(Socrates and Glaucon)
#543]
[Socrates] And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that
in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all
education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the
best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?
That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.
[Socrates] Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the
governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place
them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and
contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you
remember what we agreed?
Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary
possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and
guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual
payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of
themselves and of the whole State.
True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let
us find the point at which we digressed, that we may
return into the old path.
There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now,
that you had finished the description of the State: you said that
such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it,
although, as now appears, you had more excellent
things to relate both of State and man. And you said further,
that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and
of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were
four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of
the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining.
When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to
who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to
consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the
worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four
forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus
put in their word; and you began again,
and have found your way to the point at which we have now
arrived.
Your recollection, I said, is most exact.
Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again
in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do
you give me the same answer which you were about to give me
then.
Yes, if I can, I will, I said.
I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of
which you were speaking.
That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which
I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are
first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded;
what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a
form of government which teems with evils:
thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although
very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous,
which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a
State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said
to have a distinct character. There
are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and
some other intermediate forms of government. But these are
nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and
among barbarians.
Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of
government which exist among them.
Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men
vary, and that there must be as many of the one
as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States
are made of "oak and rock," and not out of the human natures
which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and
draw other things after them?
Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of
human characters.
Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions
of individual minds will also be five?
Certainly.
Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call
just and good, we have already described.
We have.
Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being
the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the
Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us
place the most just by the side of the most un-
just, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the
relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of
pure justice or pure injustice. The inquiry will then be completed. And we
shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises,
or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice.
Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.
Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view
to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to
the individual, and begin with the government of honour? - I
know of no name for such a government other than timocracy
or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like
character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy
and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our
attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly,
we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a
look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory
decision.
That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very
suitable.
First, then, I said, let us inquire how timocracy (the government of
honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of
the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions
of the actual governing power; a government which is united,
however small, cannot be moved.
Very true, he said.
In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the
two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among
themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner
of Homer, pray the muses to tell us "how discord first arose"?
Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest
with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty
tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?
How would they address us?
After this manner: A city which is thus constituted can hardly be
shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end,
even a constitution such as yours will not last forever, but will in time
be dissolved. And this is the dissolution: In plants that grow in the
earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility
and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles
of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short
space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of
human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers
will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an
intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they
will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is
of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but
the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first
increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining
three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning
numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The
base of these (3) with a third added (4), when combined with five (20) and
raised to the third power, furnishes two harmonies; the first a square
which is 100 times as great (400 = 4 x 100), and the other a figure having
one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of 100 numbers squared
upon rational diameters of a square (i.e., omitting fractions), the side of
which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one
(than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by
two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which
is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and 100 cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 +
400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has
control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are
ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of
season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the
best of them will be appointed by their predecessor, still they will be
unworthy to hold their father's places, and when they come into power as
guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the muses,
first by undervaluing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastics;
and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the
succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian
power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's,
are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with
silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and
inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of
hatred and war. This the muses affirm to be the stock from which discord
has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.
Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.
Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the
muses speak falsely?
And what do the muses say next?
When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different
ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money, and land, and
houses, and gold, and silver; but the gold and silver races, not
wanting money, but having the true riches in their own nature,
inclined toward virtue and the ancient order of things. There
was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute
their land and houses among individual owners; and they en-
slaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly
protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and
servants; and they themselves were engaged in war
and in keeping a watch against them.
I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the
change.
And the new government which thus arises will be of a
form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy?
Very true.
Such will be the change, and after the change has been made,
how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a
mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly fol-
low one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities.
True, he said.
In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior-
class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the
institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and
military training - in all these respects this State
will resemble the former.
True.
But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because
they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made
up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate
and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war
rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military
stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting
wars - this State will be for the most part peculiar.
Yes.
Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money,
like those who live in oligarchies; they will have a fierce secret
longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark
places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the de-
posit and concealment of them; also castles which are just
nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums
on their wives, or on any others whom they please.
That is most true, he said.
And they are miserly because they have no means of openly
acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that
which is another man's on the gratification of their desires,
stealing their pleasures and running away like children from
the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle
influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the
true muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have
honoured gymnastics more than music.
Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you
describe is a mixture of good and evil.
Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing
only, is predominantly seen - the spirit of contention and ambition; and
these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or
spirited element.
Assuredly, he said.
Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which
has been described in outline only; the more perfect execution
was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of
the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go
through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting
none of them, would be an interminable labour.
Very true, he replied.
Now what man answers to this form of government - how
did he come into being, and what is he like?
I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention
which characterizes him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon.
Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but
there are other respects in which he is very different.
In what respects?
