Republic

“Are you satisfied, then,” said I, “as before,[*](Supra 511 D-E.) to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief,[*](Always avoid faith in translating Plato.) and the fourth conjecture or picture-thought—and the last two collectively opinion, and the first two intellection, opinion dealing with generation and intellection with essence, and this relation being expressed in the proportion[*](Cf. on 508 C, p. 103, note b.): as essence is to generation, so is intellection to opinion; and as intellection is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to image-thinking or surmise? But the relation between their objective correlates[*](That is the meaning, though some critics will object to the phrase. Lit. the things over which these (mental states) are set, or to which they apply.) and the division into two parts of each of these, the opinable, namely, and the intelligible, let us dismiss,[*](There are two probable reasons for this: (1) The objective classification is nothing to Plato’s present purpose; (2) The second member of the proportion is lacking in the objective correlates. Numbers are distinguished from ideas not in themselves but only by the difference of method in dialectics and in mathematics. Cf. on 525 D, 526 A, Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 83-84, and Class. Phil. xxii. (1927) pp. 213-218. The explicit qualifications of my arguments there have been neglected and the arguments misquoted but not answered. They can be answered only by assuming the point at issue and affirming that Plato did assign an intermediate place to mathematical conceptions, for which there is no evidence in Plato’s own writings.) Glaucon, lest it involve us in discussion many times as long as the preceding.” Well, he said, “I agree with you about the rest of it, so far as I am able to follow.” “And do you not also give the name dialectician to the man who is able to exact an account[*](Cf. on 531 E, p. 195, note f.) of the essence of each thing? And will you not say that the one who is unable to do this, in so far as he is incapable of rendering an account to himself and others, does not possess full reason and intelligence[*](Cf. on 511 D, p. 117, note a.) about the matter?” “How could I say that he does?” he replied. “And is not this true of the good likewise[*](This would be superfluous on the interpretation that the ἱκανόν must always be the idea of good. What follows distinguishes the dialectician from the the eristic sophist. For the short cut, καὶ . . . ὡσαύτως, cf. 523 E, 580 D, 585 D, 346 A, etc.)—that the man who is unable to define in his discourse and distinguish and abstract from all other things the aspect or idea of the good, and who cannot, as it were in battle, running the gauntlet[*](It imports little whether the objections are in his own mind or made by others. Thought is a discussion of the soul with itself (Cf. Theaet. 189 E, Phileb. 38 E, Soph. 263 E), and when the interlocutor refuses to proceed Socrates sometimes continues the argument himself by supplying both question and answer, e.g. Gorg. 506 C ff. Cf. further Phaedrus 278 C, Parman. 136 D-E, Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 17.) of all tests, and striving to examine everything by essential reality and not by opinion, hold on his way through all this without tripping[*](Cf. Theaet. 160 D, Phileb. 45 A. The practical outcome=Laws 966 A-B, Phaedr. 278 C, Soph. 259 B-C. Cf. Mill, Diss. and Disc. iv. p. 283: There is no knowledge and no assurance of right belief but with him who can both confute the opposite opinion and successfully defend his own against confutation.) in his reasoning—the man who lacks this power, you will say, does not really know the good itself or any particular good; but if he apprehends any adumbration[*](For εἰδώλου cf. on 532 B, p. 197, not e. This may be one of the sources of Epist. vii. 342 B.) of it, his contact with it is by opinion, not by knowledge; and dreaming and dozing through his present life, before he awakens here he will arrive at the house of Hades and fall asleep for ever?[*](For Platonic intellectualism the life of the ordinary man is something between sleep and waking. Cf. Apol. 31 A. Note the touch of humor in τελέως ἐπικαταδαρθάνειν. Cf. Bridges, Psychology, p. 382: There is really no clear-cut distinction between what is usually called sleeping and waking. In sleep we are less awake than in the waking hours, and in waking life we are less asleep than in sleep.)” “Yes, by Zeus,” said he, “all this I will stoutly affirm.” “But, surely,” said I, “if you should ever nurture in fact your children[*](Plato likes to affirm his ideal only of the philosophic rulers.) whom you are now nurturing and educating in word,[*](Cf. 376 D, 369 C, 472 E, Critias 106 A.) you would not suffer them, I presume, to hold rule in the state, and determine the greatest matters, being themselves as irrational[*](A slight touch of humor. Cf. the schoolgirl who said, These equations are inconsiderate and will not be solved.) as the lines so called in geometry.” “Why, no,” he said. “Then you will provide by law that they shall give special heed to the discipline that will enable them to ask and answer[*](A frequent periphrasis for dialectics. Cf. τὸ ἐρωτώμενον ἀποκρίνεσθαι Gorg. 461 E, Charm. 166 D, Prot. 338 D, Alc. I. 106 B.) questions in the most scientific manner?” “I will so legislate,” he said, “in conjunction with you.”

“Do you agree, then,” said I, “that we have set dialectics above all other studies to be as it were the coping-stone[*](For ὥσπερ θριγκός cf. Eur. Herc. Fur. 1280, Aesch. Ag. 1283: and Phileb. 38 C-D ff.)—and that no other higher kind of study could rightly be placed above it, but that our discussion of studies is now complete[*](Cf. 541 B.)” “I do,” he said. “The distribution, then, remains,” said I, “to whom we are to assign these studies and in what way.” Clearly, he said. “Do you remember, then, the kind of man we chose in our former selection[*](Cf. 412 D-E, 485-487, 503 A, C-E.) of rulers?” “Of course,” he said. “In most respects, then,” said I, “you must suppose that we have to choose those same natures. The most stable, the most brave and enterprising[*](Intellectually as well as physically. Cf. 357 A, Prot. 350 B f.) are to be preferred, and, so far as practicable, the most comely.[*](Cf. Symp. 209 B-C, Phaedr. 252 E and Vol. I. p. 261 on 402 D. Ascham, The Schoolmaster, Bk. I. also approves of this qualification.) But in addition we must now require that they not only be virile and vigorous[*](For βλοσυρούς Cf. Theaet. 149 A.) in temper, but that they possess also the gifts of nature suitable to this type of education.” “What qualities are you distinguishing?” “They must have, my friend, to begin with, a certain keenness for study, and must not learn with difficulty. For souls are much more likely to flinch and faint[*](Cf. 504 A, 364 E, Gorg. 480 C, Protag. 326 C, Euthyphro 15 C.) in severe studies than in gymnastics, because the toil touches them more nearly, being peculiar to them and not shared with the body.” True, he said. “And we must demand a good memory and doggedness and industry[*](The qualities of the ideal student again. Cf. on 487 A.) in every sense of the word. Otherwise how do you suppose anyone will consent both to undergo all the toils of the body and to complete so great a course of study and discipline?” “No one could,” he said, “unless most happily endowed.” “Our present mistake,” said I, “and the disesteem that has in consequence fallen upon philosophy are, as I said before,[*](Cf. 495 C ff., pp. 49-51.) caused by the unfitness of her associates and wooers. They should not have been bastards[*](Montaigne, i. 24 (vol. i. p. 73), les âmes boiteuses, les bastardes et vulgaires, sont indignes de Ia philosophie.) but true scions.” “What do you mean?” he said. “In the first place,” I said, “the aspirant to philosophy must not limp[*](Cf. Laws 634 A, Tim. 44 C.) in his industry, in the one half of him loving, in the other shunning, toil. This happens when anyone is a lover of gymnastics and hunting and all the labors of the body, yet is not fond of learning or of listening[*](Cf. 548 E, Lysis 206 C, Euthyd. 274 C, 304 C, and Vol. I. p. 515 on 475 D.) or inquiring, but in all such matters hates work. And he too is lame whose industry is one-sided in the reverse way.” “Most true,” he said. “Likewise in respect of truth,” I said, “we shall regard as maimed in precisely the same way the soul that hates the voluntary lie and is troubled by it in its own self and greatly angered by it in others, but cheerfully accepts the involuntary falsehood[*](Cf. 382 A-B-C.) and is not distressed when convicted of lack of knowledge, but wallows in the mud of ignorance as insensitively as a pig.[*](Cf. Laws 819 D, Rep. 372 D, Politicus 266 C, and my note in Class. Phil. xii. (1917) pp. 308-310. Cf. too the proverbial ὗς γνοίη, Laches 196 D and Rivals 134 A; and Apelt’s emendation of Cratyl. 393 C, Progr. Jena, 1905, p. 19.)”

