BOOK VII

SOCRATES’ NARRATION CONTINUES:

SOCRATES: Next, then, compare the effect of education and that of the lack of it on our nature to an [514a] experience like this. Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up that is open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They have been there since childhood, with their necks and legs fettered, so that they are fixed in the same place, able to see only in front of them, because their fetter prevents them from turning their heads around. Light is provided by a fire burning [b] far above and behind them. Between the prisoners and the fire, there is an elevated road stretching. Imagine that along this road a low wall has been built—like the screen in front of people that is provided by puppeteers, and above which they show their puppets.

GLAUCON: I am imagining it.

SOCRATES: Also imagine, then, that there are people alongside the wall carrying multifarious artifacts that project above it—statues of people and other [c] animals, made of stone, wood, and every material. [515a] And as you would expect, some of the carriers are talking and some are silent.

GLAUCON: It is a strange image you are describing, and strange prisoners.

SOCRATES: They are like us. I mean, in the first place, do you think these prisoners have ever seen anything of themselves and one another besides the shadows that the fire casts on the wall of the cave in front of them?

GLAUCON: How could they, if they have to keep their heads motionless throughout life? [b]

SOCRATES: What about the things carried along the wall? Isn’t the same true where they are concerned?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And if they could engage in discussion with one another, don’t you think they would assume that the words they used applied to the things they see passing in front of them?

GLAUCON: They would have to.

SOCRATES: What if their prison also had an echo from the wall facing them? When one of the carriers passing along the wall spoke, do you think they would believe that anything other than the shadow passing in front of them was speaking?

GLAUCON: I do not, by Zeus.

SOCRATES: All in all, then, what the prisoners would take for true reality is nothing other than the [c] shadows of those artifacts.

GLAUCON: That’s entirely inevitable.

SOCRATES: Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their foolishness would naturally be like, if something like this should happen to them. When one was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his neck around, walk, and look up toward the light, he would be pained by doing all these things and be unable to see the things whose shadows he had seen before, because of the flashing lights. What do you think he would say if [d] we told him that what he had seen before was silly nonsense, but that now—because he is a bit closer to what is, and is turned toward things that are more—he sees more correctly? And in particular, if we pointed to each of the things passing by and compelled him to answer what each of them is, don’t you think he would be puzzled and believe that the things he saw earlier were more truly real than the ones he was being shown?

GLAUCON: Much more so.

SOCRATES: And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, wouldn’t his eyes be pained and [e] wouldn’t he turn around and flee toward the things he is able to see, and believe that they are really clearer than the ones he is being shown?

GLAUCON: He would.

SOCRATES: And if someone dragged him by force away from there, along the rough, steep, upward path, and did not let him go until he had dragged him into the light of the sun, wouldn’t he be pained and angry at being treated that way? And when he came into the light, wouldn’t he have his eyes filled with sunlight [516a] and be unable to see a single one of the things now said to be truly real?

GLAUCON: No, he would not be able to—at least not right away.

SOCRATES: He would need time to get adjusted, I suppose, if he is going to see the things in the world above. At first, he would see shadows most easily, then images of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. From these, it would be easier for him to go on to look at the things in the sky and the sky itself at night, gazing at the light of the stars and the moon, than during the day, gazing at the sun and the light of the sun. [b]

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Finally, I suppose, he would be able to see the sun—not reflections of it in water or some alien place, but the sun just by itself in its own place—and be able to look at it and see what it is like.

GLAUCON: He would have to.

SOCRATES: After that, he would already be able to conclude about it that it provides the seasons and the years, governs everything in the visible world, and is in some way the cause of all the things that he [c] and his fellows used to see.

GLAUCON: That would clearly be his next step.

SOCRATES: What about when he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners? Don’t you think he would count himself happy for the change and pity the others?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if there had been honors, praises, or prizes among them for the one who was sharpest at identifying the shadows as they passed by; and was best able to remember which usually came earlier, which later, and which simultaneously; and who was thus best able to prophesize the future, do you think [d] that our man would desire these rewards or envy those among the prisoners who were honored and held power? Or do you think he would feel with Homer that he would much prefer to “work the earth as a serf for another man, a man without possessions of his own,”¹ and go through any sufferings, rather than share their beliefs and live as they do?

GLAUCON: Yes, I think he would rather suffer anything than live like that. [e]

SOCRATES: Consider this too, then. If this man went back down into the cave and sat down in his same seat, wouldn’t his eyes be filled with darkness, coming suddenly out of the sun like that?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Now, if he had to compete once again with the perpetual prisoners in recognizing the shadows, while his sight was still dim and before his eyes had recovered, and if the time required for readjustment [517a] was not short, wouldn’t he provoke ridicule? Wouldn’t it be said of him that he had returned from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it is not worthwhile even to try to travel upward? And as for anyone who tried to free the prisoners and lead them upward, if they could somehow get their hands on him, wouldn’t they kill him?

GLAUCON: They certainly would.

SOCRATES: This image, my dear Glaucon, must be fitted together as a whole with what we said before. [b] The realm revealed through sight should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the sun’s power. And if you think of the upward journey and the seeing of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, you won’t mistake my intention—since it is what you wanted to hear about. Only the god knows whether it is true. But this is how these phenomena seem to me: in the knowable realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of the good, and it is seen only with toil and trouble. Once one has seen it, however, one must infer that [c] it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that in the visible realm it produces both light and its source, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding; and that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it.

GLAUCON: I agree, so far as I am able.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, and join me in this further thought: you should not be surprised that the ones who get to this point are not willing to occupy themselves with human affairs, but that, on the contrary, their souls are always eager to spend their time above. I mean, that is surely what we would expect, if indeed the image I described before is also accurate here. [d]

GLAUCON: It is what we would expect.

SOCRATES: What about when someone, coming from looking at divine things, looks to the evils of human life? Do you think it is surprising that he behaves awkwardly and appears completely ridiculous, if—while his sight is still dim and he has not yet become accustomed to the darkness around him—he is compelled, either in the courts or elsewhere, to compete about the shadows of justice, or about the statues of which they are the shadows; and to dispute the way these things are understood by people who have never seen justice itself? [e]

GLAUCON: It is not surprising at all.

SOCRATES: On the contrary, anyone with any sense, at any rate, would remember that eyes may be [518a] confused in two ways and from two causes: when they change from the light into the darkness, or from the darkness into the light. If he kept in mind that the same applies to the soul, then when he saw a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he would not laugh absurdly. Instead, he would see whether it had come from a brighter life and was dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark, or from greater ignorance into greater light and was dazzled by the increased brilliance. Then he would consider the first soul happy in its experience and [b] life, and pity the latter. But even if he wanted to ridicule it, at least his ridiculing it would make him less ridiculous than ridiculing a soul that had come from the light above.

GLAUCON: That’s an entirely reasonable claim.

SOCRATES: Then here is how we must think about these matters, if that is true: education is not what some people boastfully declare it to be. They presumably say they can put knowledge into souls that lack it, as if they could put sight into blind eyes. [c]

GLAUCON: Yes, they do say that.

SOCRATES: But here is what our present account shows about this power to learn that is present in everyone’s soul, and the instrument with which each of us learns: just as an eye cannot be turned around from darkness to light except by turning the whole body, so this instrument must be turned around from what-comes-to-be together with the whole soul, until it is able to bear to look at what is and at the brightest thing that is—the one we call the good. Isn’t that right? [d]

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Of this very thing, then, there would be a craft—namely, of this turning around—concerned with how this instrument can be most easily and effectively turned around, not of putting sight into it. On the contrary, it takes for granted that sight is there, though not turned in the right way or looking where it should look, and contrives to redirect it appropriately.

GLAUCON: That’s probably right.

SOCRATES: Then the other so-called virtues of the soul do seem to be closely akin to those of the body: they really are not present in it initially, but are added later by habit and practice. The virtue of wisdom, on [e] the other hand, belongs above all, so it seems, to something more divine, which never loses its power, but is either useful and beneficial or useless and harmful, depending on the way it is turned. Or haven’t you ever noticed in people who are said to be bad, [519a] but clever, how keen the vision of their little soul is and how sharply it distinguishes the things it is turned toward? This shows that its sight is not inferior, but is forced to serve vice, so that the sharper it sees, the more evils it accomplishes.

GLAUCON: I certainly have.

SOCRATES: However, if this element of this sort of nature had been hammered at right from childhood, and struck free of the leaden weights, as it were, of kinship with becoming, which have been fastened to it by eating and other such pleasures and indulgences, [b] which pull its soul’s vision downward—if, I say, it got rid of these and turned toward truly real things, then the same element of the same people would see them most sharply, just as it now does the things it is now turned toward.

GLAUCON: That’s probably right.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it also probable, then—indeed, doesn’t it follow necessarily from what was said before—that uneducated people who have no experience of true reality will never adequately govern a city, and neither will people who have been allowed [c] to spend their whole lives in education. The former fail because they do not have a single goal in life at which all their actions, public and private, inevitably aim; the latter because they would refuse to act, thinking they had emigrated, while still alive, to the Isles of the Blessed.

