measure. Nay, Socrates, said Glaucon, the measure[*](Plato often anticipates and repels the charge of tedious length (see Politicus 286 C, Philebus 28 D, 36 D). Here the thought takes a different turn (as 504 C). The δέ γε implies a slight rebuke (Cf. Class. Phil . xiv. pp. 165-174).) of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men. So don’t consider us, and do not you yourself grow weary in explaining to us what we ask or, your views as to how this communion of wives and children among our guardians will be managed, and also about the rearing of the children while still young in the interval between[*](So 498 A. Cf. on Aristophanes Acharnians 434, and Laws 792 A.) birth and formal schooling which is thought to be the most difficult part of education. Try, then, to tell us what must be the manner of it. It is not an easy thing to expound, my dear fellow, said I, for even more than the provisions that precede it, it raises many doubts. For one might doubt whether what is proposed is possible[*](Cf. 456 C, Thucydides vi. 98, Introduction xvii.) and, even conceding the possibility,[*](εἰ ὅ τι μάλιστα: a common formula for what a disputant can afford to concede. Cf. Lysias xiii. 52, xxii. 1, xxii. 10. It occurs six times in the Charmides.) one might still be sceptical whether it is best. For which reason one as it were, shrinks from touching on the matter lest the theory be regarded as nothing but a wish-thought,[*](Cf. Introduction xxxi-xxxii, 456 C, 499 C, 540 D, Laws 736 D, Aristotle Politics 1260 b 29, 1265 a 17 δεῖ μὲν οὖν ὑποτίθεσθαι κατ’ εὐχην, μηδὲν μέντοι ἀδύνατον.) my dear friend. Do not shrink, he said, for your hearers will not be inconsiderate[*](ἀγνώμονες = inconsiderate, unreasonable, as Andocides ii. 6 shows.) nor distrustful nor hostile. And I said, My good fellow, is that remark intended to encourage me? It is, he said. Well, then, said I, it has just the contrary effect. For, if I were confident that I was speaking with knowledge, it would be an excellent encouragement. For there is both safety and security in speaking the truth with knowledge about our greatest and dearest concerns to those who are both wise and dear.

But to speak when one doubts himself and is seeking while he talks is a fearful and slippery venture. The fear is not of being laughed at,[*](Cf. on 452 C-D, Euthydemus 3 C To be laughed at is no matter, Laws 830 B τὸν τῶν ἀνοήτων γέλωτα, Euripides fr. 495.) for that is childish, but, lest, missing the truth, I fall down and drag my friends with me in matters where it most imports not to stumble. So I salute Nemesis,[*](Ἀδράστειαν: practically equivalent to Nemesis. Cf. our knock on wood. Cf. Posnansky in Breslauer Phil. Abhandl. v. 2, Nemesis und Adrasteia: Herodotus i. 35, Aeschylus Prom. 936, Euripides Rhesus 342, Demosthenes xxv. 37 καὶ Ἀδράστειαν μὲν ἄνθρωπος ὢν ἐγὼ προσκυνῶ. For the moral earnestness of what follows cf. 336 E, Gorgias 458 A, and Joubert apud Arnold, Essays in Crit. p. 29 Ignorance . . . is in itself in intellectual matters a crime of the first order.) Glaucon, in what I am about to say. For, indeed,[*](γὰρ οὖν, for in fact, but often with the suggestion that the fact has to be faced, as e.g. in Timaeus 47 E, where the point is often missed.) I believe that involuntary homicide is a lesser fault than to mislead opinion about the honorable, the good, and the just. This is a risk that it is better to run with enemies[*](Almost proverbial. Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 27. 21. Plato is speaking here from the point of view of the ordinary man, and not from that of his Sermon on the Mount ethics. Cf. Philebus 49 D and Gorgias 480 E, where Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. pp. 332 and 350, goes astray. Cf. Class. Phil . vol. i. p. 297.) than with friends, so that your encouragement is none. And Glaucon, with a laugh, said, Nay, Socrates, if any false note in the argument does us any harm, we release you as[*](ὥσπερ marks the legal metaphor to which ἐκεῖ below refers. Cf. Laws 869 E, and Euripides Hippolytus 1433 and 1448-1450, with Hirzel, Δίκη etc. p. 191, n. 1, Demosthenes xxxvii. 58-59. Plato transfers the idea to the other world in Phaedo 114 A-B, where the pardon of their victims is required for the release of sinners. The passage is used by the older critics in the comparison of Plato with Christianity.) in a homicide case, and warrant you pure of hand and no deceiver of us. So speak on with confidence. Well, said I, he who is released in that case is counted pure as the law bids, and, presumably, if there, here too. Speak on, then, he said, for all this objection. We must return then, said I, and say now what perhaps ought to have been said in due sequence there. But maybe this way is right, that after the completion of the male drama we should in turn go through with the female,[*](Sophron’s Mimes are said to have been so classified. For δρᾶμα cf. also Theaetetus 150 A.) especially since you are so urgent. For men, then, born and bred as we described there is in my opinion no other right possession and use of children and women than that which accords with the start we gave them. Our endeavor, I believe, was to establish these men in our discourse as the guardians of a flock[*](For the use of analogies drawn from animals cf. 375-376, 422 D, 466 D, 467 B, 491 D-E, 537 A, 546 A-B, 564 A. Plato is only pretending to deduce his conclusions from his imagery. Aristotle’s literal-minded criticism objects that animals have no economy, Politics 1264 b 4-6.)? Yes. Let us preserve the analogy, then, and assign them a generation and breeding answering to it, and see if it suits us or not. In what way? he said. In this. Do we expect the females of watch-dogs to join in guarding what the males guard and to hunt with them and share all their pursuits or do we expect the females to stay indoors as being incapacitated by the bearing and the breeding of the whelps while the males toil and have all the care of the flock? They have all things in common, he replied, except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger. Is it possible, then, said I, to employ any creature for the same ends as another if you do not assign it the same nurture and education? It is not possible.