“By all means,” he said. “And with reference to sobriety,” said I, “and bravery and loftiness of soul[*](Cf. 487 A and vol. I. p. 261, note c on 402 C. The cardinal virtues are not rigidly fixed in Plato. Cf. on 427 E, vol. I. p. 346.) and all the parts of virtue,[*](Plato is using ordinary language and not troubling himself with the problem of Protag. 329 D (What Plato Said, p. 497) and Laws 633 A (What Plato Said, p. 624). Cf. also on 533 D.) we must especially be on our guard to distinguish the base-born from the true-born. For when the knowledge necessary to make such discriminations is lacking in individual or state, they unawares employ at random[*](πρὸς ὅ τι ἂν τύχωσι lit. for whatsoever they happen to of these (services). Cf. Symp. 181 B, Prot. 353 A, Crito 44 D and 45 D, Gorg. 522 C, Laws 656 C, Rep. 332 B, 561 D, Dem. iv. 46, Isoc. Panath. 25, 74, 239, Aristot. Mat. 1013 a 6.) for any of these purposes the crippled and base-born natures, as their friends or rulers.” “It is so indeed,” he said. “But we,” I said, “must be on our guard in all such cases, since, if we bring men sound of limb and mind to so great a study and so severe a training, justice herself will have no fault to find[*](Cf. 487 A. For δίκη cf. Hirzel, Dike, Themis und Verwandtes, p.116.) with us, and we shall preserve the state and our polity. But, if we introduce into it the other sort, the outcome will be just the opposite, and we shall pour a still greater flood[*](καταντλήσομεν: cf. 344 d.) of ridicule upon philosophy.” “That would indeed be shameful,” he said. “Most certainly,” said I: “but here again I am making myself a little ridiculous.” “In what way?” “I forgot,” said I, “that we were jesting,[*](Jest and earnest are never far apart in Plato. Fabling about justice is an old man’s game, Laws 685 A, 769 A. Life itself is best treated as play, Laws 803 C. Science in Tim. 59 D is παιδιά, like literature in the Phaedrus 276 D-E, ibid. 278 B. Cf. Friedländer, Platon, i. pp. 38 and 160, and What Plato Said, pp. 553 and 601.) and I spoke with too great intensity.[*](For similar self-checks Cf. Laws 804 B, 832 B, 907 B-C, Phaedr. 260 D, 279 B. For ἐντεινάμενος cf. Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 969.) For, while speaking, I turned my eyes upon philosophy,[*](Cf. Isoc. Busiris 49. Whatever the difficulties of the chronology it is hard to believe that this is not one of Isocrates’ many endeavors to imitate Platonic effects.) and when I saw how she is undeservedly reviled, I was revolted, and, as if in anger, spoke too earnestly to those who are in fault.” “No, by Zeus, not too earnestly for me[*](Cf. Soph. 226 C, Sophocles, Ajax 397.) as a hearer.” “But too much so for me as a speaker,” I said. “But this we must not forget, that in our former selection we chose old men, but in this one that will not do. For we must not take Solon’s[*](γηράσκω δ’ ἀεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος, I grow old ever learning many things. Cf. Laches 188 A-B; Otto, p. 317.) word for it that growing old a man is able to learn many things. He is less able to do that than to run a race. To the young[*](Cf. Theaet. 146 B. This has been misquoted to the effect that Plato said the young are the best philosophers.) belong all heavy and frequent labors.” Necessarily, he said. “Now, all this study of reckoning and geometry and all the preliminary studies that are indispensable preparation for dialectics must be presented to them while still young, not in the form of compulsory instruction.[*](This and παίζοντας below (537 A) anticipate much modern Kindergarten rhetoric.)” “Why so?” Because, said I, “a free soul ought not to pursue any study slavishly; for while bodily labors[*](Newman, Introd. Aristot. Pol. 358, says Aristotle rejects this distinction, Pol. 1338 b 40 μέχρι μὲν γὰρ ἥβης κουφότερα γυμνάσια προσοιστέον, τὴν βίαιον τροφὴν καὶ τοὺς πρὸς ἀνάγκην πόνους ἀπείργοντας, ἵνα μηδὲν ἐμπόδιον ᾖ πρὸς τὴν αὔξησιν.) performed under constraint do not harm the body, nothing that is learned under compulsion stays with the mind.” True, he said.

“Do not, then, my friend, keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.[*](Cf. 424 E-425 A, Laws 819 B-C, 643 B-D, 797 A-B, Polit. 308 D. Cf. the naive statement in Colvin And Bagley, Human Behavior, p. 41: The discovery [sic!] by Karl Groos that play was actually a preparation for the business of later life was almost revolutionary from the standpoint of educational theory and practice.) That will also better enable you to discern the natural capacities of each.” “There is reason in that,” he said. “And do you not remember,” I said, “that we also declared[*](Cf. 467, vol. I. pp. 485-487.) that we must conduct the children to war on horseback to be spectators, and wherever it may be safe, bring them to the front and give them a taste of blood as we do with whelps?” “I do remember.” “And those who as time goes on show the most facility in all these toils and studies and alarms are to be selected and enrolled on a list.[*](ἐγκριτέον cf. 413 D, 377 C, 486 D, Laws 802 B, 820 D, 936 A, 952 A.)” “At what age?” he said. “When they are released from their prescribed gymnastics. For that period, whether it be two or three years, incapacitates them for other occupations.[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1339 a 7 f. ἅμα γὰρ τῇ τε διανοίᾳ καὶ τῷ σώματι διαπονεῖν οὐ δεῖ, etc.; Plut. De Ed. Puer. 11, De Tuenda San. C. 25, quoted by Newman, Aristot. Pol. I. p. 359, are irrelevant to this passage, but could be referred to the balancing of music and gymnastics in 410-412.) For great fatigue and much sleep are the foes of study, and moreover one of our tests of them, and not the least, will be their behavior in their physical exercises.[*](Cf. Laws 829 B-C.)” “Surely it is,” he said. “After this period,” I said, “those who are given preference from the twenty-year class will receive greater honors than the others, and they will be required to gather the studies which they disconnectedly pursued as children in their former education into a comprehensive survey[*](σύνοψιν: cf. 531 D. This thought is endlessly repeated by modern writers on education. Cf. Mill, Diss. and Disc. iv. 336; Bagley, The Educative Process, p. 180: The theory of concentration proposed by Ziller . . . seeks to organize all the subject matter of instruction into a unifies system, the various units of which shall be consciously related to one another in the minds of the pupils; Haldane, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 94: There was a conference attended by representatives of various German Universities . . . which took place at Hanstein, not far from Göttingen in May 1921. . . . The purpose of the movement is nominally the establishment of a Humanistic Faculty. But in this connection faculty does not mean a separate faculty of humanistic studies. . . . The real object is to bring these subjects into organic relation to one another. Cf. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity, vol. i. p. 4 So true is it that, as Plato puts it, the metaphysician is a synoptical man. Cf. also Aristot. Soph. El. 167 a 38 διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνορᾶν τὸ ταὐτὸν καὶ τὸ ἕτερον. Stenzel, Dialektik, misuses the passage to support the view that Plato’s dialectic still looks for unity and not for divisions and distinctions, as in the Sophist. Cf. also ibid. p.72.) of their affinities with one another and with the nature of things.” “That, at any rate, he said, is the only instruction that abides with those who receive it.” “And it is also,” said I, “the chief test of the dialectical nature and its opposite. For he who can view things in their connection is a dialectician; he who cannot, is not.” “I concur,” he said. “With these qualities in mind,” I said, “it will be your task to make a selection of those who manifest them best from the group who are steadfast in their studies and in war and in all lawful requirements, and when they have passed the thirtieth year to promote them, by a second selection from those preferred in the first,[*](For the technical meaning of the word προκρίτων Cf. Laws 753 B-D.) to still greater honors, and to prove and test them by the power of dialectic[*](For this periphrasis cf. Phaedr. 246 D, Tim. 85 E. Cf. also on 509 A.) to see which of them is able to disregard the eyes and other senses[*](The reader of Plato ought not to misunderstand this now. Cf. on 532 A, pp. 196 f., note d, and 530 p. 187, note c.) and go on to being itself in company with truth. And at this point, my friend, the greatest care[*](Plato returns to an idea suggested in 498 A, and warns against the mental confusion and moral unsettlement that result from premature criticism of life by undisciplined minds. In the terminology of modern education, he would not encourage students to discuss the validity of the Ten commandments and the Constitution of the United States before they could spell, construe, cipher, and had learned to distinguish an undistributed middle term from a petitio principii. Cf. Phaedo 89 D-E. We need not suppose with Grote and others that this involves any reaction or violent change of the opinion he held when he wrote the minor dialogues that portray such discussions. In fact, the still later Sophist, 230 B-C-D, is more friendly to youthful dialectics. Whatever the effect of the practice of Socrates or the Sophists, Plato himself anticipates Grote’s criticism in the Republic by representing Socrates as discoursing with ingenuous youth in a more simple and edifying style. Cf. Lysis 207 D ff., Euthydem. 278 E-282 C, 288 D-290 D. Yet again the Charmides might be thought an exception. Cf. also Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, ii. 1, p. 912, who seems to consider the Sophist earlier than the Republic. ) is requisite.” “How so?” he said. “Do you not note,” said I, “how great is the harm caused by our present treatment of dialectics?” “What is that?” he said. “Its practitioners are infected with lawlessness.[*](i.e. they call all restrictions on impulses and instincts tyrannical conventions. Cf. Gorg. 483-484, Aristoph. Clouds, passim, and on nature and law cf. Vol. I. p. 116, note a, on 359 C.)” “They are indeed.” “Do you suppose,” I said, “that there is anything surprising in this state of mind, and do you not think it pardonable[*](Cf. on 494 A, p. 43, note c.)?” “In what way, pray?” he said.