GLAUCON: True.

SOCRATES: It is our task as founders, then, to compel the best natures to learn what was said before² to be the most important thing: namely, to see the good; to ascend that ascent. And when they have ascended and looked sufficiently, we must not allow them to [d] do what they are allowed to do now.

GLAUCON: What’s that, then?

SOCRATES: To stay there and refuse to go down again to the prisoners in the cave and share their labors and honors, whether the inferior ones or the more excellent ones.

GLAUCON: You mean we are to treat them unjustly, making them live a worse life when they could live a better one?

SOCRATES: You have forgotten again, my friend, that the law is not concerned with making any one [e] class in the city do outstandingly well, but is contriving to produce this condition in the city as a whole, harmonizing the citizens together through persuasion or compulsion, and making them share with each other the benefit they can confer on the community.³ [520a] It produces such men in the city, not in order to allow them to turn in whatever direction each one wants, but to make use of them to bind the city together.

GLAUCON: That’s true. Yes, I had forgotten.

SOCRATES: Observe, then, Glaucon, that we won’t be unjustly treating those who have become philosophers in our city, but that what we will say to them, when we compel them to take care of the others and guard them, will be just. We will say: “When people like you come to be in other cities, they are justified in not sharing in the others’ labors. [b] After all, they have grown there spontaneously, against the will of the constitution in each of them. And when something grows of its own accord and owes no debt for its upbringing, it has justice on its side when it is not keen to pay anyone for its upbringing. But both for your own sakes and for that of the rest of the city, we have bred you to be leaders and kings in the hive, so to speak. You are better and more completely educated than the others, and better able to share in both types of life.⁴ So each of you in turn must go down to live in the common dwelling place [c] of the other citizens and grow accustomed to seeing in the dark. For when you are used to it, you will see infinitely better than the people there and know precisely what each image is, and also what it is an image of, because you have seen the truth about fine, just, and good things. So the city will be awake, governed by us and by you; not dreaming like the majority of cities nowadays, governed by men who fight against one another over shadows and form factions [d] in order to rule—as if that were a great good. No, the truth of the matter is surely this: a city in which those who are going to rule are least eager to rule is necessarily best and freest from faction, whereas a city with the opposite kind of rulers is governed in the opposite way.”

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: Then do you think the people we have nurtured will disobey us when they hear these things, and be unwilling to share the labors of the city, each in turn, while living the greater part of their time with one another in the pure realm?

GLAUCON: No, they couldn’t possibly. After all, we will be giving just orders to just people. However, [e] each of them will certainly go to rule as to something necessary, which is exactly the opposite of what is done by those who now rule in each city.

SOCRATES: That’s right, comrade. If you can find a way of life that is better than ruling for those who are going to rule, your well-governed city will become [521a] a possibility. You see, in it alone the truly rich will rule—those who are rich not in gold, but in the wealth the happy must have: namely, a good and rational life. But if beggars—people hungry for private goods of their own—go into public life, thinking that the good is there for the seizing, then such a city is impossible. For when ruling is something fought over, such civil and domestic war destroys these men and the rest of the city as well.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: Do you know of any other sort of life that looks down on political offices besides that of [b] true philosophy?

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, I do not.

SOCRATES: But surely it is those who are not lovers of ruling who must go do it. Otherwise, the rivaling lovers will fight over it.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Who else, then, will you compel to go be guardians of the city if not those who know best what results in good government, and have different honors and a better life than the political?

GLAUCON: No one else.

SOCRATES: Do you want us to consider now how such people will come to exist, and how we will lead [c] them up to the light, like those who are said to have gone up from Hades to the gods?

GLAUCON: Yes, of course that’s what I want.

SOCRATES: It seems, then, that this is not a matter of flipping a potsherd,⁵ but of turning a soul from a day that is a kind of night in comparison to the true day—that ascent to what is, which we say is true philosophy.

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: Then mustn’t we try to discover what subjects have the power to bring this about? [d]

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: So what subject is it, Glaucon, that draws the soul from what is coming to be to what is? It occurs to me as I am speaking that we said, didn’t we, that these people must be athletes of war when they are young?⁶

GLAUCON: Yes, we did say that.

SOCRATES: Then the subject we are looking for must also have this characteristic in addition to the former one.

GLAUCON: Which?

SOCRATES: It must not be useless to warlike men.

GLAUCON: If possible, it must not.

SOCRATES: Now, earlier they were educated by us in musical and physical training. [e]

GLAUCON: They were.

SOCRATES: And surely physical training is concerned with what-comes-to-be and dies, since it oversees the growth and decay of the body.

GLAUCON: Obviously.

SOCRATES: So it could not be the subject we are looking for.

GLAUCON: No, it could not. [522a]

SOCRATES: Is it, then, the musical training we described before?

GLAUCON: But it is just the counterpart of physical training, if you remember. It educated the guardians through habits, conveying by harmony a certain harmoniousness of temper, not knowledge; and by rhythm a certain rhythmical quality. Its stories, whether fictional or nearer the truth, cultivated other habits akin to these. But as for a subject that leads to the destination you have in mind, of the sort you are looking for now, there was nothing of that in it. [b]

SOCRATES: Your reminder is exactly to the point. It really does not have anything of that sort. You’re a marvelous fellow, Glaucon, but what is there that does? The crafts all seemed to be somehow menial.⁷

GLAUCON: Of course. And yet, what subject is left that is separate from musical and physical training, and from the crafts?

SOCRATES: Well, if we have nothing left beyond these, let’s consider one of those that touches all of them.

GLAUCON: Which?

SOCRATES: Why, for example, that common thing, the one that every type of craft, thought, and [c] knowledge uses, and that is among the first things everyone has to learn.

GLAUCON: Which one is that?

SOCRATES: That inconsequential matter of distinguishing the numbers one, two, and three. In short, I mean number and calculation. Or isn’t it true that every type of craft and knowledge must share in them?

GLAUCON: Indeed it is.

SOCRATES: Then warfare must too.

GLAUCON: It must.

SOCRATES: In tragedies, at any rate, Palamedes is always showing up Agamemnon as a totally ridiculous [d] general. Haven’t you noticed? He says that by inventing numbers he established how many troops there were in the army at Ilium and counted their ships and everything else. The implication is that they had not been counted before, and that Agamemnon apparently did not even know how many feet he had, since he did not know how to count. What kind of general do you think that made him?

GLAUCON: A very strange one, I’d say, if there is any truth in that.

SOCRATES: Won’t we posit this subject, then, as one a warrior has to learn so he can count and [e] calculate?

GLAUCON: It is more essential than anything else—if, that is, he is going to know anything at all about marshaling his troops—or if he is even going to be human, for that matter.

SOCRATES: Then do you notice the same thing about this subject as I do?

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: That in all likelihood it is one of the subjects we were looking for that naturally stimulate the understanding. But no one uses it correctly, as [523a] something that really is fitted in every way to draw us toward being.

GLAUCON: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: I will try to make what I believe clear, at any rate. I will distinguish for myself the things that lead in the direction we mentioned from those that do not. Then you must look at them along with me, and either agree or disagree, so that we may see more clearly whether the distinction is as I imagine.

GLAUCON: Show me the things you mean.

SOCRATES: All right, I will show you, if you can see that some sense-perceptions do not summon the understanding to look into them, because the judgment [b] of sense-perception is itself adequate; whereas others encourage it in every way to look into them, because sense-perception does not produce a sound result.

GLAUCON: You are obviously referring to things appearing in the distance and illusionist paintings.

SOCRATES: No, you are not quite getting what I mean.

GLAUCON: Then what do you mean?

SOCRATES: The ones that do not summon the understanding are all those that do not at the same time result in an opposite sense-perception. But the ones that do I call summoners. That is when sense-perception [c] does not make one thing any more clear than its opposite, regardless of whether what strikes the senses is close by or far away. What I mean will be clearer if you look at it this way: these, we say, are three fingers—the smallest, the second, and the middle finger.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Assume that I am talking about them as being seen from close by. Now consider this about them with me.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: It is obvious, surely, that each of them is equally a finger, and it makes no difference [d] whether it is seen to be in the middle or at either end; whether it is dark or pale, thick or thin, or anything else of that sort. You see, in all these cases, the soul of most people is not compelled to ask the understanding what a finger is, since sight does not at any point suggest to it that a finger is at the same time the opposite of a finger.

GLAUCON: No, it does not.

SOCRATES: It is likely, then, that a perception of that sort would not summon or awaken the understanding. [e]

GLAUCON: It is likely.

SOCRATES: Now, what about their bigness and smallness? Does sight perceive them adequately? Does it make no difference to it whether one of them is in the middle or at the end? And is it the same with the sense of touch, as regards thickness and thinness, hardness and softness? What about the other senses, then—do they make such things sufficiently clear? Or doesn’t each of them work as follows: in the first place, the sense that deals with hardness must also deal with softness; and it reports [524a] to the soul that it perceives the same thing to be both hard and soft?

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: In cases of this sort then, isn’t the soul inevitably puzzled as to what this sense-perception means by hardness, if it says that the same thing is also soft; and in the case of the sense-perception of lightness and heaviness, what it means lightness and heaviness are, if what is heavy is light or what is light heavy?