If, then, we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things.Yes.Now music together with gymnastic was the training we gave the men.Yes.Then we must assign these two arts to the women also and the offices of war and employ them in the same way.It would seem likely from what you say, he replied. Perhaps, then, said I, the contrast with present custom[*](Reformers always denounce this source of wit while conservative satirists maintain that ridicule is a test of truth. Cf. e.g. >Renan, Avenir de la Science, p. 439 Le premier pas dans la carrière philosophique est de se cuirasser contre le ridicule, and Lucian, Piscator 14 No harm can be done by a joke; that on the contrary, whatever is beautiful shines brighter . . . like gold cleansed, Harmon in Loeb translation, iii. 22. There was a literature for and against custom (sometimes called συνήθεια) of which there are echoes in Cicero’s use of consuetudo, Acad. ii. 75, De off. i. 148, De nat. deor. i. 83.) would make much in our proposals look ridiculous if our words[*](ᾖ λέγεται: cf. on 389 D.) are to be realized in fact. Yes, indeed, he said. What then, said I, is the funniest thing you note in them? Is it not obviously the women exercising unclad in the palestra together with the men, not only the young, but even the older, like old men in gymnasiums,[*](Cf. Theaetetus 162 B, and the ὀψιμαθής or late learner in Theophrastus’ Characters xxvii. 14 Loeb. Euripides Andromache 596 ff. denounces the light attire of Spartan women when exercising.) when, though wrinkled and unpleasant to look at, they still persist in exercising? Yes, on my word, he replied, it would seem ridiculous under present conditions. Then, said I, since we have set out to speak our minds, we must not fear all the jibes[*](Cf. Propert. iv. 13 Muller.) with which the wits would greet so great a revolution, and the sort of things they would say about gymnastics and culture, and most of all about the bearing of arms and the bestriding of horses. You’re right, he said. But since we have begun we must go forward to the rough part of our law,[*](For a variation of this image cf. 568 D.) after begging these fellows not to mind their own business[*](Plato plays on his own favorite phrase. The proper business of the wit is to raise a laugh. Cf. Symposium 189 B.) but to be serious, and reminding them that it is not long since the Greeks thought it disgraceful and ridiculous, as most of the barbarians[*](Cf. Thucydides i. 6, Herodotus i. 10. Sikes in Anthropolgy and the Classics says this was borrowed from Thucydides, whom Wilamowitz says Plato never read. Cf. Dio Chrys. xiii. 226 M. For ἐξ οὗ cf. Demosthenes iv. 3, Isocrates v. 47.) do now, for men to be seen naked. And when the practice of athletics began, first with the Cretans and then with the Lacedaemonians, it was open to the wits of that time to make fun of these practices, don’t you think so? I do. But when, I take it, experience showed that it is better to strip than to veil all things of this sort, then the laughter of the eyes[*](Lit. what (seemed) laughable to (in) the eyes.) faded away before that which reason revealed to be best, and this made it plain that he talks idly who deems anything else ridiculous but evil, and who tries to raise a laugh by looking to any other pattern of absurdity than that of folly and wrong or sets up any other standard of the beautiful as a mark for his seriousness than the good. Most assuredly, said he.

Then is not the first thing that we have to agree upon with regard to these proposals whether they are possible or not? And we must throw open the debate[*](Cf. 607 D δοῖμεν . . . λόγον.) to anyone who wishes either in jest or earnest to raise the question whether female human nature is capable of sharing with the male all tasks or none at all, or some but not others,[*](Plato as elsewhere asks whether it is true of all, some, or none. So of the commingling of ideas in Sophist 251 D. Aristotle (Politics 1260 b 38) employs the same would-be exhaustive method.) and under which of these heads this business of war falls. Would not this be that best beginning which would naturally and proverbially lead to the best end[*](ἀρχόμενος . . . τελευτήσειν: an overlooked reference to a proverb also overlooked by commentators on Pindar, Pyth. i. 35. Cf. Pindar, fr. 108 A Loeb, Laws 775 E, Sophocles, fr. 831 (Pearson), Antiphon the Sophist, fr. 60 (Diels).)?Far the best, he said. Shall we then conduct the debate with ourselves in behalf of those others[*](This pleading the opponent’s case for him is common in Plato. Cf. especially the plea for Protagoras in Theaetetus 166-167.) so that the case of the other side may not be taken defenceless and go by default[*](Apparently a mixture of military and legal phraseology. Cf. ἐκπέρσῃ in Protagoras 340 A, Iliad v. 140 τὰ δ’ ἐρῆμα φοβεῖται, and the legal phrase ἐρήμην καταδιαιτᾶν or οφλεῖν.)? Nothing hinders, he said. Shall we say then in their behalf: There is no need, Socrates and Glaucon, of others disputing against you, for you yourselves at the beginning of the foundation of your city agreed[*](ὡμολογεῖτε: cf. 369 E f. For κατὰ φύσιν cf. 370 C and 456 C. The apparent emphasis of φύσις in this book is of little significance. Cf. Laws, passim.) that each one ought to mind as his own business the one thing for which he was fitted by nature? We did so agree, I think; certainly! Can it be denied then that there is by nature a great difference between men and women? Surely there is. Is it not fitting, then, that a different function should be appointed for each corresponding to this difference of nature? Certainly. How, then, can you deny that you are mistaken and in contradiction with yourselves when you turn around and affirm that the men and the women ought to do the same thing, though their natures are so far apart? Can you surprise me with an answer to that question? Not easily on this sudden challenge, he replied: but I will and do beg you to lend your voice to the plea in our behalf, whatever it may be. These and many similar difficulties, Glaucon, said I, I foresaw and feared, and so shrank from touching on the law concerning the getting and breeding of women and children. It does not seem an easy thing, by heaven, he said, no, by heaven. No, it is not, said I; but the fact is that whether one tumbles into a little diving-pool or plump into the great sea he swims all the same. By all means. Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the sea[*](Cf. the πέλαγος τῶν λόγων Protagoras 338 A. Similarly Sidney Smith: cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into the wide sea of reasoning eloquence.) of argument in the hope that either some dolphin[*](An allusion to the story of Arion and the dolphin in Herodotus i. 24, as ὑπολαβεῖν perhaps proves. For ἄπορον cf. 378 A.) will take us on its back or some other desperate rescue. So it seems, he said. Come then, consider, said I, if we can find a way out. We did agree that different natures should have differing pursuits and that the nature of men and women differ. And yet now we affirm that these differing natures should have the same pursuits. That is the indictment. It is.