“Their case,” said I, “resembles that of a supposititious son reared in abundant wealth and a great and numerous family amid many flatterers, who on arriving at manhood should become aware that he is not the child of those who call themselves his parents, and should I not be able to find his true father and mother. Can you divine what would be his feelings towards the flatterers and his supposed parents in the time when he did not know the truth about his adoption, and, again, when he knew it? Or would you like to hear my surmise?” “I would.” “Well, then, my surmise is,” I said, “that he would be more likely to honor his reputed father and mother and other kin than the flatterers, and that there would be less likelihood of his allowing them to lack for anything, and that he would be less inclined to do or say to them anything unlawful, and less liable to disobey them in great matters than to disobey the flatterers—during the time when he did not know the truth.” “It is probable,” he said. “But when he found out the truth, I surmise that he would grow more remiss in honor and devotion to them and pay more regard to the flatterers, whom he would heed more than before[*](διαφερόντως ἢ πρότερον: Cf. Phaedo 85 B.) and would henceforth live by their rule, associating with them openly, while for that former father and his adoptive kin he would not care at all, unless he was naturally of a very good disposition.” “All that you say,” he replied, “would be likely to happen.[*](οἷά περ ἂν γένοιτο is the phrase Aristotle uses to distinguish the truth of poetry from the facts of history.) But what is the pertinency of this comparison to the novices of dialectic[*](That is the meaning. Lit. those who lay hold on discourse.)?” “It is this. We have, I take it, certain convictions[*](Plato’s warning apples to our day no less than to his own. Like the proponents of ethical nihilism in Plato’s Athens, much of our present-day literature and teaching questions all standards of morality and aesthetics, and confuses justice and injustice, beauty and ugliness. Cf. also on 537 D, p. 220, note a.) from childhood about the just and the honorable, in which, in obedience and honor to them, we have been bred as children under their parents.” “Yes, we have.” “And are there not other practices going counter to these, that have pleasures attached to them and that flatter and solicit our souls, but do not win over men of any decency; but they continue to hold in honor the teachings of their fathers and obey them?” “It is so” “Well, then,” said I, “when a man of this kind is met by the question,[*](The question is here personified, as the λόγος so often is, e.g. 503 A. Cf. What Plato Said on Protag. 361 A-B.) What is the honorable? and on his giving the answer which he learned from the lawgiver, the argument confutes him, and by many and various refutations upsets[*](A possible allusion to the καταβάλλοντες λόγοι of the sophist. Cf. Euthydem. 277 D, 288 A, Phaedo 88 C, Phileb. 15 E and What Plato Said, p. 518, on Crito 272 B.) his faith and makes him believe that this thing is no more honorable than it is base,[*](This is the oral counterpart of the intellectual skepticism or μισολογία of Phaedo 90 C-D. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 531, on Phaedo 89.) and when he has had the same experience about the just and the good and everything that he chiefly held in esteem, how do you suppose that he will conduct himself thereafter in the matter of respect and obedience to this traditional morality?” “It is inevitable,” he said, “that he will not continue to honor and obey as before.”

“And then,” said I, “when he ceases to honor these principles and to think that they are binding on him,[*](For οἰκεῖα Cf. 433 E, 433 D, and Class. Phil. xxiv. (1929) pp. 409-410.) and cannot discover the true principles, will he be likely to adopt any other way of life than that which flatters his desires[*](Cf. Laws 633 E and 442 A-B. Others render it, than the life of the flatterers (parasites). Why not both?)?” “He will not,” he said. “He will, then, seem to have become a rebel to law and convention instead of the conformer that he was.” Necessarily. “And is not this experience of those who take up dialectics in this fashion to be expected and, as I just now said, deserving of much leniency?” “Yes, and of pity too,” he said. “Then that we may not have to pity thus your thirty-year-old disciples, must you not take every precaution when you introduce them to the study of dialectics?” “Yes, indeed,” he said. “And is it not one chief safeguard not to suffer them to taste of it while young?[*](See on 498 A-B. Cf. Richard of Bury, Philobiblon(Morley, A Miscellany, pp. 49-50): But the contemporaries of our age negligently apply a few years of ardent youth, burning by turns with the fire of vice; and when they have attained the acumen of discerning a doubtful truth, they immediately become involved in extraneous business, retire, and say farewell to the schools of philosophy; they sip the frothy must of juvenile wit over the difficulties of philosophy, and pour out the purified old wine with economical care.) For I fancy you have not failed to observe that lads, when they first get a taste of disputation, misuse it as a form of sport, always employing it contentiously, and, imitating confuters, they themselves confute others.[*](Cf. Apol. 23 C, Phileb. 15 E, Xen. Mem. i. 2. 46, Isoc. xii. 26 and x. 6; also Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 568.) They delight like spies in pulling about and tearing with words all who approach them.” “Exceedingly so,” he said. “And when they have themselves confuted many and been confuted by many, they quickly fall into a violent distrust of all that they formerly held true; and the outcome is that they themselves and the whole business of philosophy are discredited with other men.” “Most true,” he said. “But an older man will not share this craze,[*](But in another mood or from another angle this is the bacchic madness of philosophy which all the company in the Symposium have shared, 218 A-B. Cf. also Phaedr. 245 B-C, 249 C-E, Sophist 216 D, Phileb. 15 D-E, and What Plato Said, p. 493 on Protag. 317 D-E.)” said I, “but rather choose to imitate the one who consents to examine truth dialectically than the one who makes a jest[*](Cf. Gorg. 500 B-C. Yet the prevailing seriousness of Plato’s own thought does not exclude touches of humor and irony, and he vainly warns the modern reader to distinguish between jest and earnest in the drama of disputation in his dialogues. Many misinterpretations of Plato’s thought are due to the failure to heed this warning. Cf. e.g . Gorgias 474 A (What Plato Said, p. 504), which Robin, L’Année Philos. xxi. p. 29, and others miss, Rep. 376 B, Symp. 196 C, Protag. 339 f., Theaet. 157 A-B, 160 B,165 B,and passim. Cf. also on 536 C, p. 214, note b.) and a sport of mere contradiction, and so he will himself be more reasonable and moderate, and bring credit rather than discredit upon his pursuit.” Right, he said. “And were not all our preceding statements made with a view to this precaution our requirement that those permitted to take part in such discussions must have orderly and stable natures, instead of the present practice[*](For the idiom μὴ ὡς νῦν etc. Cf. on 410 B οὐχ ὥσπερ; also 610 D, Gorg. 522 A, Symp. 179 E, 189 C, Epist. vii. 333 A, Aristoph. Knights 784, Eurip. Bacchae 929, Il. xix. 493, Od. xxiv. 199, xxi. 427, Dem. iv. 34, Aristot. De an. 414 A 22.) of admitting to it any chance and unsuitable applicant?” “By all means,” he said. “Is it enough, then, to devote to the continuous and strenuous study of dialectics undisturbed by anything else, as in the corresponding discipline in bodily exercises, twice as many years as were allotted to that?” “Do you mean six or four?” he said.

Well, I said, “set it down as five.[*](It is very naive of modern commentators to cavil at the precise time allotted to dialectic, and still more so to infer that there was not much to say about the ideas. Dialectic was not exclusively or mainly concerned with the metaphysics of the ideas. It was the development of the reasoning powers by rational discussion.) For after that you will have to send them down into the cave[*](Cf. 519 C ff., pp. 139-145.) again, and compel them to hold commands in war and the other offices suitable to youth, so that they may not fall short of the other type in experience[*](Xen. Cyrop. i. 2. 13 seems to copy this. Cf. on 484 D. Critics of Plato frequently overlook the fact that he insisted on practical experience in the training of his rulers. Newman, Aristot. Pol. i. p. 5 points out that this experience takes the place of special training in political science.) either. And in these offices, too, they are to be tested to see whether they will remain steadfast under diverse solicitations or whether they will flinch and swerve.[*](Cf. ὑποκινήσαντ’, Aristoph. Frogs 643.)” “How much time do you allow for that?” he said. “Fifteen years,” said I, “and at the age of fifty[*](An eminent scholar quaintly infers that Plato could not have written this page before he himself was fifty years old.) those who have survived the tests and approved themselves altogether the best in every task and form of knowledge must be brought at last to the goal. We shall require them to turn upwards the vision of their souls[*](Plato having made his practical meaning quite clear feels that he can safely permit himself the short cut of rhetoric and symbolism in summing it up. He reckoned without Neoplatonists ancient and modern. Cf. also on 519 B, p. 138, note a.) and fix their gaze on that which sheds light on all, and when they have thus beheld the good itself they shall use it as a pattern[*](Cf. 500 D-E. For παράδειγμα cf. 592 B and What Plato Said, p. 458, on Euthyphro 6 E, and p. 599, on Polit. 277 D.) for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves throughout the remainder of their lives, each in his turn,[*](Cf. 520 D.) devoting the greater part of their time to the study of philosophy, but when the turn comes for each, toiling in the service of the state and holding office for the city’s sake, regarding the task not as a fine thing but a necessity[*](Cf. 347 C-D, 520 E.); and so, when each generation has educated others[*](Plato’s guardians, unlike Athenian statesmen, could train their successors. Cf. Protag. 319 E-320 B, Meno 99 B. Also ἄλλους ποιεῖν Meno 100 A, Gorg. 449 B, 455 C, Euthyph. 3 C, Phaedr. 266 C, 268 B, Symp. 196 E, Protag. 348 E, Isoc. Demon. 3, Panath. 28, Soph. 13, Antid. 204, Xen. Oecon. 15. 10, and παιδεύειν ἀνθρώπους, generally used of the sophists, Gorg. 519 E, Protag. 317 B, Euthyd. 306 E, Laches 186 D, Rep. 600 C.) like themselves to take their place as guardians of the state, they shall depart to the Islands of the Blest[*](Cf. p. 139, note d. Plato checks himself in mid-flight and wistfully smiles at his own idealism. Cf. on 536 B-C, also 540 C and 509 C. Frutiger, Mythes de Platon, p. 170.) and there dwell. And the state shall establish public memorials[*](Cf. Symp. 209 E.) and sacrifices for them as to divinities if the Pythian oracle approves[*](For this caution cf. 461 E and Vol. I. p. 344, note c, on 427 C.) or, if not, as to divine and godlike men.[*](Plato plays on the words δαίμων and εὐδαίμων. Cf. also Crat. 398 b-C.)” “A most beautiful finish, Socrates, you have put upon your rulers, as if you were a statuary.[*](Cf. 361 D.)” “And on the women[*](Lit. female rulers.) too, Glaucon,” said I; “for you must not suppose that my words apply to the men more than to all women who arise among them endowed with the requisite qualities.” “That is right,” he said, “if they are to share equally in all things with the men as we laid it down.” “Well, then,” said I, “do you admit that our notion of the state and its polity is not altogether a daydream,[*](Cf. on 450 D and 499 C.) but that though it is difficult,[*](Cf. 499 D.) it is in a way possible[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 564 on Rep. 472 B-E, and p. 65, not h, on 499 D.) and in no other way than that described—when genuine philosophers,[*](Cf. 463 C-D, 499 B-C.) many or one, becoming masters of the state scorn[*](Cf. 521 B, 516 C-D.) the present honors, regarding them as illiberal and worthless, but prize the right[*](τὸ ὀρθόν: Cf. Theaet. 161 C, Meno 99 A.) and the honors that come from that above all things, and regarding justice as the chief and the one indispensable thing, in the service and maintenance of that reorganize and administer their city?” “In what way?” he said.

