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.
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 unjust, 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 enquiry 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 enquire 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 for ever, 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 (i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which
is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or
time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations
represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.), 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.
(Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides
of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5
cubed, which together = 6 cubed = 216.) 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 a hundred
times as great (400 = 4 x 100) (Or the first a square which is 100 x
100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100,
and an oblong of 100 by 75.), and the other a figure having one side
equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred 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 (Or, ‘consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational
diameters,’ etc. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see
Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square
the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred 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 predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their
fathers’ 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
under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; 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 towards 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 enslaved 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 follow 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 deposit 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 gymnastic 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
characterises 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, unlike 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 which answers to timocracy.
Such an 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 towards
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 develope 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 any one 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 according 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, tradesmen, 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 spendthrift.
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 without 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, somewhere in that
neighborhood 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 is lost; he may have been a
general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a
prejudice raised by informers, 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 headforemost 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
an 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 dronelike
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 an 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 resources, 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 enquire 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 spendthrift 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 some one 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
every one 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 an 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 within—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 freedom 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
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 forbids 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 any one 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 upwards—of which the presence, moreover, 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 grows 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 arises 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 upwards 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 nickname 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
re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not
wholly give himself 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 any one 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 any one 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 described 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 is
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 was 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 every body’s mouth.
I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the
neglect of other things introduces 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 account 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 gaiety; they are loth 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 any body 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 entire 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’ 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 every one 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 every one!
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 devote 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 require?
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 further.
True.
But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and
enquire 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 derived 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.