What a grand[*](γενναία: often as here ironical in Plato. Cf. Sophist 231 B, where interpreters misunderstand it. But the new L. and S. is correct.) thing, Glaucon, said I, is the power of the art of contradiction[*](ἀντιλογικῆς: one of several designations for the eristic which Isocrates maliciously confounds with dialectic while Plato is careful to distinguish them. Cf. E. S. Thompson, The Meno of Plato , Excursus V., pp. 272 ff. and the introduction to E.H. Gifford’s Euthydemus, p. 42. Among the marks of eristic are the pusuit of merely verbal oppositions as here and Euthydemus 278 A, 301 B, Theaetetus 164 C; the neglect to distinguish and divide, Philebus 17 A, Phaedrus 265 E, 266 A, B; the failure to distinguish the hypothesis from its consequences, Phaedo 101 E, Parmenides 135-136.)! Why so? Because, said I, many appear to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one another. Yes, this does happen to many, he said; but does this observation apply to us too at present? Absolutely, said I; at any rate I am afraid that we are unawares[*](ἄκοντες is almost unconscious. Cf. Philebus 14 C.) slipping into contentiousness. In what way? The principle that natures not the same ought not to share in the same pursuits we are following up most manfully and eristically[*](Greek style often couples thus two adverbs, the second defining more specifically the first, and, as here and often in Plato and Aristophanes, with humorous or paradoxical effect. Cf. Aristophanes Knights 800 εὖ καὶ μιαρῶς. So Shakespeare well and chirurgeonly.) in the literal and verbal sense but we did not delay to consider at all what particular kind of diversity and identity[*](Cf. Sophist 256 A-B for the relativity of same and other.Politicus 292 C describes in different language the correct method.) of nature we had in mind and with reference to what we were trying to define it when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same. No, we didn’t consider that, he said. Wherefore, by the same token, I said, we might ask ourselves whether the natures of bald[*](For this humorously trivial illustration cf. Mill, Rep. Gov. chap. viii. p. 190: I have taken no account of difference of sex. I consider it to be as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height, or in the color of the hair; and Mill’s disciple Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, i. 291: We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men.) and long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the long-haired to do so, or vice versa. That would be ridiculous, he said. Would it be so, said I, for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely to the kind of diversity and homogeneity that was pertinent[*](Cf. Laches 190 D εἰς ὃ τείνειν δοκεῖ, Protagoras 345 B.) to the pursuits themselves? We meant, for example, that a man and a woman who have a physician’s[*](Adam makes difficulties, but Cf. Laws 963 A νοῦν . . . κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικόν. The translation follows Hermann despite the objection that this reading forestalls the next sentence. Cf. Campbell ad loc. and Apelt, Woch. für klass. Phil ., 1903, p. 344.) mind have the same nature. Don’t you think so? I do. But that a man physician and a man carpenter have different natures? Certainly, I suppose. Similarly, then, said I, if it appears that the male and the female sex have distinct qualifications for any arts or pursuits, we shall affirm that they ought to be assigned respectively to each. But if it appears that they differ only in just this respect that the female bears and the male begets, we shall say that no proof has yet been produced that the woman differs from the man for our purposes, but we shall continue to think that our guardians and their wives ought to follow the same pursuits. And rightly, said he.