“All inhabitants above the age of ten,” I said, “they will send out into the fields, and they will take over the children,[*](This is another of the passages in which Plato seems to lend support to revolutionaries. Cf. p. 71, note g. Cf. Laws 752 C, where it is said that the children would accept the new laws if the parents would not. Cf. 415 D, and also What Plato Said, p. 625, on Laws 644 A and p. 638, on 813 D. There is some confusion in this passage between the inauguration and the normal conduct of the ideal state, and Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 439 calls the idea ein hingeworfener Einfall. But Plato always held that the reformer must have or make a clean slate. Cf. 501 A, Laws 735 E. And he constantly emphasizes the supreme importance of education;Rep. 377 A-B, 423 E, 416 C, Laws 641 B, 644 A-B, 752 C, 765 E-766 A, 788 C, 804 D. For παραλαβόντες Cf. Phaedo 82 E παραλαβοῦσα.) remove them from the manners and habits of their parents, and bring them up in their own customs and laws which will be such as we have described. This is the speediest and easiest way in which such a city and constitution as we have portrayed could be established and prosper and bring most benefit to the people among whom it arises.” “Much the easiest,” he said, “and I think you have well explained the manner of its realization if it should ever be realized.” Then, said I, “have we not now said enough[*](Cf. 535 A.) about this state and the corresponding type of man—for it is evident what our conception of him will be?” “It is evident,” he said, “and, to answer your question, I think we have finished.”

Very good. We are agreed then, Glaucon, that the state which is to achieve the height of good government must have community[*](Strictly speaking, this applies only to the guardians, but Cf. Laws 739 C ff., Aristotle, Pol. 1261 a 6 and 1262 a 41, like many subsequent commentators, misses the point.) of wives and children and all education, and also that the pursuits of men and women must be the same in peace and war, and that the rulers or kings[*](Cf. 445 D and What Plato Said, p. 539, on Menex. 238 C-D.) over them[*](So Jowett. Adam ad loc. insists that the genitive is partitive, those of their number are to be kings.) are to be those who have approved themselves the best in both war and philosophy.We are agreed, he said. And we further granted this, that when the rulers are established in office they shall conduct these soldiers and settle them in habitations[*](Cf. 415 E.) such as we described, that have nothing private for anybody but are common for all, and in addition to such habitations we agreed, if you remember, what should be the nature of their possessions.[*](Cf. 416 C.) Why, yes, I remember, he said, that we thought it right that none of them should have anything that ordinary men[*](Cf. 429 A.) now possess, but that, being as it were athletes[*](Cf. on 403 E and 521 D. Polyb. i. 6. 6 ἀθληταὶ γεγονότες ἀληθινοὶ τῶν κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον ἔργων ) of war and guardians, they should receive from the others as pay[*](Cf. 416 E.) for their guardianship each year their yearly sustenance, and devote their entire attention to the care of themselves and the state. That is right, I said. But now that we have finished this topic let us recall the point at which we entered on the digression[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 424, note c, and What Plato Said, p. 640, on Laws 857 C.) that has brought us here, so that we may proceed on our way again by the same path. That is easy, he said; for at that time, almost exactly as now, on the supposition that you had finished the description of the city, you were going on to say[*](Cf. 449 A-B.) that you assumed such a city as you then described and the corresponding type of man to be good, and that too though, as it appears, you had a still finer city and type of man to tell of;

but at any rate you were saying that the others are aberrations,[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1285 b 1-2, 1289 b 9.) if this city is right. But regarding the other constitutions, my recollection is that you said there were four species[*](Aristot. Pol. 1291-1292 censures the limitation to four. But cf. ibid, Introd. p. xlv. Cf. Laws 693 D, where only two mother-forms of government are mentioned, monarchy and democracy, with Aristot. Pol. 1301 b 40 δῆμος καὶ ὀλιγαρχία. Cf. also Eth. Nic. 1160 a 31 ff. The Politicus mentions seven (291 f., 301 f.). Isoc. Panath. 132-134 names three kinds—oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy—adding that others may say much more about them. See note ad loc. in Loeb Isocrates and Class. Phil. vol. vii. p. 91. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan 19 Yet he that shall consider the particular commonwealths that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three . . . as, for example, elective kingdoms, etc.) worth speaking of[*](For ὧν καὶ πέρι λόγον ἄξιον εἴη Cf. Laws 908 B ἃ καὶ διακρίσεως ἄξια, Laches 192 A οὗ καὶ πέρι ἄξιον λέγειν, Tim. 82 ἓν γένος ἐνὸν ἄξιον ἐπωνυμίας. Cf. also Euthydem. 279 C, Aristot. Pol. 1272 b 32, 1302 a 13, De part. an. 654 a 13, Demosth. v. 16, Isoc. vi. 56. and Vol. I. p. 420, note f, on 445 C.) and observing their defects[*](For the relative followed by a demonstrative cf. also 357 B.) and the corresponding types of men, in order that when we had seen them all and come to an agreement about the best and the worst man, we might determine whether the best is the happiest and the worst most wretched or whether it is otherwise.[*](Plato’s main point again. Cf. 545 A, 484 A-B and Vol. I. p.xii, note d.) And when I was asking what were the four constitutions you had in mind, Polemarchus and Adeimantus thereupon broke in, and that was how you took up the discussion again and brought to this point.[*](Cf. on 572 b, p. 339, note e.)Your memory is most exact, I said. A second time then, as in a wrestling-match, offer me the same hold,[*](Cf. Phileb. 13 D εἰς τὰς ὁμοίας Phaedr. 236 B, Laws 682 E, Aristoph. Clouds 551 (Blaydes), Knights 841, Lysist. 672.) and when I repeat my question try to tell me what you were then about to say. I will if I can, said I. And indeed, said he, I am eager myself to hear what four forms of government you meant. There will be no difficulty about that, said I. For those I mean are precisely those that have names[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 596, on Sophist 267 D.) in common usage: that which the many praised,[*](Cf. Crito 52 E, Norlin on Isoc. Nicocles 24 (Loeb), Laws 612 D-E, Aristot. Pol. 1265 b 32, Xen. Mem. iii. 5. 15.) your[*](ἡ . . . αὔτη, ista. Cf. Midsummer Night’s Dream, I. ii. ad fin. and Gorg. 502 B, 452 E.) Cretan and Spartan constitution; and the second in place and in honor, that which is called oligarchy, a constitution teeming with many ills, and its sequent counterpart and opponent, democracy ; and then the noble[*](Of course ironical. Cf. 454 A, and What Plato Said, p. 592, on Soph. 231 B.) tyranny surpassing them all, the fourth and final malady[*](Cf. 552 C, Protag. 322 d, Isoc. Hel. 34, Wilamowitz on Eurip. Heracles 542. For the effect of surprise Cf. Rep. 334 A, 373 A, 555 A, Theaet. 146 A, Phileb. 46 A κακόν and 64 E συμφορά.) of a state. Can you mention any other type[*](ἰδέαν: cf. Introd. p. x.) of government, I mean any other that constitutes a distinct species[*](Cf. 445 C. For διαφανεῖ Cf. Tim. 60 A, 67 A, Laws 634 C, and on 548 C, p. 253, note g.)? For, no doubt, there are hereditary principalities[*](δυναστεῖαι Cf. Laws 680 B, 681 D. But the word usually has an invidious suggestion. See Newman on Aristot. Pol. 1272 b 10. Cf. ibid. 1292 b 5-10, 1293 a 31, 1298 a 32; also Lysias ii. 18, where it is opposed to democracy, Isoc. Panath. 148, where it is used of the tyranny of Peisistratus, ibid. 43 of Minos. Cf. Panegyr. 39 and Norlin on Panegyr. 105 (Loeb). Isocrates also uses it frequently of the power or sovereignty of Philip, Phil. 3, 6, 69, 133, etc. Cf. also Gorg. 492 B, Polit. 291 D.) and purchased[*](Newman on Aristot. Pol. 1273 a 35 thinks that Plato may have been thinking of Carthage. Cf. Polyb. vi. 56. 4.) kingships, and similar intermediate constitutions which one could find in even greater numbers among the barbarians than among the Greeks.[*](Plato, as often is impatient of details, for which he was rebuked by Aristotle. Cf. also Tim. 57 D, 67 C, and the frequent leaving of minor matters to future legislators in the Republic and Laws,Vol. I. p. 294, note b, on 412 B.) Certainly many strange ones are reported, he said. Are you aware, then, said I, that there must be as many types of character among men as there are forms of government[*](For the correspondence of individual and state cf. also 425 E, 445 C-D, 579 C and on 591 E. Cf. Laws 829 A, Isoc. Peace 120.)? Or do you suppose that constitutions spring from the proverbial oak or rock[*](Or stock or stone, i.e. inanimate, insensible things. For the quotation ἐκ δρυός ποθεν ἢ ἐκ πέτρας Cf. Odyssey xix. 163, Il. xxii. 126 aliter, Apol. 34 D and Thompson on Phaedrus 275 B; also Stallbaum ad loc.) and not from the characters[*](The mores, 45 E, 436 A. Cf. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, p. 206: A lazy nation may be changed into an industrious, a rich into a poor, a religious into a profane, as if by magic, if any single cause, though slight, or any combination of causes, however subtle, is strong enough to change the favorite and detested types of character.) of the citizens, which, as it were, by their momentum and weight in the scales[*](For the metaphor cf. also 550 E and on 556 E.) draw other things after them? They could not possibly come from any other source, he said. Then if the forms of government are five, the patterns of individual souls must be five also. Surely. Now we have already described the man corresponding to aristocracy[*](ἀριστοκρατία is used by both Plato and Aristotle some times technically, sometimes etymologically as the government of the best, whoever they may be. Cf. 445 D, and Menex. 238 C-D (What Plato Said, p. 539).) or the government of the best, whom we aver to be the truly good and just man.