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed, those are strange messages for the soul to receive and do need to be examined. [b]

SOCRATES: It is likely, then, that it is in cases of this sort that the soul, summoning calculation and understanding, first tries to determine whether each of the things reported to it is one or two.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: If there are obviously two, won’t each of them be obviously one and distinct?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: If each of them is one, then, and both together are two, the soul will understand that the two are separate. I mean, it would not understand inseparable things as two, but as one. [c]

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: But sight, we say, saw bigness and smallness, not as separate, but as mixed up together. Right?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: And to get clear about this, understanding was compelled to see bigness and smallness, too, not mixed up together, but distinguished—the opposite way from sight.

GLAUCON: True.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it in cases like this that it first occurs to us to ask what bigness is, and smallness, too?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Which is why we called one section the intelligible and the other the visible.

GLAUCON: Right. [d]

SOCRATES: That, then, is what I was trying to express before when I said that some things summon thought, while others do not. I define summoners as those that strike the relevant sense at the same time as do their opposites. Those that do not do this, I said, do not wake up the understanding.

GLAUCON: I understand now, and I think you are right.

SOCRATES: Well then, to which of them does number, including the number one, belong?

GLAUCON: I do not know.

SOCRATES: Use what has already been said as an analogy. If the number one is adequately seen just by itself, or grasped by any of the other senses, then just as we were saying in the case of fingers, it would [e] not draw the soul toward being. But if something opposite to it is always seen at the same time, so that it no more appears to be one than the opposite of one, then there would be a need at that point for someone to decide the matter. And he would compel the soul within him to be puzzled, to inquire, to stir up the understanding within itself, and to ask what the number one itself is. So, learning about the number one will be among the subjects that lead the soul and turn it around to look at what is. [525a]

GLAUCON: But surely the visual perception of it has just that feature, since we do see the same thing as one and as an unlimited number at the same time.

SOCRATES: Then if this is true of the number one, won’t it also be true of all numbers?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: But now, calculation and arithmetic are wholly concerned with numbers.

GLAUCON: Right.

SOCRATES: Then they obviously lead toward truth. [b]

GLAUCON: To an unnatural degree.

SOCRATES: Then they would belong, it seems, among the subjects we are seeking. I mean, a soldier must learn them in order to marshal his troops; and a philosopher, because it is necessary to be rising up out of becoming so as to grasp being, or he will never become able to calculate.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: And our guardian is, in fact, both a warrior and a philosopher.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Then it would be appropriate, Glaucon, to prescribe this subject in our legislation and to persuade those who are going to take part in what is most important in the city to go in for calculation and take it up, not as laymen do, but staying with it [c] until they reach the point at which they see the nature of the numbers by means of understanding itself; not like tradesmen and retailers, caring about it for the sake of buying and selling, but for the sake of war and for ease in turning the soul itself around from becoming to truth and being.

GLAUCON: Very well put.

SOCRATES: Moreover, it occurs to me now that the subject of calculation has been mentioned, how refined it is and in how many ways it is useful for our purposes, provided you practice it for the sake of [d] knowledge rather than trade.

GLAUCON: Which ways?

SOCRATES: Why, in the very one we were talking about just now. It gives the soul a strong lead upward and compels it to discuss the numbers themselves, never permitting anyone to propose for discussion numbers attached to visible or tangible bodies. I mean, you surely know what people who are clever in these matters are like. If, in the course of the argument, someone tries to divide the number one itself, they laugh and won’t permit it. If you divide [e] it, they multiply it, taking care that the number one never appears to be, not one, but many parts.

GLAUCON: That’s very true.

SOCRATES: Then what do you think would happen, Glaucon, if someone were to ask them: “What [526a] kind of numbers are you amazing fellows discussing, where the number one is as you assume it to be, wholly equal in each and every case, without the least difference, and having no internal parts?” What do you think they would answer?

GLAUCON: I think they would answer that they are talking about those that are accessible only to thought and can be grasped in no other way.

SOCRATES: Do you see then, my friend, that this subject really does seem to be necessary to us, since [b] it apparently compels the soul to use understanding itself on the truth itself?

GLAUCON: It does so very strongly, in fact.

SOCRATES: Now, have you ever noticed that those who are naturally good at calculation are also naturally quick in all subjects, so to speak, and that those who are slow, if they are educated and exercised in it, even if they are benefited in no other way, nonetheless improve and become generally sharper than they were?

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Moreover, I do not think you will easily find many subjects that are harder to learn or practice than it. [c]

GLAUCON: No indeed.

SOCRATES: For all these reasons, then, this subject is not to be neglected. On the contrary, the very best natures must be educated in it.

GLAUCON: I agree.

SOCRATES: Well, then, let’s require that one. Second, let’s consider whether the subject that follows after it is also appropriate for our purposes.

GLAUCON: Which one? Or do you mean geometry?

SOCRATES: That’s it exactly.

GLAUCON: Insofar as it pertains to war, it is clearly appropriate. You see, when it comes to setting up [d] camp, occupying a region, gathering and ordering troops, and all the other maneuvers armies make whether in battle itself or on the march, it makes all the difference whether someone is skilled in geometry or not.

SOCRATES: But still, for things like that, even a little bit of geometry—and of calculation—would suffice. What we need to consider is whether the greater and more advanced part of it tends to make it easier to see the form of the good. And that tendency, we [e] say, is to be found in anything that compels the soul to turn itself around toward the region in which lies the happiest of the things that are; the one the soul must do everything possible to see.

GLAUCON: You are right.

SOCRATES: Therefore, if geometry compels one to look at being, it is appropriate; but if at becoming, it is inappropriate.

GLAUCON: Yes, that’s what we are saying.

SOCRATES: Now, no one with even a little experience [527a] of geometry will dispute with us that this science is itself entirely the opposite of what is said about it in the accounts of its practitioners.

GLAUCON: How so?

SOCRATES: Well, they say completely ridiculous things about it because they are so hard up. I mean, they talk as if they were practical people who make all their arguments for the sake of action. They talk of squaring, applying, adding, and the like; whereas, in fact, the entire subject is practiced for the sake of acquiring knowledge. [b]

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Mustn’t we also agree on a further point?

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: That it is knowledge of what always is, not of something that comes to be and passes away.

GLAUCON: That’s easy to agree to, since geometry is knowledge of what always is.

SOCRATES: In that case, my noble fellow, it can draw the soul toward truth and produce philosophical thought by directing upward what we now wrongly direct downward.

GLAUCON: More than anything else.

SOCRATES: More than anything else, then, we must require the inhabitants of your beautiful city [c] not to neglect geometry in any way, since even its byproducts are not insignificant.

GLAUCON: What are they?

SOCRATES: The ones you mentioned that are concerned with war. And in addition, when it comes to being better able to pick up any subject, we surely know there is a world of difference between someone with a grasp of geometry and someone without one.

GLAUCON: Yes, by Zeus, a world of difference.

SOCRATES: Shall we prescribe it, then, as a second subject for the young?

GLAUCON: Let’s.

SOCRATES: What about astronomy? Shall we make it the third? What do you think? [d]

GLAUCON: That’s fine with me, at least. I mean, a better awareness of the seasons, months, and years is no less appropriate for a general than for a farmer or navigator.

SOCRATES: You are funny! You are like someone who is afraid that the masses will think he is prescribing useless subjects. It is no inconsequential task—indeed it is a very difficult one—to become persuaded that in everyone’s soul there is an instrument that is purified and rekindled by such subjects when it has been blinded and destroyed by other pursuits—an [e] instrument that it is more important to preserve than 10,000 eyes, since only with it can the truth be seen. Those who share your belief that this is so will think you are speaking incredibly well, while those who are completely unaware of it will probably think you are talking nonsense, since they can see no other benefit worth mentioning in these subjects. So, decide right now which group you are engaging in discussion. Or is it neither of them, and are you [528a] making your arguments mostly for your own sake—though you do not begrudge anyone else whatever profit he can get from them?

GLAUCON: That’s what I prefer—to speak, question, and answer mostly for my own sake.

SOCRATES: Let’s backtrack a bit. You see, we were wrong just now about the subject that comes after geometry.

GLAUCON: How so?

SOCRATES: After a plain surface, we went immediately to a solid that was revolving, without taking one just by itself. But the right way is to take up the third [b] dimension after the second. And it, I suppose, consists of cubes and of whatever shares in depth.

GLAUCON: Yes, you are right. But Socrates, that subject has not even been investigated yet.

SOCRATES: There are two reasons for that. Because no city values it, it is not vigorously investigated, due to its difficulty. And investigators need a director if they are to discover anything. Now, in the first place, such a director is difficult to find. Second, even if he could be found, as things stand now, those who investigate it are too arrogant to obey him. But [c] if an entire city served as his co-director and took the lead in valuing this subject, then they would obey him, and consistent and vigorous investigation would reveal the facts about it. For even now, when it is not valued by the masses and is hampered by investigators who lack any account of its usefulness—all the same, in spite of all these handicaps, the force of its appeal has caused it to be developed. So it would not be at all surprising if the facts about it were revealed in any case.