Then, is it not the next thing to bid our opponent tell us precisely for what art or pursuit concerned with the conduct of a state the woman’s nature differs from the man’s?That would be at any rate fair.Perhaps, then, someone else, too, might say what you were saying a while ago, that it is not easy to find a satisfactory answer on a sudden,[*](Plato anticipates the objection that the Socratic dialectic surprises assent. Cf. more fully 487 B, and for a comic version Hippias Major 295 A if I could go off for a little by myself in solitude I would tell you the answer more precisely than precision itself.) but that with time for reflection there is no difficulty.He might say that.Shall we, then, beg the raiser of such objections to follow us, if we may perhaps prove able to make it plain to him that there is no pursuit connected with the administration of a state that is peculiar to woman?By all means.Come then, we shall say to him, answer our question. Was this the basis of your distinction between the man naturally gifted for anything and the one not so gifted—that the one learned easily, the other with difficulty; that the one with slight instruction could discover[*](Cf. Politicus 286 E, where this is said to be the object of teaching.) much for himself in the matter studied, but the other, after much instruction and drill, could not even remember what he had learned; and that the bodily faculties of the one adequately served[*](Cf. Protagoras 326 B, Republic 498 B, 410 C, Isocrates xv. 180, Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1. 28.) his mind, while, for the other, the body was a hindrance? Were there any other points than these by which you distinguish the well endowed man in every subject and the poorly endowed?No one, said he, will be able to name any others. Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points?[*](On the alleged superiority of men even in women’s occupations cf. the amusing diatribe of the old bachelor in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, chap. xxi.: I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all but what a man can do better than women, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor makeshift way, and the remarks on women as cooks of the bachelor Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 234. But Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 11 takes the ordinary view. On the character of women generally Cf. Laws 781 and Aristotle in Zeller trans. ii. 215.) Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter? You are right, he said, that the one sex[*](Cf. Cratylus 392 C ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος.) is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say. Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— yet for all the woman is weaker than the man. Assuredly. Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women? How could we? We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical? Surely.

Can we, then, deny that one woman is naturally athletic and warlike and another unwarlike and averse to gymnastics?I think not.And again, one a lover, another a hater, of wisdom? And one high-spirited, and the other lacking spirit?That also is true.Then it is likewise true that one woman has the qualities of a guardian and another not. Were not these the natural qualities of the men also whom we selected for guardians?They were.The women and the men, then, have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save in so far as the one is weaker, the other stronger.Apparently.Women of this kind, then, must be selected to cohabit with men of this kind and to serve with them as guardians since they are capable of it and akin by nature.By all means.And to the same natures must we not assign the same pursuits?The same.We come round,[*](Cf. Gorgias 517 C.) then, to our previous statement, and agree that it does not run counter to nature to assign music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians.By all means.Our legislation, then, was not impracticable or utopian,[*](Cf. on 450 D.) since the law we proposed accorded with nature. Rather, the other way of doing things, prevalent today, proves, as it seems, unnatural.Apparently.The object of our inquiry was the possibility and the desirability[*](Cf. Introduction p. xvii.) of what we were proposing.It was.That it is possible has been admitted.Yes.The next point to be agreed upon is that it is the best way.Obviously.For the production of a guardian, then, education will not be one thing for our men and another for our women, especially since the nature which we hand over to it is the same.There will be no difference.How are you minded, now, in this matter?In what?In the matter of supposing some men to be better and some worse,[*](This is only a more complicated case of the point of style noted on 349 D. Cf. Cratylus 386 A, Sophist 247 A.) or do you think them all alike?By no means.In the city, then, that we are founding, which do you think will prove the better men, the guardians receiving the education which we have described or the cobblers educated by the art of cobbling[*](Cf. on 421 A. We should not press this incidental phrase to prove that Plato would not educate all the citizens, as he in fact does in the Laws and by implication in the Politicus.)?An absurd question, he said. I understand, said I; and are not these the best of all the citizens? By far. And will not these women be the best of all the women? They, too, by far. Is there anything better for a state than the generation in it of the best possible women[*](Cf. Morley, Voltaire, p. 103: It has been rather the fashion to laugh at the Marquise de Châtelet, for no better reason than that she, being a woman, studied Newton. . . . There is probably nothing which would lead to so rapid and marked an improvement in the world as a large increase of the number of women in it with the will and the capacity to master Newton as thoroughly as she did.) and men? There is not.