We have.Must we not, then, next after this, survey the inferior types, the man who is contentious and covetous of honor,[*](Cf. Phaedr. 256 C 1, 475 A, 347 B.) corresponding to the Laconian constitution, and the oligarchical man in turn, and the democratic and the tyrant, in order that,[*](Cf. on 544 A, p. 237, note g.) after observing the most unjust of all, we may oppose him to the most just, and complete our inquiry as to the relation of pure justice and pure injustice in respect of the happiness and unhappiness of the possessor, so that we may either follow the counsel of Thrasymachus and pursue injustice or the present argument and pursue justice?Assuredly, he said, that is what we have to do.[*](In considering the progress of degeneration portrayed in the following pages, it is too often forgotten that Plato is describing or satirizing divergences from ideal rather than an historical process. Cf. Rehm, Der Untergang Roms im abendländischen Denken, p. 11: Plato gibt eine zum Mythos gesteigerte Naturgeschichte des Staates, so wie Hesiod eine als Mythos zu verstehende Natur-, d.h. Entartungsgeschichte des Menschengeschlechts gibt. Cf. Sidney B. Fay, on Bury, The Idea of Progress, in Methods of Social Science, edited by Stuart A. Rice, p. 289: . . . there was a widely spread belief in an earlier golden age of simplicity, which had been followed by a degeneration and decay of the human race. Plato’s theory of degradation set forth a gradual deterioration through the successive stages of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and despotism. The Greek theory of cycles, with its endless, monotonous iteration, excluded the possibility of permanent advance or progress. Kurt Singer, Platon der Gründer, p. 141, says that the timocratic state reminds one of late Sparta, the democratic of Athens after Pericles, the oligarchic is related to Corinth, and the tyrannical has some Syracusan features. Cicero, De div. ii., uses this book of the Republic to console himself for the revolutions in the Roman state, and Polybius’s theory of the natural succession of governments is derived from it, with modifications (Polyb. vi. 4. 6 ff. Cf. vi. 9. 10 αὕτη πολιτειῶν ἀνακύκλωσις). Aristotle objects that in a cycle the ideal state should follow the tyranny.) Shall we, then, as we began by examining moral qualities in states before individuals, as being more manifest there, so now consider first the constitution based on the love of honor? I do not know of any special name[*](Cf. on 544 C, p. 238, note b.) for it in use. We must call it either timocracy[*](In Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1160 a 33-34, the meaning is the rule of those who possess a property qualification.) or timarchy. And then in connection with this we will consider the man of that type, and thereafter oligarchy and the oligarch, and again, fixing our eyes on democracy, we will contemplate the democratic man: and fourthly, after coming to the city ruled by a tyrant and observing it, we will in turn take a look into the tyrannical soul,[*](Cf. 577 A-B.) and so try to make ourselves competent judges[*](Cf. 582 A ff.) of the question before us. That would be at least[*](For the qualified assent Cf. HamletI. i. 19 What? is Horatio there? A piece of him. It is very frequent in the Republic, usually with γοῦν. Cf. 442 D, 469 B, 476 C, 501 C, 537 C, 584 A, 555 B, 604 D,and Vol. I. p. 30, note a, on 334 A; also 460 C and 398 B, where the interlocutor adds a condition, 392 B, 405 B, 556 E, 581 B, and 487 A, where he uses the corrective μὲν οὖν.) a systematic and consistent way of conducting the observation and the decision, he said. Come, then, said I, let us try to tell in what way a timocracy would arise out of an aristocracy. Or is this the simple and unvarying rule, that in every form of government revolution takes its start from the ruling class itself,[*](For the idea that the state is destroyed only by factions in the ruling class cf. also Laws 683 E. Cf. 465 B, Lysias xxv. 21, Aristot. Pol. 1305 b, 1306 a 10 ὁμονοοῦσα δὲ ὀλιγαρχία οὐκ εὐδιάφθορος ἐξ αὑτῆς, 1302 a 10 Polybius, Teubner, vol. ii. p. 298 (vi. 57). Newman, Aristot. Pol. i. p. 521, says that Aristotle does not remark on Plato’s observation . . . though he cannot have agreed with it. Cf. Halévy, Notes et souvenirs, p. 153 l’histoire est là pour démontrer clairement que, depuis un siècle, not gouvernements n’ont jamais été renversés que par eux-mêmes; Bergson, Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, p. 303: Mais l’instinct résiste. Il ne commence à céder que lorsque Ia classe supérieure elle-même l’y invite.) when dissension arises in that, but so long as it is at one with itself, however small it be, innovation is impossible? Yes, that is so. How, then, Glaucon, I said, will disturbance arise in our city, and how will our helpers and rulers fall out and be at odds with one another and themselves? Shall we, like Homer, invoke the Muses[*](For the mock-heroic style of this invocation Cf. Phaedr. 237 A, Laws 885 C.) to tell

how faction first fell upon them,

Somewhat in this fashion. Hard in truth[*](Cf. Alc. I. 104 E.) it is for a state thus constituted to be shaken and disturbed; but since for everything that has come into being destruction is appointed,[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 627 on Laws 677 A; also Polyb. vi. 57, Cic. De rep. ii. 25.) not even such a fabric as this will abide for all time, but it shall surely be dissolved, and this is the manner of its dissolution. Not only for plants that grow from the earth but also for animals that live upon it there is a cycle of bearing and barrenness[*](Cf. Pindar, Mem. vi. 10-12 for the thought.) for soul and body as often as the revolutions of their orbs come full circle, in brief courses for the short-lived and oppositely for the opposite; but the laws of prosperous birth or infertility for your race, the men you have bred to be your rulers will not for all their wisdom ascertain by reasoning combined with sensation,[*](Cf. Tim. 28 A δόξῃ μετ’ αἰσθήσεως.) but they will escape them, and there will be a time when they will beget children out of season. Now for divine begettings there is a period comprehended by a perfect number,[*](For its proverbial obscurity cf. Cic. Ad att. vii. 13 est enim numero Platonis obscurius, Censorinus, De die natali xi. See ibid, Introd. p. xliv for literature on this number.) and for mortal by the first in which augmentations dominating and dominated when they have attained to three distances and four limits of the assimilating and the dissimilating, the waxing and the waning, render all things conversable[*](προσήγορα: Cf. Theaet. 146 A.) and commensurable with one another, whereof a basal four-thirds wedded to the pempad yields two harmonies at the third augmentation, the one the product of equal factors taken one hundred times, the other of equal length one way but oblong,—one dimension of a hundred numbers determined by the rational diameters of the pempad lacking one in each case, or of the irrational[*](Cf. 534 D; also Theaet. 202 B ῥητάς.) lacking two; the other dimension of a hundred cubes of the triad. And this entire geometrical number is determinative of this thing, of better and inferior births. And when your guardians, missing this, bring together brides and bridegrooms unseasonably,[*](Cf. 409 D.) the offspring will not be well-born or fortunate. Of such offspring the previous generation will establish the best, to be sure, in office, but still these, being unworthy, and having entered in turn[*](αὖ: cf. my note in Class. Phil. xxiii. (1928) pp. 285-287.) into the powers of their fathers, will first as guardians begin to neglect us, paying too little heed to music[*](This does not indicate a change in Plato’s attitude toward music, as has been alleged.) and then to gymnastics, so that our young men will deteriorate in their culture; and the rulers selected from them will not approve themselves very efficient guardians for testing Hesiod’s and our races of gold, silver, bronze and iron.[*](Cf. 415 A-B.)