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed, it is an outstandingly appealing subject. But explain more clearly to me what [d] you were saying just now. You took geometry, presumably, as dealing with plane surface.

SOCRATES: Yes.

GLAUCON: Then at first you put astronomy after it, but later you went back on that.

SOCRATES: Yes, the more I hurried to get through them all, the slower I went! You see, the subject dealing with the dimension of depth was next. But because of the ridiculous state the investigation of it is in, I passed it by and spoke of astronomy—which deals with the motion of things having depth—after geometry. [e]

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Let’s then prescribe astronomy as the fourth subject, on the assumption that solid geometry, which we are now omitting, will be available if a city takes it up.

GLAUCON: That seems reasonable. And since you reproached me just now, Socrates, for praising astronomy in a vulgar manner, I will now praise it your way. You see, I think it is clear to everyone that it compels the soul to look upward and leads it from [529a] things here to things there.

SOCRATES: It is clear to everyone except me, then, since that is not how I think of it.

GLAUCON: Then how do you think of it?

SOCRATES: As it is handled today by those who teach philosophy, it makes the soul look very much downward.

GLAUCON: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: In my opinion, your conception of “higher studies” is a good deal too generous! I mean, if someone were looking at something by leaning his head back and studying ornaments on a ceiling, it seems as though you would say that he is looking at [b] them with his understanding, not with his eyes! Maybe you are right and I am foolish. You see, I just cannot conceive of any subject making the soul look upward except the one that is concerned with what is—and that is invisible. If anyone tries to learn something about perceptible things, whether by gaping upward or squinting downward, I would say that he never really learns—since there is no knowledge to be had of such things—and that his soul is not looking up but down, whether he does his learning lying on [c] his back on land or on sea!

GLAUCON: A fair judgment! You are right to reproach me. But what did you mean, then, when you said that astronomy must be learned in a different way than people learn it at present, if it is going to be useful with regard to what we are talking about?

SOCRATES: It is like this: these ornaments in the heavens, since they are ornaments in something visible, may certainly be regarded as having the most beautiful and most exact motions that such things can have. But these fall far short of the true ones—[d] those motions in which the things that are really fast or really slow, as measured in true numbers and as forming all the true geometrical figures, are moved relative to one another, and that move the things that are in them. And these, of course, must be grasped by reason and thought, not by sight. Don’t you agree?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Therefore, we should use the ornaments in the heavens as models to help us study these other things. It is just as if someone chanced to find diagrams by Daedalus or some other craftsman or [e] painter, which were very carefully drawn and worked out. I mean, anyone experienced in geometry who saw such things would consider them to be very beautifully executed, I suppose. But he would think it ridiculous to examine them seriously in order to find there the truth about equals, doubles, or any other ratio. [530a]

GLAUCON: How could it be anything but ridiculous?

SOCRATES: Don’t you think, then, that a real astronomer will feel the same way when he looks at the motions of the stars? He will believe that the craftsman of the heavens arranged them and all that is in them in the most beautiful way possible for such things. But as for the ratio of night to day, of these to a month, of a month to a year, or of the motions of the stars to them or to each other, don’t you think he will consider it strange to believe that they are [b] always the same and never deviate in the least, since they are connected to body and are visible things, or to seek by every means possible to grasp the truth about them?

GLAUCON: That’s what I think—anyway, now that I hear it from you!

SOCRATES: Just as in geometry, then, it is by making use of problems that we will pursue astronomy too. We will leave the things in the heavens alone, if we are really going to participate in astronomy and make the naturally wise element in the soul useful instead of useless. [c]

GLAUCON: The task you are prescribing is a lot bigger than anything now attempted in astronomy.

SOCRATES: And I suppose we will prescribe other subjects in the same way, if we are to be of any benefit as lawgivers. But can you in fact suggest any other appropriate subjects?

GLAUCON: Not at the moment, anyway.

SOCRATES: But motion, it seems to me, presents itself, not just in one form, but in several. A wise person could probably list them all, but there are two that are evident even to us. [d]

GLAUCON: What are they?

SOCRATES: Besides the one we have discussed, there is also its counterpart.

GLAUCON: What’s that?

SOCRATES: It is probable that as the eyes fasten on astronomical motions, so the ears fasten on harmonic ones, and that these two sciences are somehow akin, as the Pythagoreans say. And we agree, Glaucon. Don’t we?

GLAUCON: We do.

SOCRATES: Then, since the task is so huge, [e] shouldn’t we ask them their opinion and whether they have anything to add, all the while guarding our own requirement?

GLAUCON: What’s that?

SOCRATES: That those we will be rearing should never attempt to learn anything incomplete,⁸ anything that does not always come out at the place all things should reach—the one we mentioned just now in the case of astronomy.⁹ Or don’t you know that people do something similar with harmony, too? [531a] They measure audible concordances and sounds against one another, and so labor in vain, just like astronomers.

GLAUCON: Yes, by the gods, and pretty ridiculous they are, too. They talk about something they call a “dense interval” or quarter tone¹⁰—putting their ears to their instruments, like someone trying to overhear what the neighbors are saying. And some say they hear a tone in between, and that it is the shortest interval by which they must measure, while others argue that this tone sounds the same as a quarter tone. Both groups put ears before the understanding. [b]

SOCRATES: You mean those excellent fellows who vex their strings, torturing them and stretching them on pegs. I won’t draw out the analogy by speaking of blows with the pick, or the charges laid against strings that are too responsive or too unresponsive. Instead, I will drop the analogy and say that I do not mean these people, but the ones we just said we were going to question about harmonics. You see, they do the same as the astronomers do. I mean, it is in these audible concordances that they search for numbers, [c] but they do not ascend to problems or investigate which numbers are in concord and which are not, or what the explanation is in each case.

GLAUCON: But that would be a daimonic task!

SOCRATES: Yet, it is useful in the search for the beautiful and the good! Pursued for any other purpose, though, it is useless.

GLAUCON: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: Moreover, I take it that if the investigation of all the subjects we have mentioned arrives at what they share in common with one another and [d] what their affinities are, and draws conclusions about their kinship, it does contribute something to our goal and is not labor in vain; but that otherwise it is in vain.

GLAUCON: I have the same hunch myself. But you are still talking about a very big task, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Do you mean the prelude, or what? Or don’t you know that all these subjects are merely preludes to the theme¹¹ itself that must be learned? I mean, you surely do not think that people who are clever in these matters are dialecticians. [e]

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, I do not. Although, I have met a few exceptions.

SOCRATES: But did it ever seem to you that those who can neither give an account nor approve one know what any of the things are that we say they must know?

GLAUCON: Again, the answer is no.

SOCRATES: Then isn’t this at last, Glaucon, the theme itself that dialectical discussion sings? It itself is [532a] intelligible. But the power of sight imitates it. We said that sight tries at last to look at the animals themselves, the stars themselves, and, in the end, at the sun itself. In the same way, whenever someone tries, by means of dialectical discussion and without the aid of any sense-perceptions, to arrive through reason at the being of each thing itself, and does not give up until he grasps what good itself is with understanding itself, he reaches the end of the intelligible realm, just as the [b] other reached the end of the visible one.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Well, then, don’t you call this journey¹² dialectic?

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: Then the release from bonds and the turning around from shadows to statues and the light; and then the ascent out of the cave to the sun; and there the continuing inability to look directly at the animals, the plants, and the light of the sun, but instead at divine reflections in water and shadows of the things that are, and not, as before, merely at shadows of statues thrown by another source of light [c] that, when judged in relation to the sun, is as shadowy as they—all this practice of the crafts we mentioned has the power to lead the best part of the soul upward until it sees the best among the things that are, just as before the clearest thing in the body was led to the brightest thing in the bodily and visible world. [d]

GLAUCON: I accept that this is so. And yet, I think it is very difficult to accept; although—in another way—difficult not to accept! All the same, since the present occasion is not our only opportunity to hear these things, but we will get to return to them often in the future, let’s assume that what you said about them just now is true and turn to the theme itself, and discuss it in the same way as we did the prelude. So, tell us then, in what way the power of dialectical discussion works, into what kinds it is divided, and what roads it follows. I mean, it is these, it seems, that would lead us at last to that place which is a rest [e] from the road, so to speak, for the one who reaches it, and an end of his journey.

SOCRATES: You won’t be able to follow me any farther, my dear Glaucon—though not because of [533a] any lack of eagerness on my part. You would no longer see an image of what we are describing, but the truth itself as it seems to me, at least. Whether it is really so or not—that’s not something on which it is any longer worth insisting. But that there is some such thing to be seen, that is something on which we must insist. Isn’t that so?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And mustn’t we also insist that the power of dialectical discussion could reveal it only to someone experienced in the subjects we described, and cannot do so in any other way?

GLAUCON: Yes, that is worth insisting on, too.