And this, music and gymnastics applied as we described will effect.Surely.Then the institution we proposed is not only possible but the best for the state.That is so.The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment,[*](Cf. Rousseau, Lettre à d’Alembert, Couvertes de l’honnêteté publique.) and must take their part with the men in war and the other duties of civic guardianship and have no other occupation. But in these very duties lighter tasks must be assigned to the women than to the men because of their weakness as a class. But the man who ridicules unclad women, exercising because it is best that they should, plucks the unripe[*](Cf. Pindar, fr. 209 Schroeder, ἀτελῆ σοφίας καρπὸν δρέπειν. Plato varies the quotation to suit his purpose.) fruit of laughter and does not know, it appears, the end of his laughter nor what he would be at. For the fairest thing that is said or ever will be said is this, that the helpful is fair[*](This is one of the chief texts for the alleged utilitarianism of Plato, a question too complicated to be settled by anything less than a comparative study of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Philebus, Republic (IX) and Laws. ὠφέλιμον suggests benefit rather than utility. Cf. Introduction to second volume of this translation, and on 339 A-B.) and the harmful foul.Assuredly.In this matter, then, of the regulation of women, we may say that we have surmounted one of the waves of our paradox and have not been quite swept[*](Cf. Aeschylus Septem, in fine.) away by it in ordaining that our guardians and female guardians must have all pursuits in common, but that in some sort the argument concurs with itself in the assurance that what it proposes is both possible and beneficial.It is no slight wave that you are thus escaping.You will not think it a great[*](For this form of exaggeration Cf. on 414 C, 339 B.) one, I said, when you have seen the one that follows. Say on then and show me, said he. This, said I, and all that precedes has for its sequel, in my opinion, the following law. What? That these women shall all be common[*](On the whole topic cf. Introduction p. xxxiv, Lucian, Fugitivi 18 οὐκ εἰδότες ὅπως ὁ ἱερὸς ἐκεῖνος ἠξίου κοινὰς ἡγεῖσθαι τὰς γυναῖκας, Epictetus fr. 53, p. 21, Rousseau, Emile, v: je ne parle point de cette prétendue communauté de femmes dont le reproche tant répété prouve que ceux qui le lui font ne l’ont jamais lu. But Rousseau dissents violently from what he calls cette promiscuité civile qui confond partout les deux sexes dans les mêmes emplois. Cf. further the denunciations of the Christian fathers passim, who are outdone by De Quincey’s Otaheitian carnival of licentious appetite, connected with a contempt of human life which is excessive even for paganism. Most of the obvious parallels between Plato and Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae follow as a matter of course from the very notion of communal marriage and supply no evidence for the dating of a supposed earlier edition of the whole or a part of the Republic. In any case the ideas of the Republic might have come to Aristophanes in conversation before publication; and the Greeks knew enough of the facts collected in such books as Westermarck’s Marriage, not to be taken altogether by surprise by Plato’s speculations. Cf. Herodotus iv. 104, and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 20. Cf. further Adam’s exhaustive discussion in the appendix to this book, Grube, The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic, Classical Quarterly, 1927, pp. 95 ff., Teichmüller, Literarische Fehden, i. p. 19 n., and the more recent literature collected in Praechter-Ueberweg, 12th ed. i. p. 207, Pöhlmann, Geschichte der Sozialenfrage und des Sozialsmus in der antiken Welt, ii. p. 578, Pohlenz, Aus Platon’s Werdezeit, pp. 225-228, C. Robert, Hermes lvii. pp. 351 ff.) to all the men, and that none shall cohabit with any privately; and that the children shall be common, and that no parent shall know its own offspring nor any child its parent. This is a far bigger paradox than the other, and provokes more distrust as to its possibility and its utility.[*](A distinct suggestion of the topics of the useful and the possible in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.) I presume, said I, that there would be no debate about its utility, no denial that the community of women and children would be the greatest good, supposing it possible. But I take it that its possibility or the contrary would be the chief topic of contention. Both, he said, would be right sharply debated. You mean, said I, that I have to meet a coalition of arguments. But I expected to escape from one of them, and that if you agreed that the thing was beneficial, it would remain for me to speak only of its feasibility. You have not escaped detection, he said, in your attempted flight, but you must render an account of both.

I must pay the penalty, I said, yet do me this much grace: Permit me to take a holiday, just as men of lazy minds are wont to feast themselves on their own thoughts when they walk alone.[*](Cf. Isocrates ii. 47, on those who in solitude do not deliberate but imagine what they wish, and Chesterton’s saying, All feeble spirits live in the future, because it is a soft job; cf. further on day-dreams, Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. p. 71, and Lucian’s Πλοῖον ἢ εὐχαί. Plato’s description anticipates the most recent psychology in everything except the term autistic thinking.) Such persons, without waiting to discover how their desires may be realized, dismiss that topic to save themselves the labor of deliberating about possibilities and impossibilities, assume their wish fulfilled, and proceed to work out the details in imagination, and take pleasure in portraying what they will do when it is realized, thus making still more idle a mind that is idle without that.[*](ἄλλως: Cf. 495 B.) I too now succumb to this weakness[*](Cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Clouds 727.) and desire to postpone[*](Cf. Herodotus ix. 8. He returns to the postponed topic in 466 D, but again digresses and does not take it up definitely till 471 C or rather 473 C-D. The reason is that the third wave of paradox is also the condition of the possibility of realization. Cf. Introduction p. xvii.) and examine later the question of feasibility, but will at present assume that, and will, with your permission, inquire how the rulers will work out the details in practice, and try to show that nothing could be more beneficial to the state and its guardians than the effective operation of our plan. This is what I would try to consider first together with you, and thereafter the other topic, if you allow it. I do allow it, he said: proceed with the inquiry. I think, then, said I, that the rulers, if they are to deserve that name, and their helpers likewise, will, the one, be willing to accept orders,[*](Cf. on 340 A-B.) and the other, to give them, in some things obeying our laws, and imitating[*](That is to say, they are to imitate or conform to our principles in the details which we leave to them. So in the Laws, 770 B, 846 C, 876 E, and the secondary divinities in the Timaeus, 69 C. Cf. Politicus 301 A, and Aristotle Politics 1261 b 2 μιμεῖται.) them in others which we leave to their discretion. Presumably. You, then, the lawgiver, I said, have picked these men and similarly will select to give over to them women as nearly as possible of the same nature.[*](Cf. 456 B. Plato has already explained that he means of like nature in respect to capacity for government. There is no contradiction of the doctrine of the Politicus, 310 A (Cf. Laws 773 A-B) that the mating should blend opposite temperaments. Those elements are already mixed in the selection of the guardians. Cf. 375 B-C, 410 D-E and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 62, n. 481.) And they, having houses and meals in common, and no private possessions of that kind, will dwell together, and being commingled in gymnastics and in all their life and education, will be conducted by innate necessity to sexual union. Is not what I say a necessary consequence? Not by the necessities of geometry, he said, but by those of love,[*](The phrase is imitated by Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1122 D φυσικαῖς, οὐ γεωμετρικαῖς ἑλκόμενος ἀνάγκαις.) which are perhaps keener and more potent than the other to persuade and constrain the multitude. They are, indeed, I said; but next, Glaucon, disorder and promiscuity in these unions or in anything else they do would be an unhallowed thing in a happy state and the rulers will not suffer it. It would not be right, he said. Obviously, then, we must arrange marriages, sacramental so far as may be. And the most sacred marriages would be those that were most beneficial.