And this intermixture of the iron with the silver and the bronze with the gold will engender unlikeness[*](Cf. Theaet. 159 A.) and an unharmonious unevenness, things that always beget war and enmity wherever they arise.

Of this lineage, look you,

Yes.Such men, said I, will be avid of wealth, like those in an oligarchy, and will cherish a fierce secret lust for gold[*](This was said to be characteristic of Sparta. Cf. Newman on Aristot. Pol. 1270 a 13, Xen. Rep. Lac. 14, 203 and 7. 6, and the Chicago Dissertation of P. H. Epps, The Place of Sparta in Greek History and Civilization, pp. 180-184.) and silver, owning storehouses[*](Cf. 416 D.) and private treasuries where they may hide them away, and also the enclosures[*](Cf. Laws 681 A, Theaet. 174 E.) of their homes, literal private love-nests[*](νεοττιάς suggests Horace’s tu nidum servas (Epist. i. 10.6). Cf also Laws 776 A.) in which they can lavish their wealth on their women[*](Cf. Laws 806 A-C, 637 B-C, Aristot. Pol. 1269 b 3, and Newman ii. p. 318 on the Spartan women. Cf. Epps, op. cit. pp. 322-346.) and any others they please with great expenditure. Most true, he said. And will they not be stingy about money, since they prize it and are not allowed to possess it openly, prodigal of others’ wealth[*](φιλαναλωταί, though different, suggests Sallust’s alieni appetens sui profusus (Cat. 5). Cf. Cat. 52 publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam.) because of their appetites, enjoying[*](Cf. 587 A, Laws 636 D, Symp. 187 E, Phaedr. 251 E.) their pleasures stealthily, and running away from the law as boys from a father,[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1270 b 34 with Newman’s note; and Euthyphro 2 C tell his mother the state.) since they have not been educated by persuasion[*](Cf. Laws 720 D-E. This is not inconsistent with Polit. 293 A, where the context and the point of view are different.) but by force because of their neglect of the true Muse, the companion of discussion and philosophy, and because of their preference of gymnastics to music? You perfectly describe, he said, a polity that is a mixture[*](This is of course not the mixed government which Plato approves Laws 691-692, 712 D-E, 759 B. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 629.) of good and evil. Why, yes, the elements have been mixed, I said, but the most conspicuous[*](For διαφανέστατον cf. 544 D. The expression διαφανέστατον . . . ἕν τι μόνον, misunderstood and emended by Apelt, is colored by an idea of Anaxagoras expressed by Lucretius i. 877-878: illud Apparere unum cuius sint plurima mixta. Anaxag. Fr. 12. Diels 1.3, p. 405 ἀλλ’ ὅτων πλεῖστα ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἓν ἕκαστον ἐστι καὶ ἦν. Cf. Phaedr. 238 A, Cratyl. 393 misunderstood by Dümmler and emended (ἐναργής for ἐγκρατής) with the approval of Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 350.) feature in it is one thing only, due to the predominance of the high-spirited element, namely contentiousness and covetousness of honor.[*](There is no contradiction between this and Laws 870 C if the passage is read carefully.) Very much so, said he. Such, then, would be the origin and nature of this polity if we may merely outline the figure of a constitution in words and not elaborate it precisely, since even the sketch will suffice to show us the most just and the most unjust type of man, and it would be an impracticable task to set forth all forms[*](Cf. on 544 D, p. 240, note a.) of government without omitting any, and all customs and qualities of men. Quite right, he said. What, then, is the man that corresponds to this constitution? What is his origin and what his nature? I fancy, Adeimantus said, that he comes rather close[*](Cf. Phaedo 65 A, Porphyry, De abst. i. 27, Teubner, p. 59 ἐγγὺς τείνειν ἀποσιτίας.) to Glaucon here in point of contentiousness. Perhaps, said I, in that, but I do not think their natures are alike in the following respects. In what?

He will have to be somewhat self-willed[*](αὐθαδέστερον. The fault of Prometheus (Aesch. P. V. 1034, 1937) and Medea must not be imputed to Glaucon.) and lacking in culture,[*](Cf. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, who imitates or parodies Plato throughout, e.g. p. 83 A little inaccessible to ideas and light, and pp. 54-55 The peculiar serenity of aristocracies of Teutonic origin appears to come from their never having had any ideas to trouble them.) yet a lover of music and fond of listening[*](Cf. 475 D, 535 D, Lysis 206 C.) to talk and speeches, though by no means himself a rhetorician; and to slaves such a one would be harsh,[*](Cf. p. 249, note g, on 547 C, and Newman ii. p. 317. In i. p. 143, n. 3 he says that this implies slavery in the ideal state, in spite of 547 C.) not scorning them as the really educated do, but he would be gentle with the freeborn and very submissive to officials, a lover of office and of honor,[*](Cf. Lysias xix. 18. Lysias xxi. portrays a typical φιλότιμος. Cf Phaedr. 256 C, Eurip. I. A. 527. He is a Xenophontic type. Cf Xen. Oecon. 14. 10, Hiero 7. 3, Agesil. 10. 4. Isoc. Antid. 141 and 226 uses the word in a good sense. Cf. But if it be a sin to covet honor, Shakes. Henry V. iv. iii. 28.) not basing his claim to office[*](Cf. the ἀξιώματα of Laws 690 A, Aristot. Pol. 1280 a 8 ff., 1282 b 26, 1283-1284.) on ability to speak or anything of that sort but on his exploits in war or preparation for war, and he would be a devotee of gymnastics and hunting.[*](Cf. Arnold on the barbarians in Culture and Anarchy, pp. 78, 82, 84.)Why, yes, he said, that is the spirit of that polity.[*](For the ἦθος of a state cf. Isoc. Nic. 31.) And would not such a man be disdainful of wealth too in his youth, but the older he grew the more he would love it because of his participation in the covetous nature and because his virtue is not sincere and pure since it lacks the best guardian? What guardian? said Adeimantus. Reason, said I, blended with culture,[*](The Greek words λόγος and μουσική are untranslatable. Cf. also 560 B. For μουσική cf. 546 D. Newman i. p. 414 fancies that his is a return to the position of Book IV. from the disparagement of music in 522 A. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 4 on this supposed ABA development of Plato’s opinions.) which is the only indwelling preserver of virtue throughout life in the soul that possesses it. Well said, he replied. This is the character, I said, of the timocratic youth, resembling the city that bears his name. By all means. His origin[*](δέ γ’ marks the transition from the description of the type to its origin. Cf. 547 E, 553 C, 556 B, 557 B, 560 D, 561 E, 563 B, 566 E. Ritter, pp. 69-70, comments on its frequency in this book, but does not note the reason. There are no cases in the first five pages.) is somewhat on this wise: Sometimes he is the young son of a good father who lives in a badly governed state and avoids honors and office and law-suits and all such meddlesomeness[*](Cf. Lysias xix. 18 ἐκείνῳ μὲν γὰρ ἦν τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, with the contrasted type ἀνήλωσεν ἐπιθυμῶν τιμᾶσθαι, Isoc. Antid. 227 ἀπραγμονεστάτους μὲν ὄντας ἐν τῇ πόλει. Cf. πολυπραγμοσύνη 444 B, 434 B, Isoc. Antid. 48, Peace 108, 30, and 26, with Norlin’s note (Loeb). Cf. also Aristoph. Knights 261.) and is willing to forbear something of his rights[*](ἐλαττοῦσθαι cf. Thuc. i. 77. 1, Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1198 b 26-32, Pol. 1319 a 3.) in order to escape trouble.[*](For πράγματα ἔχειν cf. 370 A, Gorg. 467 D, Alc. I. 119 B, Aristoph. Birds 1026, Wasps 1392. Cf. πράγματα παρέχειν, Rep. 505 A, 531 B, Theages 121 D, Herod. i. 155, Aristoph. Birds 931, Plutus 20, 102.) How does he originate? he said. Why, when, to begin with, I said, he hears his mother complaining[*](Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 434 with some exaggeration says that this is the only woman character in Plato and is probably his mother, Perictione. Pohlenz, Gött. Gel. Anz. 1921, p. 18, disagrees. For the complaints cf. Gerard, Four Years in Germany, p. 115 Now if a lawyer gets to be about forty years old and is not some kind of a Rat his wife begins to nag him . . .) that her husband is not one of the rulers and for that reason she is slighted among the other women, and when she sees that her husband is not much concerned about money and does not fight and brawl in private lawsuits and in the public assembly, but takes all such matters lightly, and when she observes that he is self-absorbed[*](Cf. Symp. 174 D, Isoc. Antid. 227.) in his thoughts and neither regards nor disregards her overmuch,[*](Cf. the husband in Lysias i. 6.) and in consequence of all this laments and tells the boy that his father is too slack[*](λίαν ἀνειμένος: one who has grown too slack or negligent. Cf. Didot, Com. Fr. p. 728 τίς ὧδε μῶρος καὶ λίαν ἀνειμένος; Porphyry, De abst. ii. 58.) and no kind of a man, with all the other complaints with which women[*](Cf. Phaedo 60 A.For Plato’s attitude towards women Cf. What Plato Said, p. 632, on Laws 631 D.) nag[*](ὑμνεῖν. Cf. Euthydem. 296 D, Soph. Ajax 292. Commentators have been troubled by the looseness of Plato’s style in this sentence. Cf. Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 385.) in such cases. Many indeed, said Adeimantus, and after their kind.[*](Cf. Aristoph. Thesm. 167 ὅμοια γὰρ ποιεῖν ἀνάγκη τῇ φύσει.)