SOCRATES: At the very least, no one will dispute our claim by arguing that there is another road of [b] inquiry that tries to acquire a systematic and wholly general grasp of what each thing itself is. By contrast, all the other crafts are concerned with human beliefs and appetites, with growing or construction, or with the care of growing or constructed things. As for the rest, we described them as to some extent grasping what is—I mean, geometry and the subjects that follow it. For we saw that while they do dream about what is, they cannot see it while wide awake as long as they make use of hypotheses that they leave undisturbed, [c] and for which they cannot give any argument. After all, when the first principle is unknown, and the conclusion and the steps in between are put together out of what is unknown, what mechanism could possibly turn any agreement reached in such cases into knowledge?

GLAUCON: None.

SOCRATES: Therefore, dialectic is the only investigation that, doing away with hypotheses, journeys to the first principle itself in order to be made secure. [d] And when the eye of the soul is really buried in a sort of barbaric bog, dialectic gently pulls it out and leads it upward, using the crafts we described to help it and cooperate with it in turning the soul around. From force of habit, we have often called these branches of knowledge. But they need another name, since they are clearer than belief and darker than knowledge. We distinguished them by the term “thought” somewhere before.¹³ But I don’t suppose we will dispute about names, with matters as important [e] as those before us to investigate.

GLAUCON: Of course not, just as long as they express the state of clarity the soul possesses.

SOCRATES: It will be satisfactory, then, to do what we did before and call the first section knowledge, the second thought, the third opinion, and the fourth imagination. The last two together we call belief, the [534a] other two, understanding.¹⁴ Belief is concerned with becoming; understanding with being. And as being is to becoming, so understanding is to belief; and as understanding is to belief, so knowledge is to belief and thought to imagination. But as for the ratios between the things these deal with, and the division of either the believable or the intelligible section into two, let’s pass them by, Glaucon, in case they involve us in discussions many times longer than the ones we have already gone through.

GLAUCON: I agree with you about the rest of them, anyway, insofar as I am able to follow. [b]

SOCRATES: So don’t you, too, call someone a dialectician when he is able to grasp an account of the being of each thing? And when he cannot do so, won’t you, too, say that to the extent that he cannot give an account of something either to himself or to another, to that extent he does not understand it?

GLAUCON: How could I not?

SOCRATES: Then the same applies to the good. Unless someone can give an account of the form of the good, distinguishing it from everything else, and can survive all examination as if in a battle, striving [c] to examine¹⁵ things not in accordance with belief, but in accordance with being; and can journey through all that with his account still intact, you will say that he does not know the good itself or any other good whatsoever. And if he does manage to grasp some image of it, you will say that it is through belief, not knowledge, that he grasps it; that he is dreaming and asleep throughout his present life; and that, before he wakes up here, he will arrive in Hades and go to sleep forever. [d]

GLAUCON: Yes, by Zeus, I will certainly say all that.

SOCRATES: Then as for those children of yours, the ones you are rearing and educating in your discussion, if you ever reared them in fact, I don’t suppose that, while they are still as irrational as the proverbial lines,¹⁶ you would allow them to rule in your city or control the most important things.

GLAUCON: No, of course not.

SOCRATES: Won’t you prescribe in your legislation, then, that they are to give the most attention to the education that will enable them to ask and answer questions most knowledgeably?

GLAUCON: I will prescribe it—together with you. [e]

SOCRATES: Doesn’t it seem to you, then, that dialectic is just like a capstone we have placed on top of the subjects, and that no other subject can rightly be placed above it, but that our account of the subjects has now come to an end? [535a]

GLAUCON: It does.

SOCRATES: Then it remains for you to deal with the distribution of these subjects: to whom we will assign them and in what way.

GLAUCON: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Do you remember what sort of people we chose in our earlier selection of rulers?¹⁷

GLAUCON: How could I not?

SOCRATES: Well then, as regards the other requirements too, you must suppose that these same natures are to be chosen, since we have to select the most stable, the most courageous, and—as far as possible—the best-looking. In addition, we must look not only for people who have a noble and [b] valiant character, but for those who also have natural qualities conducive to this education of ours.

GLAUCON: Which ones in particular?

SOCRATES: They must be keen on the subjects, bless you, and learn them without difficulty. For people’s souls are much more likely to give up during strenuous studies than during physical training. The pain is more their own, you see, since it is peculiar to them and not shared with the body.

GLAUCON: That’s true.

SOCRATES: We must also look for someone who has a good memory, is persistent, and is wholeheartedly in love with hard work. How else do you suppose [c] he would be willing to carry out such hard physical labors and also complete so much learning and training?

GLAUCON: He would not, not unless his nature were an entirely good one.

SOCRATES: In any case, the mistake made at present—which, as we said before, explains why philosophy has fallen into dishonor—is that unworthy people take it up. For illegitimate people should not have taken it up, but genuine ones.

GLAUCON: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: In the first place, the one who takes it up must not be half-hearted in his love of hard work, with one half of him loving hard work and the other shirking it. That is what happens when someone [d] is a lover of physical training and a lover of hunting and a lover of all kinds of hard bodily labor; yet is not a lover of learning, a lover of listening, or a keen investigator, but hates the work involved in all such things. And someone whose love of hard work tends in the opposite direction is also defective.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: Similarly with regard to truth, won’t we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary lie, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly [e] angered when others lie; but is nonetheless content to accept an involuntary lie, does not get irritated when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its ignorance easily, wallowing in it like a pig?¹⁸

GLAUCON: Absolutely. [536a]

SOCRATES: And with regard to temperance, courage, high-mindedness, and all the other parts of virtue, too, we must be especially on our guard to distinguish the illegitimate from the genuine. You see, when private individuals or cities do not know how to investigate all these things fully, they unwittingly employ defectives and illegitimates as their friends or rulers for whatever services they happen to need.

GLAUCON: Yes, that’s just what happens.

SOCRATES: So we must take good care in all these matters, since, if we bring people who are sound of [b] limb and mind to so important a subject, and train and educate them in it, justice itself will not find fault with us, and we will save both the city and its constitution. But if we bring people of a different sort to it, we will achieve precisely the opposite and let loose an even greater flood of ridicule upon philosophy as well.

GLAUCON: That would be a shame.

SOCRATES: It certainly would. But I seem to have made myself a little ridiculous just now.

GLAUCON: In what way?

SOCRATES: I forgot we were playing and spoke [c] too vehemently. You see, while I was speaking I looked upon philosophy, and when I saw it undeservedly showered with abuse, I suppose I got irritated and, as if I were angry with those responsible, I said what I had to say in too serious a manner.

GLAUCON: Not too serious for me, by Zeus, as a member of the audience.

SOCRATES: But too serious for me as the speaker. In any case, let’s not forget that in our earlier selection we chose older people, but here that is not permitted. You see, we must not believe Solon when he says [d] that as someone grows older, he is able to learn a lot. On the contrary, he is even less able to learn than to run. It is to young people that all large and frequent labors properly belong.

GLAUCON: Necessarily so.

SOCRATES: Well, then, calculation, geometry, and all the preparatory education that serves as preparation for dialectic must be offered to them in childhood—and not in the shape of compulsory instruction, either.

GLAUCON: Why’s that?

SOCRATES: Because a free person should learn nothing slavishly. For while compulsory physical labors [e] do no harm to the body, no compulsory instruction remains in the soul.

GLAUCON: That’s true.

SOCRATES: Well, then, do not use compulsion, my very good man, to train the children in these subjects; use play instead. That way you will also be able to see better what each of them is naturally [537a] suited for.

GLAUCON: What you say makes sense.

SOCRATES: Don’t you remember that we also said that the children were to be led into war on horseback as observers, and that, wherever it is safe, they should be brought to the front and given a taste of blood, just like young dogs?

GLAUCON: I do remember.

SOCRATES: Those who always show the greatest facility in dealing with all these labors, studies, and fears must be enrolled in a unit.

GLAUCON: At what age? [b]

SOCRATES: After they are released from compulsory physical training. For during that period, whether it is two or three years, they are incapable of doing anything else, since weariness and sleep are enemies of learning. At the same time, one of the important tests of each of them is how he fares in physical training.

GLAUCON: It certainly is.

SOCRATES: Then, after that period, those selected from among the twenty-year-olds will receive greater honors than the others. Moreover, the subjects they learned in no particular order in their education as children, they must now bring together into a unified [c] vision of their kinship with one another and with the nature of what is.

GLAUCON: That, at any rate, is the only instruction that remains secure in those who receive it.

SOCRATES: It is also the greatest test of which nature is dialectical and which is not. For the person who can achieve a unified vision is dialectical, and the one who cannot isn’t.

GLAUCON: I agree.

SOCRATES: Well, then, you will have to look out for those among them who most possess that quality; who are resolute in their studies and also [d] resolute in war and the other things conventionally expected of them. And when they have passed their thirtieth year, you will have to select them in turn from among those selected earlier and assign them yet greater honors, and test them by means of the power of dialectical discussion to see which of them can relinquish his eyes and other senses, and travel on in the company of truth to what itself is. And here, comrade, you have a task that needs a lot of safeguarding.

GLAUCON: How so?

SOCRATES: Don’t you realize the harm caused by dialectical discussion as it is currently practiced? [e]

GLAUCON: What harm?