By all means.How, then, would the greatest benefit result? Tell me this, Glaucon. I see that you have in your house hunting-dogs and a number of pedigree cocks.[*](Cf. Laws 789 B-C.) Have you ever considered something about their unions and procreations?What?[*](The riddling question to which the response is what? is a mannerism derived from tragedy, which becomes very frequent in the later style of the Sophist, Politicus and Philebus.) he said. In the first place, I said, among these themselves, although they are a select breed, do not some prove better than the rest? They do. Do you then breed from all indiscriminately, or are you careful to breed from the best[*](This commonplace of stirpiculture or eugenics, as it is now called, begins with Theognis 184, and has thus far got no further.)? From the best. And, again, do you breed from the youngest or the oldest, or, so far as may be, from those in their prime? From those in their prime. And if they are not thus bred, you expect, do you not, that your birds and hounds will greatly degenerate? I do, he said. And what of horses and other animals? I said; is it otherwise with them? It would be strange if it were, said he. Gracious, said I, dear friend, how imperative, then, is our need of the highest skill in our rulers, if the principle holds also for mankind. Well, it does, he said, but what of it? This, said I, that they will have to employ many of those drugs[*](A recurrence to the metaphor of 389 B, as we are reminded below in D.) of which we were speaking. We thought that an inferior physician sufficed for bodies that do not need drugs but yield to diet and regimen. But when it is necessary to prescribe drugs we know that a more enterprising and venturesome physician is required. True; but what is the pertinency? This, said I: it seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit[*](Cf. 389 B, 414 C, and Laws 663 D ἐπ’ ἀγαθῷ ψεύδεσθαι ) of their subjects. We said, I believe, that the use of that sort of thing was in the category of medicine. And that was right, he said. In our marriages, then, and the procreation of children, it seems there will be no slight need of this kind of right. How so? It follows from our former admissions, I said, that the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flock[*](Cf. on 343 A-B and Politicus 267 B-C, 268 B. αὖ below merely marks the second consideration, harmony, the first being eugenics.) is to be as perfect as possible. And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to any but the rulers, if, again, the herd of guardians is to be as free as possible from dissension. Most true, he said.

We shall, then, have to ordain certain festivals and sacrifices, in which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and our poets must compose hymns suitable to the marriages that then take place. But the number of the marriages we will leave to the discretion of the rulers, that they may keep the number of the citizens as nearly as may be the same,[*](Plato apparently forgets that this legislation applies only to the guardians. The statement that ancient civilization was free from the shadow of Malthusianism requires qualification by this and many other passages. Cf. 372 C and Laws 740 D-E. The ancients in fact took it for granted.) taking into account wars and diseases and all such considerations, and that, so far as possible, our city may not grow too great or too small.Right, he said. Certain ingenious lots, then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers. Yes, indeed, he said. And on the young men, surely, who excel in war and other pursuits we must bestow honors and prizes, and, in particular, the opportunity of more frequent intercourse with the women, which will at the same time be a plausible pretext for having them beget as many of the children as possible. Right. And the children thus born will be taken over by the officials appointed for this, men or women or both, since, I take it, the official posts too are common to women and men. The offspring of the good, I suppose, they will take to the pen or créche, to certain nurses who live apart in a quarter of the city, but the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret,[*](Opinions differ whether this is euphemism for exposure. On the frequency or infrequency of this practice cf. Professor La Rue Van Hook’s article in T.A.P.A. vol. li, and that of H. Bolkestein, Class. Phil. vol. xvii. (1922) pp. 222-239.) so that no one will know what has become of them. That is the condition, he said, of preserving the purity of the guardians’ breed. They will also supervise the nursing of the children, conducting the mothers to the pen when their breasts are full, but employing every device[*](Cf. on 414 B and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 14 ff.) to prevent anyone from recognizing her own infant. And they will provide others who have milk if the mothers are insufficient. But they will take care that the mothers themselves shall not suckle too long, and the trouble of wakeful nights and similar burdens they will devolve upon the nurses, wet and dry. You are making maternity a soft job[*](Another favorite idea and expression. Cf. Gorgias 459 C, Laws 648 C, 713 D, 720 C, 779 A, 903 E, Isocrates iv. 36, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 13. 5.) for the women of the guardians. It ought to be, said I, but let us pursue our design. We said that the offspring should come from parents in their prime. True. Do you agree that the period of the prime may be fairly estimated at twenty years for a woman and thirty for a man? How do you reckon it?[*](Cf. on 458 C.) he said. The women, I said, beginning at the age of twenty, shall bear for the state[*](Half humorous legal language. Cf. Aristotle Politics 1335 b 28 λειτουργεῖν . . . πρὸς τεκνοποιίαν, and Lucan’s urbi pater est, urbique maritus (Phars. ii. 388). The dates for marriage are given a little differently in the Laws, 785 B, 833 C-D, men 30-35, women 16-20. On the whole question and Aristotle’s opinion cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 183; cf. also Grube, Class. Quarterly 1927, pp. 95 ff., The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic.) to the age of forty, and the man shall beget for the state from the time he passes his prime in swiftness in running to the age of fifty-five.

