Republic

Truly, said I, this tyrant business[*](For the idiomatic and colloquial χρῆμα cf. Herod. i. 36, Eurip. Androm. 181, Theaet. 209 E, Aristoph. Clouds 1, Birds 826, Wasps 933, Lysistr. 83, 1085, Acharn. 150, Peace 1192, Knights 1219, Frogs 1278.) is a blessed[*](For the wretched lot of the tyrant cf. p. 368, note a.) thing on your showing, if such are the friends and trusties he must employ after destroying his former associates. But such are indeed those he does make use of, he said. And these companions admire him, I said, and these new citizens are his associates, while the better sort hate and avoid him. Why should they not? Not for nothing,[*](For οὐκ ἐτός cf. 414 E. The idiom is frequent in Aristoph. Cf. e.g. Acharn. 411, 413, Birds 915, Thesm. 921, Plut. 404, 1166, Eccl. 245.) said I, is tragedy in general esteemed wise, and Euripides beyond other tragedians.[*](This is plainly ironical and cannot be used by the admirers of Euripides.) Why, pray? Because among other utterances of pregnant thought[*](Cf. πυκιναὶ φρένες Iliad xiv. 294, πυκινὸς νόος xv. 41 etc.) he said,

Tyrants are wise by converse with the wise.[*](Cf. Theages 125 B f. The line is also attributed to Sophocles. Cf. Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der griechischen Literatur, p. 9; Gellius xiii. 18, F. Dümmler, Akademika, p. 16. Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 119 thinks this an allusion to Euripides and Agathon at the court of Archelaus of Macedon. Isocrates ix. 40, like the poets, praises the tyrants, but ii. 3-5 contrasts their education unfavorably with that of the ordinary citizen. Throughout the passage he is plainly thinking of Plato.)

And what have you to say, I said, in case the people protests and says that it is not right that a grown-up son should be supported by his father, but the reverse, and that it did not beget and establish him in order that, when he had grown great, it, in servitude to its own slaves, should feed him and the slaves together with a nondescript rabble of aliens, but in order that, with him for protector, it might be liberated from the rule of the rich and the so-called better classes,[*](For καλῶν κἀγαθῶν cf. Aristoph. Knights 185, and Blaydes on 735. See also on 489 E, p. 27, note d.) and that it now bids him and his crew depart from the city as a father expels[*](Cf. Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 123.) from his house a son together with troublesome revellers? The demos, by Zeus, he said, will then learn to its cost[*](For the threatening γνώσεται cf. 362 A, 466 C, Il. xviii. 270 and 125, Theocr. xxvi. 19 τάχα γνώσῃ, and Lucian, Timon 33 εἴσεται.) what it is and what[*](For the juxtaposition οἷος οἷον Cf. Symp. 195 A, Sophocles El. 751, Ajax 557, 923, Trach. 995, 1045.) a creature it begot and cherished and bred to greatness, and that in its weakness it tries to expel the stronger. What do you mean? said I; will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and, if he does not yield, to strike him[*](Cf. on 574 C, pp. 346-347, note e.)? Yes, he said, after he has once taken from him his arms. A very parricide, said I, you make the tyrant out to be, and a cruel nurse of old age, and, as it seems, this is at last tyranny open and avowed, and, as the saying goes, the demos trying to escape the smoke of submission to the free would have plunged into the fire[*](As we say, Out of the frying-pan into the fire. Cf. Anth. Pal. ix. 17. 5 ἐκ πυρὸς ὡς αἶνος ’πεσες ἐς φλόγα, Theodoret, Therap. iii. p. 773 καὶ τὸν καπνὸν κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν, ὡς ἔοικε, φύγοντες, εἰς αὐτὸ δὴ τὸ πῦρ ἐμπεπτώκαμεν. See Otto, p. 137; also Solon 7 (17) (Anth. Lyr.,Bergk-Hiller, 9 in Edmonds, Greek Elegy and Iambus, i. p. 122, Loeb Classical Library) εἰς δὲ μονάρχου δῆμος ἀιδρείῃ δουλοσύνην ἔπεσεν, Herod. iii. 81 τυράννου ὕβριν φεύγοντας ἄνδρας ἐς δήμου ἀκολάστου ὕβριν πεσεῖν, and for the idea Epist. viii. 354 D.) of enslavement to slaves, and in exchange for that excessive and unseasonable liberty[*](Cf. Epist. viii. 354 D.) has clothed itself in the garb of the most cruel and bitter servile servitude.[*](For the rhetorical style Cf. Tim. 41 θεοὶ θεῶν, Polit. 303 C σοφιστῶν σοφιστάς, and the biblical expressions, God of Gods and Lord of Lords, e.g. Deut. x. 17, Ps. cxxxvi. 2-3, Dan. xi. 36, Rev. xix. 16. Cf. Jebb on Soph. O. T. 1063 τρίδουλος.) Yes indeed, he said, that is just what happens. Well, then, said I, shall we not be fairly justified in saying that we have sufficiently described the transformation of a democracy into a tyranny and the nature of the tyranny itself? Quite sufficiently, he said.