He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated
and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good listener but
no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, un-
like the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he
will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to
authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming
to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of
that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of
arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase.
Yes, that is the type of character that answers to timocracy.
Such a one will despise riches only when he is young; but
as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them,
because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is
not single-minded toward virtue, having lost his best guardian.
Who was that? said Adeimantus.
Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and
takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue
throughout life.
Good, he said.
Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical
State.
Exactly.
His origin is as follows: He is often the young son of a
brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he
declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert
himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order
that he may escape trouble.
And how does the son come into being?
The character of the son begins to develop when he hears
his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the
government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among
other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money,
and instead of battling and
railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens
to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always
centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable
indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father
is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other
complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so
fond of rehearsing.
Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their
complaints are so like themselves.
And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are
supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk
privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see anyone
who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way,
and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when
he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be
more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad
and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their
own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no
esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The
result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things
- hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer
view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and
others - is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering
and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are
encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not
originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at
last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives
up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of
contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious.
You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly.
Then we have now, I said, the second form of government
and the second type of character?
We have.
Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says,
"Is set over against another State;"
or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State.
By all means.
I believe that oligarchy follows next in order.
And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?
A government resting on a valuation of property, in which
the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.
I understand, he replied.
Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from
timocracy to oligarchy arises?
Yes.
Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one
passes into the other.
How?
The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the
ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do
they or their wives care about the law?
Yes, indeed.
And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him,
and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.
Likely enough.
And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think
of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when
riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance
the one always rises as the other falls.
True.
And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the
State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.
Clearly.
And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no
honour is neglected.
That is obvious.
And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men
become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to
the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor
man.
They do so.
They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money
as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one
place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and
they allow no one whose property falls below the
amount fixed to have any share in the government. These
changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation
has not already done their work.
Very true.
And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy
is established.
Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of
government, and what are the defects of which we were
speaking?
First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification
Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen ac-
cording to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer,
even though he were a better pilot?
You mean that they would shipwreck?
Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything?
I should imagine so.
Except a city? - or would you include a city?
Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as
the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult
of all.
This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?
Clearly.
And here is another defect which is quite as bad.
What defect?
The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two
States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are
living on the same spot and always conspiring against one
another.
That, surely, is at least as bad.
Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they
are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the
multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the
enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle,
they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule.
And at the same time their fondness for money makes them
unwilling to pay taxes.
How discreditable!
And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same
persons have too many callings - they are husbandmen, trades-
men, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?
Anything but well.
There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all,
and to which this State first begins to be liable.
What evil?
A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his
property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he
is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor
hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.
Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.
The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have
both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.
True.
But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending
his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State
for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a
member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither
ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?
As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spend-
thrift.
May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is
like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague
of the city as the other is of the hive?
Just so, Socrates.
And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all with-
out stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some
without stings, but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless
class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the
stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.
Most true, he said.
Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, some-
where in that neighbourhood there are hidden away thieves and
cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.
Clearly.
Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find
paupers?
Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a
ruler.
And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many
criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and
whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?
Certainly, we may be so bold.
The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of
education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?
True.
Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy;
and there may be many other evils.
Very likely.
Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the
rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let
us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who
answers to this State.
By all means.
Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on
this wise?
How?
A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a
son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in
his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering
against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he
has are lost; he may have been a general or some other high
officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by in-
formers, and either put to death or exiled or deprived of the
privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him.
Nothing more likely.
And the son has seen and known all this - he is a ruined man,
and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion head-
foremost from his bosom's throne; humbled by poverty he takes
to money-making, and by mean and miserly savings and hard
work gets a fortune together. Is not such a one likely to seat
the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and
to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and
chain and scimitar?
Most true, he replied.
And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the
ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught
them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of
how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not
allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and
rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of
wealth and the means of acquiring it.
Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as
the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.
And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?
Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came
is like the State out of which oligarchy came.
Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between
them.
Very good.
First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they
set upon wealth?
Certainly.
Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual
only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to
them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that
they are unprofitable.
True.
He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything
and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man
whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State
which he represents?
He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly
valued by him as well as by the State.
You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said.
I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never
have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief
honour.
Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit
that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him
drone-like desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly
kept down by his general habit of life?
True.
Do you know where you will have to look if you want to
discover his rogueries?
Where must I look?
You should see him where he has some great opportunity of
acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.
Aye.
It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings
which give him a reputation for honesty, he coerces his bad
passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they
are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and
fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.
To be sure.
Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires
of the drone commonly exist in him all the same
whenever he has to spend what is not his own.
Yes, and they will be strong in him, too.