That is, he said, the maturity and prime for both of body and mind. Then, if anyone older or younger than the prescribed age meddles with procreation for the state, we shall say that his error is an impiety and an injustice, since he is begetting for the city a child whose birth, if it escapes discovery, will not be attended by the sacrifices and the prayers which the priests and priestesses and the entire city prefer at the ceremonial marriages, that ever better offspring may spring from good sires[*](Cf. Horace, Odes iv. 4. 29.) and from fathers helpful to the state sons more helpful still. But this child will be born in darkness and conceived in foul incontinence. Right, he said. And the same rule will apply, I said, if any of those still within the age of procreation goes in to a woman of that age with whom the ruler has not paired him. We shall say that he is imposing on the state a base-born, uncertified, and unhallowed child. Most rightly, he said. But when, I take it, the men and the women have passed the age of lawful procreation, we shall leave the men free to form such relations with whomsoever they please, except[*](Cf. Laws 838 A and 924 E.) daughter and mother and their direct descendants and ascendants, and likewise the women, save with son and father, and so on, first admonishing them preferably not even to bring to light[*](Cf. Newman, op. cit. p. 187.) anything whatever thus conceived, but if they are unable to prevent a birth to dispose of it on the understanding that we cannot rear such an offspring. All that sounds reasonable, he said; but how are they to distinguish one another’s fathers and daughters, and the other degrees of kin that you have just mentioned? They won’t, said I, except that a man will call all male offspring born in the tenth and in the seventh month after he became a bridegroom his sons, and all female, daughters, and they will call him father.[*](Cf. Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, p. 89: A native of Hawaii, for example, calls by the name of father . . . every man of an age such that he could be his father. Cf. Aristophanes Eccles. 636-637.) And, similarly, he will call their offspring his grandchildren[*](Cf. 363 D and Laws 899 E, 927 B.) and they will call his group grandfathers and grandmothers. And all children born in the period in which their fathers and mothers were procreating will regard one another as brothers and sisters. This will suffice for the prohibitions of intercourse of which we just now spoke. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to cohabit if the lot so falls out and the Delphic oracle approves. Quite right, said he. This, then, Glaucon, is the manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the next point that we must get confirmed by the argument. Is not that so?

It is, indeed, he said. Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprints[*](We may perhaps infer from the more explicit reference in Theaetetus 193 C that Plato is thinking of the recognition by footprints in Aeschylus Choeph.205-210.) of the good and do not suit those of the evil? By all means, he said. Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that distracts it and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one? We do not. Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths? By all means, he said. But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings to the city and its inhabitants? Of course. And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as mine and not mine, and similarly with regard to the word alien?[*](Cf. 423 B, Aristotle Politics 1261 b 16 ff., Plato’s Laws and the Unity of Plato’s Thought, Class. Phil. ix. (1914) p. 358, Laws 664 A, 739 C-E, Julian (Teubner) ii. 459, Teichmüller, Lit. Fehden, vol. i. p. 19, Mill, Utilitarianism, iii. 345: In an improving state of the human mind the influences are constantly on the increase which tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest, which, if perfect, would make him never think of or desire any beneficial condition for himself in the benefits of which they are not included; Spinoza, paraphrased by Hoffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil. i. p. 325: It would be best, since they seek a common good, if all could be like one mind and one body. Rabelais I. lvii. parodies Plato: Si quelqu’un ou quelqu’une disoit beuvons, tous beuvoient etc. Aristotle’s criticism, though using some of Plato’s phrases, does not mention his name at this point but speaks of τίνες, Politics 1261 b 7.)Precisely so. That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression mine and not mine of the same things in the same way. Much the best. And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.[*](Cf. Laws 829 A.) For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for integration[*](I so translate to bring out the analogy between Plato and e.g. Sherrington. For to the soul Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 328, Laws 673 A, Timaeus 45 D, 584 C, Philebus 33, 34, 43 B-C. Poschenrieder, Die Platonischen Dialoge in ihrem Verhältnisse zu den Hippocratischen Schriften, p. 67, compares the De locis in homine, vi. p. 278 Littré.) with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure. The same, he said, and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism. That is the kind of a state, then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole. Inevitably, he said, if it is well governed. It is time, I said, to return to our city and observe whether it, rather than any other, embodies the qualities agreed upon in our argument.[*](For these further confirmations of an established thesis cf. on 442-443.) We must, he said.

Well, then, there are to be found in other cities rulers and the people as in it, are there not?There are.Will not all these address one another as fellow-citizens?Of course.But in addition to citizens, what does the people in other states call its rulers.In most cities, masters. In democratic cities, just this, rulers.But what of the people in our city. In addition to citizens, what do they call their rulers?Saviors and helpers, he said. And what term do these apply to the people? Payers of their wage and supporters. And how do the rulers in other states denominate the populace? Slaves, he said. And how do the rulers describe one another? Co-rulers, he said. And ours? Co-guardians. Can you tell me whether any of the rulers in other states would speak of some of their co-rulers as belonging and others as outsiders? Yes, many would. And such a one thinks and speaks of the one that belongs as his own, doesn’t he, and of the outsider as not his own? That is so. But what of your guardians. Could any of them think or speak of his co-guardian as an outsider? By no means, he said; for no matter whom he meets, he will feel that he is meeting a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or the offspring or forebears of these. Excellent, said I; but tell me this further, will it be merely the names[*](τὰ ὀνόματα μόνον may be thought to anticipate Aristotle’s objections.) of this kinship that you have prescribed for them or must all their actions conform to the names in all customary observance toward fathers and in awe and care and obedience for parents, if they look for the favor[*](Cf. 554 D ὅτι οὐκ ἄμεινον.) of either gods or men, since any other behaviour would be neither just nor pious? Shall these be the unanimous oracular voices that they hear from all the people, or shall some other kind of teaching beset[*](Cf. the reliance on a unanimous public opinion in the Laws, 838 C-D.) the ears of your children from their birth, both concerning[*](περὶ . . . περί: for the preposition repeated in a different sense cf. Isocrates iv. 34, ix, 3, and Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. i. As here by Caesar and by you cut off.) what is due to those who are pointed out as their fathers and to their other kin? These, he said; for it would be absurd for them merely to pronounce with their lips the names of kinship without the deeds. Then, in this city more than in any other, when one citizen fares well or ill, men will pronounce in unison the word of which we spoke: It is mine that does well; it is mine that does ill. That is most true, he said.