You are aware, then, said I, that the very house-slaves of such men, if they are loyal and friendly, privately say the same sort of things to the sons, and if they observe a debtor or any other wrongdoer whom the father does not prosecute, they urge the boy to punish all such when he grows to manhood and prove himself more of a man than his father, and when the lad goes out he hears and sees the same sort of thing.[*](ἕτερα τοιαῦτα: cf. on 488 B; also Gorg. 481 E, 482 A, 514 D, Euthyd. 298 E, Protag. 326 A, Phaedo 58 D, 80 D, Symp. 201 E, etc.) Men who mind their own affairs[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 480, on Charm. 161 B.) in the city are spoken of as simpletons and are held in slight esteem, while meddlers who mind other people’s affairs are honored and praised. Then it is[*](τότε δή cf. 551 A, 566 C, 330 E, 573 A, 591 A, Phaedo 85 A, 96 B and D, Polit. 272 E. Cf. also τότ’ ἤδη, on 565 C.) that the youth, hearing and seeing such things, and on the other hand listening to the words of his father, and with a near view of his pursuits contrasted with those of other men, is solicited by both, his father watering and fostering the growth of the rational principle[*](Cf. on 439 D, Vol. I. p. 397, note d.) in his soul and the others the appetitive and the passionate[*](For these three principles of the soul cf. on 435 A ff., 439 D-E ff., 441 A.); and as he is not by nature of a bad disposition but has fallen into evil communications,[*](Cf. the fragment of Menander,φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ’ ὁμιλίαι κακαί, quoted in 1Cor. xv. 33 (Kock, C.A.F. iii. No. 218). Cf. also Phaedr. 250 A ὑπό τινων ὁμιλιῶν, Aesch. Seven Against Thebes 599 ἔσθ’ ὁμιλίας κακῆς κάκιον οὐδέν.) under these two solicitations he comes to a compromise[*](Cf. p. 249, note f.) and turns over the government in his soul[*](Cf. 553 B-C, 608 B.) to the intermediate principle of ambition and high spirit and becomes a man haughty of soul[*](ὑψηλόφρων is a poetical word. Cf. Eurip. I. A. 919.) and covetous of honor.[*](Cf. p. 255, note f.) You have, I think, most exactly described his origin. Then, said I, we have our second polity and second type of man. We have, he said. Shall we then, as Aeschylus: would say,

tell of another champion before another gate,

So, when wealth is honored in a state, and the wealthy, virtue and the good are less honored.Obviously.And that which men at any time honor they practise,[*](This sentence has been much quoted. Cf. Cic. Tusc. i. 2 honos alit artes . . . iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque inprobantur. Themistius and Libanius worked it into almost every oration. Cf. Mrs. W. C. Wright, The Emperor Julian, p. 70, n. 3. Cf. also Stallbaum ad loc. For ἀσκεῖται cf. Pindar, Ol. viii. 22.) and what is not honored is neglected.It is so.Thus, finally, from being lovers of victory and lovers of honor they become lovers of gain-getting and of money, and they commend and admire the rich man and put him in office but despise the man who is poor.Quite so.And is it not then that they pass a law defining the limits[*](ὅρον: cf. 551 C, Laws 714 C, 962 D, 739 D, 626 B, Menex. 238 D, Polit. 293 E, 296 E, 292 C, Lysis 209 C, Aristot. Pol. 1280 a 7, 1271 a 35, and Newman i. p. 220, Eth. Nic. 1138 b 23. Cf. also τέλος Rhet. 1366 a 3. For the true criterion of office-holding see Laws 715 C-D and Isoc. xii. 131. For wealth as the criterion cf. Aristot. Pol. 1273 a 37.) of an oligarchical polity, prescribing[*](For ταξάμενοι cf. Vol. I. p. 310, note c, on 416 E.) a sum of money, a larger sum where it is more[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1301 b 13-14.) of an oligarchy, where it is less a smaller, and proclaiming that no man shall hold office whose property does not come up to the required valuation? And this law they either put through by force of arms, or without resorting to that they establish their government by terrorization.[*](Cf. 557 A.) Is not that the way of it?It is.The establishment then, one may say, is in this wise.Yes, he said, but what is the character of this constitution, and what are the defects that we said it had? To begin with, said I, consider the nature of its constitutive and defining principle. Suppose men should appoint the pilots[*](Cf. 488, and Polit. 299 B-C, What Plato Said, p. 521, on Euthydem. 291 D.) of ships in this way, by property qualification, and not allow[*](Stallbaum says that ἐπιτρέποι is used absolutely as in 575 D, Symp. 213 E, Lysis 210 B, etc. Similarly Latin permitto. Cf. Shorey on Jowett’s translation of Meno 92 A-B, A. J. P. xiii. p. 367. See too Diog. L. i. 65.) a poor man to navigate, even if he were a better pilot. A sorry voyage they would make of it, he said. And is not the same true of any other form of rule? I think so. Except of a city, said I, or does it hold for a city too? Most of all, he said, by as much as that is the greatest and most difficult[*](Men are the hardest creatures to govern. Cf. Polit. 292 D, and What Plato Said, p. 635, on Laws 766 A.) rule of all. Here, then, is one very great defect in oligarchy. So it appears. Well, and is this a smaller one? What? That such a city should of necessity be not one,[*](For the idea that a city should be a unity Cf. Laws 739 D and on 423 A-B. Cf. also 422 E with 417 A-B, Livy ii. 24 adeo duas ex una civitate discordia fecerat. Aristot. Pol. 1316 b 7 comments ἄτοπον δὲ καὶ τὸ φάναι δύο πόλεις εἶναι τὴν ὀλιγαρχικήν, πλουσίων καὶ πενήτων . . . and tries to prove the point by his topical method.) but two, a city of the rich and a city of the poor, dwelling together, and always plotting[*](Cf. 417 B.) against one another. No, by Zeus, said he, it is not a bit smaller. Nor, further, can we approve of this—the likelihood that they will not be able to wage war, because of the necessity of either arming and employing the multitude,[*](For the idea that the rulers fear to arm the people cf. Thuc. iii. 27, Livy iii. 15 consules et armare pIebem et inermem pati timebant.) and fearing them more than the enemy, or else, if they do not make use of them, of finding themselves on the field of battle, oligarchs indeed,[*](He plays on the word. In 565 C ὡς ἀληθῶς ὀλιγαρχικούς is used in a different sense. Cf. Symp. 181 A ὡς ἀληθῶς πάνδημος, Phaedo 80 D εἰς Ἅιδου ὡς ἀληθῶς.) and rulers over a few. And to this must be added their reluctance to contribute money, because they are lovers of money. No, indeed, that is not admirable.