The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two
men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be
found to prevail over his inferior ones.
True.
For these reasons such a one will be more respectable than
most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious
soul will flee far away and never come near him.
I should expect so.
And surely the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a
State for any prize of victory, or other object of
honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest
for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites
and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical
fashion he fights with a small part only of his re-
sources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and
saves his money.
Very true.
Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-
maker answers to the oligarchical State?
There can be no doubt.
Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have
still to be considered by us; and then we will inquire into the
ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment.
That, he said, is our method.
Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into
democracy arise? Is it not on this wise: the good at which
such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which
is insatiable?
What then?
The rulers being aware that their power rests upon their
wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spend-
thrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest
from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own
wealth and importance?
To be sure.
There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit
of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same
State to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded.
That is tolerably clear.
And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and
extravagance, men of good family have often been
reduced to beggary?
Yes, often.
And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to
sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have
forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and
they hate and conspire against those who have got
their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for
revolution.
That is true.
On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they
walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have
already ruined, insert their sting - that is, their money - into
someone else who is not on his guard against them, and recover
the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so
they make drone and pauper to abound in the
State.
Yes, he said, there are plenty of them - that is certain.
The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it
either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by
another remedy.
What other?
One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the
citizens to look to their characters: Let there be a
general rule that everyone shall enter into voluntary contracts
at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-
making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly
lessened in the State.
Yes, they will be greatly lessened.
At present the governors, induced by the motives which I
have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their
adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are
habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and
mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either
pleasure or pain.
Very true.
They themselves care only for making money, and are as
indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue.
Yes, quite as indifferent.
Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And
often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way,
whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting,
on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow-
sailors; aye, and they may observe the behaviour of each other
in the very moment of danger - for where danger is, there is
no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich - and very
likely the wiry, sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle
at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has
plenty of superfluous flesh - when he sees such
a one puffing and at his wits'-end, how can he avoid drawing
the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one
has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in
private will not people be saying to one another, "Our warriors are not
good for much"?
Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of
talking.
And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch
from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when
there is no external provocation, a commotion may arise with-
in - in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State
there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may
be very slight, the one party introducing from without their
oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the
State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may be at
times distracted, even when there is no external cause.
Yes, surely.
And then democracy comes into being after the poor have
conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing
some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of free-
dom and power; and this is the form of government in which
the magistrates are commonly elected by lot.
Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the
revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has
caused the opposite party to withdraw.
And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a
government have they? for as the government is, such will
be the man.
Clearly, he said.
In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full
of freedom and frankness - a man may say and do what he
likes?
'Tis said so, he replied.
And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to
order for himself his own life as he pleases?
Clearly.
Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety
of human natures?
There will.
This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being
like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort
of flower. And just as women and children think a variety
of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many
men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners
and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of
States.
Yes.
Yes, my good sir, and there will be no better in which to
look for a government.
Why?
Because of the liberty which reigns there - they have a complete
assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to
establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he
would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and
pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his
choice, he may found his State.
He will be sure to have patterns enough.
And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in
this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed,
unless you like, or to go to war when the rest go to war, or
to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so
disposed - there being no necessity also, because some law for-
bids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold
office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy - is not this a way
of life which for the moment is supremely delightful?
For the moment, yes.
And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases
quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy,
many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or
exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world -
the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?
Yes, he replied, many and many a one.
See, too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the
"don't care" about trifles, and the disregard which she shows
of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the
foundation of the city - as when we said that, except in the
case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good
man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid
things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study - how
grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under
her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make
a statesman, and promoting to honour anyone who professes
to be the people's friend.
Yes, she is of a noble spirit.
These and other kindred characteristics are proper to
democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of
variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals
and unequals alike.
We know her well.
Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual
is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he
comes into being.
Very good, he said.
Is not this the way - he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical
father
who has trained him in his own habits?
Exactly.
And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures
which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being
those which are called unnecessary?
Obviously.
Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish
which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?
I should.
Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get
rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And
they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature
to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and
cannot help it.
True.
We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?
We are not.
And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes
pains from his youth upward - of which the presence, more-
over, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good -
shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary?
Yes, certainly.
Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that
we may have a general notion of them?
Very good.
Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments,
in so far as they are required for health and strength,
be of the necessary class?
That is what I should suppose.
The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does
us good and it is essential to the continuance of life?
Yes.
But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they
are good for health?
Certainly.
And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate
food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of,
if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body,
and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue,
may be rightly called unnecessary?
Very true.
May we not say that these desires spend, and that the
others make money because they conduce to production?
Certainly.
And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the
same holds good?