And did we not say that this conviction and way of speech[*](δόγματός τε καὶ ῥήματος: Cf. Sophist 265 C, Laws 797 C.) brings with it a community in pleasures and pains?And rightly, too.Then these citizens, above all others, will have one and the same thing in common which they will name mine, and by virtue of this communion they will have their pleasures and pains in common.Quite so.And is not the cause of this, besides the general constitution of the state, the community of wives and children among the guardians?It will certainly be the chief cause, he said. But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts. And we were right in so agreeing. Then it is the greatest blessing for a state of which the community of women and children among the helpers has been shown to be the cause. Quite so, he said. And this is consistent with what we said before. For we said,[*](Cf. 416-417.) I believe, that these helpers must not possess houses of their own or land or any other property, but that they should receive from the other citizens for their support the wage of their guardianship and all spend it in common. That was the condition of their being true guardians. Right, he said. Is it not true, then, as I am trying to say, that those former and these present prescriptions tend to make them still more truly guardians and prevent them from distracting the city by referring mine not to the same but to different things, one man dragging off to his own house anything he is able to acquire apart from the rest, and another doing the same to his own separate house, and having women and children apart, thus introducing into the state the pleasures and pains of individuals? They should all rather, we said, share one conviction about their own, tend to one goal, and so far as practicable have one experience of pleasure and pain. By all means, he said. Then will not law-suits and accusations against one another vanish,[*](For a similar list Cf. Laws 842 D. Aristotle, Politics 1263 b 20 f., objects that it is not lack of unity but wickedness that causes these evils.) one may say,[*](Softens the strong word οἰχήσεται.) from among them, because they have nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common? So that we can count on their being free from the dissensions that arise among men from the possession of property, children, and kin. They will necessarily be quit of these, he said. And again, there could not rightly arise among them any law-suit for assault or bodily injury. For as between age-fellows[*](Cf. A.J.P. vol. xiii. p. 364, Aeschines iii. 255, Xenophon Rep. Lac. 4. 5, Laws 880 A.) we shall say that self-defence is honorable and just, thereby compelling them to keep their bodies in condition. Right, he said.

And there will be the further advantage in such a law that an angry man, satisfying his anger in such wise, would be less likely to carry the quarrel to further extremes.Assuredly.As for an older man, he will always have the charge of ruling and chastising the younger.Obviously.Again, it is plain that the young man, except by command of the rulers, will probably not do violence to an elder or strike him, or, I take it, dishonor him in any other way. Two guardians sufficient to prevent that there are, fear and awe, awe restraining him from laying hands on one who may be his parent, and fear in that the others will rush to the aid of the sufferer, some as sons, some as brothers, some as fathers.That is the way it works out, he said. Then in all cases the laws will leave these men to dwell in peace together. Great peace. And if these are free from dissensions among themselves, there is no fear that[*](One of the profoundest of Plato’s political aphorisms. Cf. on 545 D, Laws 683 E, and Aristotle Politics 1305 a 39.) the rest of the city will ever start faction against them or with one another. No, there is not. But I hesitate, so unseemly[*](Alma sdegnosa. Cf. 371 E, 396 B, 397 D, 525 D.) are they, even to mention the pettiest troubles of which they would be rid, the flatterings[*](Cf. Aristotle Politics 1263 b 22.) of the rich, the embarrassments and pains of the poor in the bringing-up of their children and the procuring of money for the necessities of life for their households, the borrowings, the repudiations, all the devices with which they acquire what they deposit with wives and servitors to husband,[*](Cf. 416 D, 548 A, 550 D.) and all the indignities that they endure in such matters, which are obvious and ignoble and not deserving of mention. Even a blind[*](Proverbial. Cf. Sophist 241 D.) man can see these, he said. From all these, then, they will be finally free, and they will live a happier life than that men count most happy, the life of the victors at Olympia.[*](Cf. 540B-C, 621D, Laws 715C, 807C, 840A, 946-947, 964C, Cicero Pro Flacco 31 Olympionicen esse apud Graecos prope maius et gloriosius est quam Romae trimphasse. The motive is anticipated or parodied by Dracontion, Athenaeus 237 D, where the parasite boasts—γέρα γὰρ αὐτοῖς ταῦτα τοῖς τἀλύμπιανικῶσι δέδοται χρηστότητος οὕνεκα.) How so? The things for which those are felicitated are a small part of what is secured for these. Their victory is fairer and their public support more complete. For the prize of victory that they win is the salvation of the entire state, the fillet that binds their brows is the public support of themselves and their children— they receive honor from the city while they live and when they die a worthy burial. A fair guerdon, indeed, he said.