And what of the trait we found fault with long ago[*](Cf. 374 B, 434 A, 443 D-E. For the specialty of function Cf. What Plato Said, p. 480, on Charm. 161 E.)—the fact that in such a state the citizens are busy-bodies and jacks-of-all-trades, farmers, financiers and soldiers all in one? Do you think that is right?By no manner of means.Consider now whether this polity is not the first that admits that which is the greatest of all such evils.What?The allowing a man to sell all his possessions,[*](So in the Laws the householder may not sell his lot, Laws 741 B-C, 744 D-E. Cf. 755 A, 857 A, Aristot. Pol. 1270 a 19, Newman i. p. 376.) which another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living in the city, but as no part of it,[*](Cf Aristot. Pol. 1326 a 20, Newman i. pp. 98 and 109. Cf Leslie Stephen, Util. ii. 111 A vast populace has grown up outside of the old order.) neither a money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a foot-soldier, but classified only as a pauper[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1266 b 13.) and a dependent.This is the first, he said. There certainly is no prohibition of that sort of thing in oligarchical states. Otherwise some of their citizens would not be excessively rich, and others out and out paupers. Right. But observe this. When such a fellow was spending his wealth, was he then of any more use to the state in the matters of which we were speaking, or did he merely seem to belong to the ruling class, while in reality he was neither ruler nor helper in the state, but only a consumer of goods[*](ἑτοίμωνthings ready at hand. Cf. 573 A, Polyb. vi. (Teubner, vol. ii. p. 237); Horace Epist. i. 2. 27 fruges consumere nati.)? It is so, he said; he only seemed, but was just a spendthrift. Shall we, then, say of him that as the drone[*](Cf. Laws 901 A, Hesiod, Works and Days 300 f., Aristoph. Wasps 1071 ff., Eurip. Suppl. 242, Xen. Oecon. 17. 15, and Virgil, Georg. iv. 168 ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent. the sentence was much quoted. Stallbaum refers to Ruhnken on Tim. 157 ff. for many illustration, and to Petavius ad Themist. Orat. xxiii. p. 285 D.) springs up in the cell, a pest of the hive, so such a man grows up in his home, a pest of the state? By all means, Socrates, he said. And has not God, Adeimantus, left the drones which have wings and fly stingless one and all, while of the drones here who travel afoot he has made some stingless but has armed others with terrible stings? And from the stingless finally issue beggars in old age,[*](Cf 498 A, Laws 653 A; also the modern distinction between defectives and delinquents.) but from those furnished with stings all that are denominated[*](κέκληνται: Cf. 344 B-C.) malefactors? Most true, he said. It is plain, then, said I, that wherever you see beggars in a city, there are somewhere in the neighborhood concealed thieves and cutpurses and temple-robbers and similar artists in crime. Clearly, he said. Well, then, in oligarchical cities do you not see beggars? Nearly all are such, he said, except the ruling class. Are we not to suppose, then, that there are also many criminals in them furnished with stings, whom the rulers by their surveillance forcibly[*](βίᾳ is so closely connected with κατέχουσιν that the double dative is not felt to be awkward. But Adam takes ἐπιμελείᾳ as an adverb.) restrain? We must think so, he said. And shall we not say that the presence of such citizens is the result of a defective culture and bad breeding and a wrong constitution of the state? We shall. Well, at any rate such would be the character of the oligarchical state, and these, or perhaps even more than these, would be the evils that afflict it. Pretty nearly these, he said.

Then, I said, let us regard as disposed of the constitution called oligarchy, whose rulers are determined by a property qualification.[*](Cf. on 550 C. p. 261, note h.) And next we are to consider the man who resembles it—how he arises and what after that his character is. Quite so, he said. Is not the transition from that timocratic youth to the oligarchical type mostly on this wise? How? When a son born to the timocratic man at first emulates his father, and follows in his footsteps[*](Cf. 410 B, Homer Od. xix. 436 ἴχνη ἐρευνῶντος, ii. 406, iii. 30, v. 193, vii. 38 μετ’ ἴχνια βαῖνε.) and then sees him suddenly dashed,[*](For πταίσαντα cf. Aesch. Prom. 926, Ag. 1624 (Butl. emend.).) as a ship on a reef,[*](Cf. Aesch. Ag. 1007, Eumen. 564, Thuc. vii. 25. 7, and Thompson on Phaedr. 255 D.) against the state, and making complete wreckage[*](Lit. spilling. Cf. Lucian, Timon 23.) of both his possessions and himself perhaps he has been a general, or has held some other important office, and has then been dragged into court by mischievous sycophants and put to death or banished[*](For ἐκπεσόντα cf. 560 A, 566 A. In Xen. An. vii. 5. 13 it is used of shipwreck. Cf. εκ̓βάλλοντες 488 C.) or outlawed and has lost all his property— It is likely, he said. And the son, my friend, after seeing and suffering these things, and losing his property, grows timid, I fancy, and forthwith thrusts headlong[*](Cf. Herod. vii. 136.) from his bosom’s throne[*](Cf. Aesch. Ag. 983. Cf. 550 B.) that principle of love of honor and that high spirit, and being humbled by poverty turns to the getting of money, and greedily[*](For γλίσχρως cf. on 488 A, Class. Phil. iv. p. 86 on Diog. L. iv. 59, Aelian, Epist. Rust. 18 γλίσχρως τε καὶ κατ’ ὀλίγον.) and stingily and little by little by thrift and hard work collects property. Do you not suppose that such a one will then establish on that throne the principle of appetite and avarice, and set it up as the great king in his soul, adorned with tiaras and collars of gold, and girt with the Persian sword? I do, he said. And under this domination he will force the rational and high-spirited principles to crouch lowly to right and left[*](ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν: Cf. Protag. 315 B, Tim. 46 C, Critias 117 C, etc., Herod. iv. 175.) as slaves, and will allow the one to calculate and consider nothing but the ways of making more money from a little,[*](Cf. 554 A, 556 C, Xen. Mem. ii. 6. 4 μηδὲ πρὸς ἓν ἄλλο σχολὴν ποιεῖται ἢ ὁπόθεν αὐτός τι κερδανεῖ, and Aristot. Pol. 1257 b 407, and 330 C. See too Inge, Christian Ethics, p. 220: The Times obituary notice of Holloway (of the pills) will suffice. Money-making is an art by itself; it demands for success the devotion of the whole man, etc. For the phrase σκοπεῖν ὁπόθεν cf. Isoc. Areop. 83, Panegyr. 133-134 σκοπεῖν ἐξ ὧν.) and the other to admire and honor nothing but riches and rich men, and to take pride in nothing but the possession of wealth and whatever contributes to that? There is no other transformation so swift and sure of the ambitious youth into the avaricious type. Is this, then, our oligarchical man? said I. He is developed, at any rate, out of a man resembling the constitution from which the oligarchy sprang. Let us see, then, whether he will have a like character.

Let us see.Would he not, in the first place, resemble it in prizing wealth above everything?Inevitably.And also by being thrifty and laborious, satisfying only his own necessary[*](Cf. on 558 D, p. 291, note i.) appetites and desires and not providing for expenditure on other things, but subduing his other appetites as vain and unprofitable?By all means.He would be a squalid[*](αὐχμηρός: Cf. Symp. 203 D.) fellow, said I, looking for a surplus of profit[*](For περιουσίαν cf. Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 50 and Theaet. 154 E.) in everything, and a hoarder, the type the multitude approves.[*](Cf. Phaedr. 256 E, Meno 90 A-B by implication. Numenius (ed. Mullach iii. 159) relates of Lacydes that he was a bit greedy (ὑπογλισχρότερος) and after a fashion a thrifty manager (οἰκονομικός)—as the expression is—the sort approved by most people. Emerson, The Young American, they recommend conventional virtues, whatever will earn and preserve property. But this is not always true in an envious democracy: cf. Isoc. xv. 159-160 and America today.) Would not this be the character of the man who corresponds to such a polity? I certainly think so, he said. Property, at any rate, is the thing most esteemed by that state and that kind of man. That, I take it, said I, is because he has never turned his thoughts to true culture. I think not, he said, else he would not have made the blind[*](Plato distinctly refers to the blind god Wealth. Cf. Aristoph. Plutus,Eurip. fr. 773, Laws 631 C πλοῦτος οὐ τυφλός which was often quoted. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 624, Otto, p. 60.) one leader of his choir and first in honor.[*](Cf. Herod. iii. 34, vii. 107.) Well said, I replied. But consider this. Shall we not say that owing to this lack of culture the appetites of the drone spring up in him, some the beggarly, others the rascally, but that they are forcibly restrained by his general self-surveillance and self- control[*](Cf. 552 E ἐπιμελείᾳ βίᾳ. For ἄλλης cf. 368 B ἐκ τοῦ ἄλλου τοῦ ὑμετέρου τρόπου.)? We shall indeed, he said. Do you know, then, said I, to what you must look to discern the rascalities of such men? To what? he said. To guardianships of orphans,[*](For the treatment of inferiors and weaker persons as a test of character Cf. Laws 777 D-E, Hesiod, Works and Days, 330, and Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, pp. 84-85, who, however, errs on the meaning of αἰδώς. For orphans cf. also Laws 926-928, 766 C, 877 C, 909 C-D.) and any such opportunities of doing injustice with impunity. True. And is it not apparent by this that in other dealings, where he enjoys the repute of a seeming just man, he by some better[*](ἐπιεικεῖ is here used generally, and not in its special sense of sweet reasonableness.) element in himself forcibly keeps down other evil desires dwelling within,[*](For ἐνούσας Cf. Phileb. 16 D, Symp. 187 E.) not persuading them that it is better not[*](Cf. 463 D. For the idea here Cf. Phaedo 68-69, What Plato Said, p. 527.) nor taming them by reason, but by compulsion and fear, trembling for his possessions generally. Quite so, he said. Yes, by Zeus, said I, my friend. In most of them, when there is occasion to spend the money of others, you will discover the existence of drone-like appetites. Most emphatically. Such a man, then, would not be free from internal dissension.[*](For the idea at war with himself, Cf. 440 B and E (στάσις), Phaedr. 237 D-E, and Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1099 a 12 f.) He would not be really one, but in some sort a double[*](Cf. 397 E.) man. Yet for the most part, his better desires would have the upper hand over the worse. It is so. And for this reason, I presume, such a man would be more seemly, more respectable, than many others; but the true virtue of a soul in unison and harmony[*](Cf. on 443 D-E, Vol. I. p. 414, note e; also Phaedo 61 A, and What Plato Said, p. 485 on Laches 188 D.) with itself would escape him and dwell afar. I think so.