True.
And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and
desires of this sort, and was the slave
of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to
the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical?
Very true.
Again, let us see how the democratical man goes out of
the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the
process.
What is the process?
When a young man who has been brought up as we were
just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted
drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty
natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and
varieties of pleasure - then, as you may imagine,
the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him
into the democratical?
Inevitably.
And as in the city like was helping like, and the change
was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division
of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class
of desires coming from without to assist the desires within
him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which
is akin and alike?
Certainly.
And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within
him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking
him, then there arise in his soul
a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with
himself.
It must be so.
And there are times when the democratical principle gives
way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others
are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's
soul, and order is restored.
Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.
And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out,
fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he
their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce
and numerous.
Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way.
They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with
them, breed and multiply in him.
Very true.
At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's
soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments
and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in
the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best
guardians and sentinels.
None better.
False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upward and
take their place.
They are certain to do so.
And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-
eaters, and takes up his dwelling there, in the face of all men;
and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part
of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the King's
fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to
enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the
aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they
gain the day, and then modesty, which they call
silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and
temperance, which they nick-name unmanliness, is trampled in
the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation
and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so,
by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the
border.
Yes, with a will.
And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of
him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by
them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their
house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in
bright array, having garlands on their heads, and a great company with
them, hymning their praises and calling them by
sweet names; insolence they term "breeding," and anarchy
"liberty," and waste "magnificence," and impudence "courage." And so the
young man passes out of his original nature,
which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom
and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures.
Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough.
After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and
time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary
ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered
in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is
over - supposing that he then readmits into the city
some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give him-
self up to their successors - in that case he balances his pleasures and
lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the
hands of the one which comes first
and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then
into the hands of another; he despises none of them, but
encourages them all equally.
Very true, he said.
Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true
word of advice; if anyone says to him that some pleasures
are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of
evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some, and
chastise and master the others - whenever this is repeated to
him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and
that one is as good as another.
Yes, he said; that is the way with him.
Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite
of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains
of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to
get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes
idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the
life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts
to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head;
and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is
in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that.
His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms
joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on.
Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality.
Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome
of the lives of many; he answers to the State which we de-
scribed as fair and spangled. And many a man and many
a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many
an example of manners are contained in him.
Just so.
Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly
be called the democratic man.
Let that be his place, he said.
Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State
alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.
Quite true, he said.
Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise?
- that it has a democratic origin is evident.
Clearly.
And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same
manner as democracy from oligarchy - I mean, after a sort?
How?
The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means
by which it was maintained was excess of wealth - am I not
right?
Yes.
And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all
other things for the sake of money-getting were also the ruin
of oligarchy?
True.
And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable
desire brings her to dissolution?
What good?
Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy,
is the glory of the State - and that therefore in a democracy
alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.
Yes; the saying is in everybody's mouth.
I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this
and the neglect of other things introduce the change in democracy, which
occasions a demand for tyranny.
How so?
When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil
cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply
of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very
amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to ac-
count and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs.
Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.
Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by
her "slaves" who hug their chains, and men of naught; she
would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are
like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she
praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such
a State, can liberty have any limit?
Certainly not.
By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and
ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.
How do you mean?
I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to
the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level
with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either
of his parents; and this is his freedom; and the metic is equal
with the citizen, and the citizen with the metic, and the
stranger is quite as good as either.
Yes, he said, that is the way.
And these are not the only evils, I said - there are several
lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and
flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters
and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man
is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him
in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and
are full of pleasantry and gayety; they are loath to be thought
morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the
young.
Quite true, he said.
The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought
with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his
or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and
equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.
Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to
our lips?
That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that
no one who does not know would believe how much greater
is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion
of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for,
truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their
she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with
all the rights and dignities of freemen; and
they will run at anybody who comes in their way if he does
not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just
ready to burst with liberty.
When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience
what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing.
And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the
citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least
touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease
to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will
have no one over them.
Yes, he said, I know it too well.
Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning
out of which springs tyranny.
Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?
The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same
disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy - the
truth being that the excessive increase of anything
often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is
the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal
life, but above all in forms of government.
True.
The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals,
seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
Yes, the natural order.
And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the
most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most
extreme form of liberty?
As we might expect.
That, however, was not, as I believe, your question - you
rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in
oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of
both?
Just so, he replied.
Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of
whom the more courageous are the leaders and the
more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some
stingless, and others having stings.
A very just comparison.
These two classes are the plagues of every city in which
they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the
body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State
ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and
prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have
anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their
cells cut out as speedily as possible.
Yes, by all means, he said.
Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing,
let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into
three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more
drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical
State.