SOCRATES: Its practitioners are filled with lawlessness.

GLAUCON: They certainly are.

SOCRATES: Do you think it is at all surprising that this happens to them? Aren’t you sympathetic?

GLAUCON: Why should I be?

SOCRATES: It is like the case of a supposititious child brought up amid great wealth, a large and powerful [538a] family, and many flatterers, who finds out, when he has become a man, that he is not the child of his professed parents and that he cannot discover his real ones. Do you have any hunch as to what his attitude would be to the flatterers, and to his supposed parents, during the time when he did not know about the exchange, and, on the other hand, when he did know? Or would you rather hear my hunch?

GLAUCON: I would.

SOCRATES: Well, then, my hunch is that he would be more likely to honor his father, his mother, and the rest of his supposed family than the flatterers, less [b] likely to overlook any of their needs, less likely to treat them lawlessly in word or deed, and less likely to disobey them than the flatterers in any matters of importance, in the time when he did not know the truth.

GLAUCON: Probably so.

SOCRATES: But when he became aware of the truth, on the other hand, my hunch is that he would withdraw his honor and devotion from his family and increase them for the flatterers, whom he would obey far more than before, and he would begin to live the way they did, spend time with them openly, and—[c] unless he was thoroughly good by nature—care nothing for that father of his or any of the rest of his supposed family.

GLAUCON: All that would probably happen as you say. But how is it like the case of those who take up argument?

SOCRATES: As follows. I take it we hold from childhood convictions about what things are just and fine; we are brought up with them as with our parents; we obey and honor them.

GLAUCON: Yes, we do.

SOCRATES: And there are also other practices, opposite to those, which possess pleasures that flatter [d] our soul and attract it to themselves, but which do not persuade people who are at all moderate—who continue to honor and obey the convictions of their fathers.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: What happens, then, when someone of that sort is met by the question, “What is the fine?” and, when he answers what he has heard from the traditional lawgiver, the argument refutes him; and by refuting him often and in many ways, reduces him to the belief that the fine is no more fine than shameful, and the same with the just, the good, and [e] the things he honored most—what do you think he will do after that about honoring and obeying his earlier convictions?

GLAUCON: It is inevitable that he won’t honor or obey them in the same way.

SOCRATES: Then when he no longer regards them as honorable or as his own kin the way he did before, and cannot discover the true ones, will he be likely to adopt any other sort of life than the one that flatters him? [539a]

GLAUCON: No, he won’t.

SOCRATES: And so he will be taken, I suppose, to have changed from being law-abiding to being lawless.

GLAUCON: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it likely, then, that this is what will happen to people who take up argument in that way, and, as I said just now, don’t they deserve a lot of sympathy?

GLAUCON: Yes, and pity too.

SOCRATES: Then if you do not want your thirty-year-olds to be objects of such pity, won’t you have to employ every sort of precaution when they take up argument?

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: And isn’t one very effective precaution not to let them taste argument while they are young? [b] I mean, I don’t suppose it has escaped your notice that when young people get their first taste of argument, they misuse it as if it were playing a game, always using it for disputation. They imitate those who have refuted them by refuting others themselves, and, like puppies, enjoy dragging and tearing with argument anyone within reach.

GLAUCON: Excessively so.

SOCRATES: Then, when they have refuted many themselves and been refuted by many, they quickly fall into violently disbelieving everything they believed [c] before. And as a result of this, they themselves and the whole of philosophy as well are discredited in the eyes of others.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: But an older person would not be willing to take part in such madness. He will imitate someone who is willing to engage in dialectical discussion and look for the truth, rather than someone who plays at disputation as a game. He will be more moderate himself and will bring honor, rather than discredit, to the practice. [d]

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: And wasn’t everything we said before this also said as a precaution—that those with whom one takes part in arguments are to be orderly and steady by nature, and not, as now, those, however unsuitable, who chance to come along?

GLAUCON: Yes, it was.

SOCRATES: Is it enough, then, if someone devotes himself continuously and strenuously to taking part in argument, doing nothing else, but training in it just as he did in the physical training that is its counterpart, but for twice as many years?

GLAUCON: Do you mean six years or four? [e]

SOCRATES: It does not matter. Make it five. You see, after that, you must make them go down into the cave again, and compel them to take command in matters of war and the other offices suitable for young people, so that they won’t be inferior to the others in experience. And in these offices, too, they must be tested to see whether they will remain steadfast [540a] when they are pulled in different directions, or give way.

GLAUCON: How much time do you assign to that?

SOCRATES: Fifteen years. Then, at the age of fifty, those who have survived the tests and are entirely best in every practical task and every science must be led at last to the end and compelled to lift up the radiant light of their souls, and to look toward what itself provides light for everything. And once they have seen the good itself, they must use it as their model and put the city, its citizens, and themselves in order throughout the remainder of their lives, each in turn. They will spend the greater part of their time [b] doing philosophy, but, when his turn comes, each must labor in politics and rule for the city’s sake, not as something fine, but rather as something that must be done. In that way, always having educated others like themselves to take their place as guardians of the city, they will depart for the Isles of the Blessed and dwell there. And the city will publicly establish memorials and sacrifices to them as daimons, if the Pythia agrees; but if not, as happy and divine people. [c]

GLAUCON: Like a sculptor, Socrates, you have produced thoroughly beautiful ruling men!

SOCRATES: And ruling women, too, Glaucon. You see, you must not think that what I have said applies any more to men than it does to those women of theirs who are born with the appropriate natures.

GLAUCON: That’s right, if indeed they are to share everything equally with the men, as we said.

SOCRATES: Well, then, do you agree that the things we have said about the city and its constitution [d] are not altogether wishful thinking; that it is difficult for them to come about, but possible in a way, and in no way except the one we described: namely, when one or more true philosophers come to power in a city—people who think little of present honors, regarding them as illiberal and worthless, who prize what is right and the honors that come from it above everything, and who consider justice as the most important [e] and most essential thing, serving it and fostering it as they set their city in order?

GLAUCON: How will they do that?

SOCRATES: Everyone in the city who is over ten years old they will send into the country. They will [541a] take over the children, and far removed from current habits, which their parents possess, they will bring them up in their own ways and laws, which are the ones we described before. And with the city and constitution we were discussing thus established in the quickest and easiest way, it will itself be happy and bring the greatest benefit to the people among whom it comes to be.

GLAUCON: That’s by far the quickest and easiest way. And in my opinion, Socrates, you have well described how it would come into existence, if it ever did. [b]

SOCRATES: Haven’t we said enough, then, about this city and the man who is like it? For surely it is clear what sort of person we will say he has to be.

GLAUCON: Yes, it is clear. And as for your question, I think we have reached the end of this topic.

BOOK VIII

SOCRATES’ NARRATION CONTINUES:

SOCRATES: All right. We are agreed, then, Glaucon, that if a city is going to be eminently well governed, [543a] women must be shared; children and their entire education must be shared; in both peace and war, pursuits must be shared; and their kings must be those among them who have proved best both in philosophy and where war is concerned.

GLAUCON: We are agreed.

SOCRATES: Moreover, we also granted this: once the rulers are established, they will lead the soldiers [b] and settle them in the kind of dwellings we described earlier, which are in no way private, but wholly shared. And surely we also came to an agreement, if you remember, about what sort of possessions they should have.

GLAUCON: Yes, I do remember. We thought that none of them should acquire any of the things that others now do; but that, as athletes of war and guardians, they should receive their minimum yearly upkeep from the other citizens as a wage for their [c] guardianship, and take care of themselves and the rest of the city.¹

SOCRATES: That’s right. But since we have completed that discussion, let’s recall the point at which we began the digression that brought us here, so that we can continue on the same path again.

GLAUCON: That is not difficult. You see, much the same as now, you were talking as if you had completed the description of the city.² You were saying that you would class both the city you described and the man who is like it as good, even though, as it seems, you had a still finer city and man to tell us [d] about. But in any case, you were saying that the others [544a] were defective, if it was correct. And you said, if I remember, that of the remaining kinds of constitution four were worth discussing, each with defects we should observe; and that we should do the same for the people like them in order to observe them all, come to an agreement about which man is best and which worst, and then determine whether the best is happiest and the worst most wretched, or whether it is otherwise. I was asking you which four constitutions you had in mind, when Polemarchus and Adeimantus [b] interrupted.³ And that is when you took up the discussion that led here.

SOCRATES: That’s absolutely right.

GLAUCON: Like a wrestler, then, give me the same hold again, and when I ask the same question, try to tell me what you were about to say before.

SOCRATES: If I can.

GLAUCON: In any case, I really want to hear for myself what four constitutions you meant.

SOCRATES: It won’t be difficult for you to hear them. You see, the ones I mean are the very ones [c] that already have names: the one that is praised by “the many,” your Cretan or Laconian⁴ constitution. The second—and second in the praise it receives—is called oligarchy, a constitution filled with a host of evils. Antagonistic to it, and next in order, is democracy. And “noble” tyranny, surpassing all of them, is the fourth and most extreme disease of cities. Can you think of another form of constitution—I mean, another distinct in form from these? For, no doubt, there are dynasties and purchased kingships and [d] other similar constitutions in between these, which one finds no less among barbarians than among Greeks.