That is true.
And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.
How so?
Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and
driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather
strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the en-
tire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act,
the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word
to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost
everything is managed by the drones.
Very true, he said.
Then there is another class which is always being severed
from the mass.
What is that?
They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is
sure to be the richest.
Naturally so.
They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest
amount of honey to the drones.
Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people
who have little.
And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed
upon them.
That is pretty much the case, he said.
The people are a third class, consisting of those who work
with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not
much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and
most powerful class in a democracy.
True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to
congregate unless they get a little honey.
And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of
their estates and distribute them among the
people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger
part for themselves?
Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share.
And the persons whose property is taken from them are
compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best
can?
What else can they do?
And then, although they may have no desire of change, the
others charge them with plotting against the people and being
friends of oligarchy?
True.
And the end is that when they see the people, not of their
own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by
informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last
they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not
wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and
breeds revolution in them.
That is exactly the truth.
Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one
another.
True.
The people have always some champion whom they set over
them and nurse into greatness.
Yes, that is their way.
This, and no other, is the root from which a tyrant springs;
when he first appears above ground he is a protector.
Yes, that is quite clear.
How, then, does a protector begin to change into a tyrant?
Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale
of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus.
What tale?
The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single
human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is
destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it?
Oh, yes.
And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob
entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the
blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings
them into court and murders them, making the
life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips
tasting the blood of his fellow-citizens; some he kills and
others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition
of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be
his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his
enemies, or from being a man become a wolf - that is, a tyrant?
Inevitably.
This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the
rich?
The same.
After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of
his enemies, a tyrant full grown.
That is clear.
And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by
a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him.
Yes, he said, that is their usual way.
Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which
is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical
career - "Let not the people's friend," as they say, "be
lost to them."
Exactly.
The people readily assent; all their fears are for him - they
have none for themselves.
Very true.
And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of
being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as
the oracle said to Croesus,
"By pebbly Hermus's shore he flees and rests not, and is not
ashamed to be a coward."
And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never
be ashamed again.
But if he is caught he dies.
Of course.
And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not
"larding the plain" with his bulk, but himself the overthrower
of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in
his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute.
No doubt, he said.
And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and
also of the State in which a creature like him is generated.
Yes, he said, let us consider that.
At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles,
and he salutes everyone whom he meets; he to be called a
tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private!
liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his
followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to everyone!
Of course, he said.
But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest
or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he
is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the
people may require a leader.
To be sure.
Has he not also another object, which is that they may be
impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to de-
vote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely
to conspire against him?
Clearly.
And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions
of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have
a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the
mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant
must be always getting up a war.
He must.
Now he begins to grow unpopular.
A necessary result.
Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who
are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another,
and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is
being done.
Yes, that may be expected.
And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them;
he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is
good for anything.
He cannot.
And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is
high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy
man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion
against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the
State.
Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.
Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians
make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave
the better part, but he does the reverse.
If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.
What a blessed alternative, I said: to be compelled to
dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or
not to live at all!
Yes, that is the alternative.
And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the
more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he re-
quire?
Certainly.
And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure
them?
They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he
pays them.
By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort
and from every land.
Yes, he said, there are.
But will he not desire to get them on the spot?
How do you mean?
He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set
them free and enrol them in his body-guard.
To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best
of all.
What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he
has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends.
Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort.
Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has
called into existence, who admire him and are his companions,
while the good hate and avoid him.
Of course.
Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great
tragedian.
Why so?
Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,
"Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;"
and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the
tyrant makes his companions.
Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and
many other things of the same kind are said by him and by
the other poets.
And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will
forgive us and any others who live after our manner, if we
do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of
tyranny.
Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive
us.
But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs,
and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the
cities over to tyrannies and democracies.
Very true.
Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour - the
greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the
next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend
our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems
unable from shortness of breath to proceed farther.
True.
But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore
return and inquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair,
and numerous, and various, and ever-changing army of his.
If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will
confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of
attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the
taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the
people.
And when these fail?
Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions,
whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's
estate.
You mean to say that the people, from whom he has de-
rived his being, will maintain him and his companions?
Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves.
But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a
grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but
that the father should be supported by the son? The father
did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order
that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own
servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions;
but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be
emancipated from
the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed.
And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any
other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and
his undesirable associates.
By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a
monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he
wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his
son strong.
Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What!
beat his father if he opposes him?
Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.
Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged
parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be
no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would
escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen
into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty,
getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest
and bitterest form of slavery.
True, he said.
Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently
discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of
the transition from democracy to tyranny?
Yes, quite enough, he said.
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