GLAUCON: Many strange ones are certainly mentioned, at least.

SOCRATES: Are you aware, then, that there must be as many forms of human character as there are of constitutions? Or do you think constitutions arise from oak or rock⁵ and not from the characters of the people in the cities, which tip the scales, so to speak, [e] and drag the rest along with them?

GLAUCON: No, they could not possibly arise from anything other than that.

SOCRATES: So, if there are five of cities, there must also be five ways of arranging private individual souls.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Now, we have already described the one who is like aristocracy, the one we rightly describe as good and just.

GLAUCON: Yes, we have described him. [545a]

SOCRATES: Mustn’t we next describe the inferior ones—the victory-loving and honor-loving, which correspond to the Laconian constitution, followed by the oligarchic, democratic, and tyrannical—so that, having discovered the most unjust of all, we can oppose him to the most just and complete our investigation into how pure justice and pure injustice stand with regard to the happiness or wretchedness of the one who possesses them; and be persuaded either by Thrasymachus to practice injustice or by the argument that is now coming to light to practice justice. [b]

GLAUCON: That’s exactly what we must do.

SOCRATES: Then just as we began by looking for the virtues of character in constitutions before looking for them in private individuals, thinking they would be clearer in the former, shouldn’t we first examine the honor-loving constitution? I do not know another name that is commonly applied to it; it should be called either timocracy or timarchy. Then shouldn’t we examine that sort of man by comparing him to it, and, after that, oligarchy and the oligarchic man, [c] and democracy and the democratic man? Fourth, having come to a city that is under a tyrant and having examined it, shouldn’t we look into a tyrannical soul, and so try to become adequate judges of the topic we proposed for ourselves?⁶

GLAUCON: That, at any rate, would be a reasonable way for us to go about observing and judging.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, let’s try to describe how timocracy emerges from aristocracy. Or is it simply the case that, in all constitutions, change originates [d] in the ruling element itself when faction breaks out within it; but that if this group remains of one mind, then—however small it is—change is impossible?

GLAUCON: Yes, that’s right.

SOCRATES: How, then, Glaucon, will our city be changed? How will faction arise, either between the auxiliaries and the rulers or within either group? Or do you want us to be like Homer and pray to the Muses to tell us “how faction first broke out,”⁷ and [e] have them speak in tragic tones, playing and jesting with us, as if we were children and they were speaking in earnest?

GLAUCON: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Something like this: “It is difficult for a city constituted in this way to change. However, [546a] since everything that comes-to-be must decay, not even one so constituted will last forever. On the contrary, it, too, must face dissolution. And this is how it will be dissolved: not only plants that grow in the earth, but also animals that grow upon it, have periods of fertility and infertility of both soul and bodies each time their cycles complete a revolution. These cycles are short for what is short-lived and the opposite for what is the opposite. However, even though they are wise, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city will, by using rational calculation combined [b] with sense-perception, nonetheless fail to ascertain the periods of good fertility and of infertility for your species. Instead, these will escape them, and so they will sometimes beget children when they should not.

“Now, for the birth of a divine creature there is a cycle comprehended by a perfect number;⁸ while for a human being, it is the first number in which are found increases involving both roots and powers, comprehending three intervals and four terms, of factors that cause likeness and unlikeness, cause increase and decrease, and make all things mutually agreeable and rational in their relations to one another. Of these factors, the base ones—four in relation to three, [c] together with five—give two harmonies when thrice increased. One is a square, so many times a hundred. The other is of equal length one way, but oblong. One of its sides are 100 squares of the rational diameter of five each diminished by one, or alternatively 100 squares of the irrational diameter each diminished by two. The other side are 100 cubes of three. This whole geometrical number controls better and worse births.⁹

“And when, through ignorance of these, your guardians join brides and grooms at the wrong time, [d] the children will be neither good-natured nor fortunate. The older generation will choose the best of these children, even though they do not deserve them. And when they in turn acquire their fathers’ powers, the first thing they will begin to neglect as guardians will be us, by paying less attention to musical training than they should; and the second is physical training. Hence your young people will become more unmusical. And rulers chosen from among them won’t be able to guard well the testing of Hesiod’s and your own races—gold, silver, bronze, and iron.¹⁰ [e] The intermixing of iron with silver and bronze with [547a] gold will engender lack of likeness and unharmonious inequality, and these always breed war and hostility wherever they arise. We must declare faction to be ‘of this lineage,’¹¹ wherever and whenever it arises.”

GLAUCON: And we will declare that they have answered correctly.

SOCRATES: They must. They are Muses, after all!

GLAUCON: What do the Muses say next? [b]

SOCRATES: When faction arose, each of these two races, the iron and the bronze, pulled the constitution toward moneymaking and the acquisition of land, houses, gold, and silver. The other two, by contrast, the gold and silver races—since they are not poor, but naturally rich in their souls—led toward virtue and the old political system. Striving and struggling with one another, they compromised on a middle way: they distributed the land and houses among themselves as private property; enslaved and held as serfs and servants those whom they had previously guarded as free friends and providers of upkeep; and [c] took responsibility themselves for making war and for guarding against the ones they had enslaved.

GLAUCON: I think that is how the transformation begins.

SOCRATES: Wouldn’t this constitution, then, be somehow in the middle between aristocracy and oligarchy?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Anyway, that is how the transformation occurs. But once transformed, how will it be managed? Or isn’t it obvious that it will imitate the first constitution in some respects and oligarchy in [d] others, since it is in the middle between them; and that it will also have some features unique to itself?

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: In honoring the rulers, then, and in the fighting class’s abstention from farming, handicrafts, and other ways of making money, in providing communal meals and being devoted to physical training and training for war—in all such ways, won’t the constitution be like the previous one?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: But in its fear of appointing wise people [e] as rulers, on the grounds that men of that sort are no longer simple and earnest but mixed; in its inclination toward spirited and simpler people, who are more naturally suited for war than peace; in its honoring the tricks and stratagems of war; and spending [548a] all its time making war—in these respects, by contrast, isn’t it pretty much unique?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Such men will have an appetite for money just like those in oligarchies, passionately adoring gold and silver in secret, owning storehouses and private treasuries where they can deposit them and keep them hidden; and they will have walls around their houses, real private nests, where they can spend lavishly on their women or on anyone else they please. [b]

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: They will be stingy with money, since they honor it and do not possess it openly, but they will love to spend other people’s money because of their appetites. They will enjoy their pleasures in secret, running away from the law like boys from their father, since they have not been educated by persuasion but by force. This is because they have neglected the true Muse, the companion of discussion and philosophy, and honored physical training more than musical training. [c]

GLAUCON: The constitution you are describing is a thorough mixture of good and bad.

SOCRATES: Yes, it is mixed. But because of its mastery by the spirited element, only one thing really stands out in it—the love of victories and honors.

GLAUCON: And very noticeable it is.

SOCRATES: That, then, is how this constitution would come to exist, and that is what it would be like. It is just an outline sketch of the constitution in words, not an exact account of it, since even from a sketch we will be able to see the most just man and [d] most unjust one. It would be an incredibly long task to discuss every constitution and every character without omitting any detail.

GLAUCON: Yes, that’s right.

SOCRATES: Who, then, is the man corresponding to this constitution? How does he come to exist and what sort of man is he?

ADEIMANTUS: I think he would be very like Glaucon here, at least as far as the love of victory is concerned.

SOCRATES: Maybe in that respect, but in the following ones I do not think his nature would be like that.

ADEIMANTUS: Which ones? [e]

SOCRATES: He would have to be more stubborn and less well trained in music; a lover of music and of listening, yet not at all skilled in speaking; the sort of person who is harsh to slaves instead of looking [549a] down on them, as an adequately educated person does; gentle to free people and very submissive to rulers; a lover of ruling and of honor, who does not base his claim to rule on his ability to speak or anything like that, but on his exploits in war and anything having to do with war; a lover of physical training and of hunting.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is indeed the character belonging to this constitution.

SOCRATES: As regards money, too, wouldn’t someone like that look down on it when he is young; but as he grows older, wouldn’t he love it more and [b] more because he shares in the money-lover’s nature and is not pure in his attitude to virtue, since he lacks the best guardian?

ADEIMANTUS: What’s that?

SOCRATES: Reason mixed with musical training. You see, only it dwells within the person who possesses it as the lifelong preserver of his virtue.

ADEIMANTUS: Well put.

SOCRATES: That, then, is what a timocratic youth is like; he is like the corresponding city.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, indeed. [c]

SOCRATES: And he comes to exist in some such way as this: sometimes he is the young son of a good father, who lives in a city that is not politically well governed; avoids honors, political office, lawsuits, and all such meddling in other people’s affairs; and who is even willing to be put at a disadvantage so as to avoid trouble.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, but how does he become timocratic?

SOCRATES: It first happens when he listens to his mother complaining that her man is not one of the rulers and that she is at a disadvantage among the other women as a result. Next, she sees that he is not very serious about money, either; does not fight or [d] exchange insults in private lawsuits or in the public assembly, but takes easily everything of that sort; has a mind always absorbed in its own thoughts; and does not overvalue her or undervalue her either. As a result of all those things, she complains and tells her son that his father is unmanly and too easygoing, and makes a litany of the other sorts of things women love to recite on such occasions. [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, indeed, it is just like them to have lots of such complaints.

SOCRATES: You know, then, that the servants of such men—the ones thought to be loyal—also say similar things to the sons in private. If they see someone who owes the father money or has wronged him in some other way, whom he does not prosecute, they urge the son to punish all such people when he becomes a man, and be more of a man than his father. And when he goes out, the boy hears and sees [550a] other similar things: those who do their own work in the city are called fools and held to be of little account, while those who do not are honored and praised. When the young man hears and sees all this, then, and, on the other hand, also listens to what his father says, and sees his practices from close at hand and compares them with those of the others, he is pulled by both—his father nourishing the rational element [b] in his soul and making it grow; the others nourishing the appetitive and spirited elements. And, because he is not a bad man by nature, but has kept bad company, he compromises on a middle way when he is pulled in these two directions, and surrenders the rule within him to the middle element—the victory-loving and spirited one—and becomes a proud and honor-loving man.

ADEIMANTUS: I think you have exactly described how such a man comes to exist.

SOCRATES: So, we now have the second constitution [c] and the second man.

ADEIMANTUS: We have.

SOCRATES: Next then, shall we, like Aeschylus, talk of “another man ordered like another city,”¹² or follow our plan and talk about the city first?

ADEIMANTUS: The latter, of course.

SOCRATES: And I suppose oligarchy would come next after such a constitution.

ADEIMANTUS: And what kind of political system do you mean by oligarchy?

SOCRATES: The constitution based on a property assessment, the one in which the rich rule and the poor man does not participate in ruling. [d]

ADEIMANTUS: I understand.

SOCRATES: So, mustn’t we first describe how timarchy is transformed into oligarchy?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And surely the way it is transformed is clear even to the blind.

ADEIMANTUS: How?

SOCRATES: That storehouse filled with gold we mentioned,¹³ which each possesses, destroys such a constitution. First, you see, the timocrats find ways of spending their money, then they alter the laws to allow them to do so, and then they and their women disobey the laws altogether.

ADEIMANTUS: Probably so.

SOCRATES: Next, I suppose, through one person seeing another and envying him, they make the majority behave like themselves. [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Probably so.

SOCRATES: After that then, they become further involved in moneymaking; and the more honorable they consider it, the less honorable they consider virtue. Or isn’t virtue so opposed to wealth that if they were set on the scale of a balance, they would always incline in opposite directions?

ADEIMANTUS: It certainly is.

SOCRATES: So, when wealth and the wealthy are honored in a city, virtue and good people are honored [551a] less.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And what is honored is always practiced, and what is not honored, neglected.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, in the end, victory-loving and honor-loving men become lovers of making money and money-lovers, and they praise and admire the wealthy man and appoint him as ruler, and dishonor the poor one.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it then that they pass a law, which is a defining characteristic of an oligarchic constitution, establishing a wealth qualification—higher where it is more oligarchic, lower where it is less so—[b] and proclaim that anyone whose property does not reach the stated assessment cannot participate in ruling? And they either put this through by force of arms, or else, without resorting to that, they use intimidation to establish this sort of constitution. Isn’t that so?

ADEIMANTUS: It is.

SOCRATES: That, then, is, generally speaking, how it is established.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, it is. But what is the constitution like? What are the defects we said it had?¹⁴ [c]

SOCRATES: First of all, consider its defining characteristic. I mean, what would happen if ship captains were appointed like that, on the basis of property assessments, and a poor person was turned away even if he were a better captain?

ADEIMANTUS: People would make a very bad voyage!

SOCRATES: And doesn’t the same apply to any other sort of rule whatsoever?

ADEIMANTUS: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: Except of a city? Or does it apply to that of a city, too?

ADEIMANTUS: It applies to it most of all, since it is the most difficult and most important kind of rule there is.

SOCRATES: That, then, is one major defect in oligarchy. [d]

ADEIMANTUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: And what about this one? Is it any smaller than the other?

ADEIMANTUS: Which?

SOCRATES: That a city of this sort is not one, but inevitably two—a city of the poor and one of the rich, living in the same place and always plotting against one another.

ADEIMANTUS: By Zeus, that’s no smaller a defect.

SOCRATES: And this is hardly a good quality either: the likelihood of being unable to fight a war because of having to arm and use the majority, and so having to fear them more than the enemy; or else, [e] because of not using them, and so having to show up as true oligarchs¹⁵ on the battlefield; and because, at the same time, the fact that they are money-lovers makes them unwilling to pay mercenaries.

ADEIMANTUS: That is not good.

SOCRATES: And what about what we condemned long ago¹⁶—the fact that in this constitution there is the meddling in other people’s affairs that occurs when the same people are farmers, moneymakers, and soldiers simultaneously? Or do you think it is [552a] right for things to be that way?

ADEIMANTUS: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Now, let’s see whether it is the first to admit the greatest of all evils.

ADEIMANTUS: Which is?

SOCRATES: Allowing someone to sell all his possessions and someone else to buy them, and then allowing the seller to continue living in the city while not being any one of its parts—neither moneymaker nor craftsman, nor cavalryman, nor hoplite, but a poor person without means.

ADEIMANTUS: It is the first. [b]

SOCRATES: Anyway, this sort of thing certainly is not forbidden in oligarchies. I mean, if it were, some of their citizens would not be super rich and others totally impoverished.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Now, consider this: when a person like that was rich and spending his money, was he then of any greater use to the city in the ways we have just mentioned? Or did he merely seem to be one of the rulers, while in fact he was neither ruler nor subject of it, but only a squanderer of property?

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right. He seemed to be a ruler but was nothing but a squanderer. [c]

SOCRATES: Do you want us to say of him, then, that as a drone existing in a cell is an affliction to the hive, so this person existing in a household is a drone and affliction to the city?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, indeed, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And hasn’t the god, Adeimantus, made all the winged drones stingless, as well as some of the footed ones, while other footed ones have terrible stings? And don’t those who end up as beggars in old age come from among the stingless ones, while all those with stings are called evildoers? [d]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: Clearly then, in any city where you see beggars, somewhere in the neighborhood there are thieves hidden, and pickpockets, temple robbers, and craftsmen of all such sorts of evil.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: What about oligarchic cities? Don’t you see beggars in them?

ADEIMANTUS: Nearly everyone is one, apart from the rulers.

SOCRATES: Mustn’t we suppose, then, that there are also many evildoers there with stings, whom the [e] rulers forcibly keep in check by their cautiousness?

ADEIMANTUS: We certainly must suppose it.

SOCRATES: And aren’t we saying that the presence of such people is the result of lack of education, bad rearing, and a bad constitutional system?

ADEIMANTUS: We are.

SOCRATES: Well, then, that is roughly what the oligarchic city would be like. It would contain all these evils and probably others as well.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s pretty much it.

SOCRATES: Let’s take it, then, that we have disposed of the constitution they call oligarchy, which [553a] gets its rulers on the basis of a property assessment. Next, let’s consider how the person who is like it comes to exist, and what sort of person he is when he does.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, let’s.

SOCRATES: Doesn’t the transformation from timocrat to oligarch mostly occur in this way?

ADEIMANTUS: Which?

SOCRATES: It happens when a son of his is born who begins by emulating his father and following in his footsteps, and then sees him suddenly crashing [b] against the city as against a reef, and sees him and all his possessions spilling overboard. He had held a generalship or some other high office, was brought to court by sycophants, and was put to death or exiled, or was disenfranchised and had all his property confiscated.

ADEIMANTUS: Probably so.

SOCRATES: Anyway, my friend, after seeing and experiencing all that, and losing his property, the son is afraid, I imagine, and immediately throws the honor-loving and spirited element headlong from the throne in his own soul. And humbled by poverty, [c] he turns greedily to moneymaking and, little by little, saving and working, he amasses property. Don’t you think that someone like that will then establish the appetitive and moneymaking element on that throne, and make it a great king within himself, adorned with golden tiaras and collars and Persian swords?¹⁷

ADEIMANTUS: I do.

SOCRATES: And I suppose he makes the rational and spirited elements sit on the ground beneath it, one on either side, and be slaves. He won’t allow the [d] first to calculate or consider anything except how a little money can be made into more; or the second to admire or honor anything except wealth and wealthy people, or to love being honored for anything besides the possession of wealth and whatever contributes to it.

ADEIMANTUS: There is no other way to turn an honor-loving young man into a money-loving one that is as swift and sure as that!

SOCRATES: Isn’t this, then, the oligarchic person? [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Well, he certainly developed from the sort of man who resembled the constitution from which oligarchy came.

SOCRATES: Then let’s see whether he resembles it.

ADEIMANTUS: Let’s. [554a]

SOCRATES: Wouldn’t he resemble it, primarily, by attaching the greatest importance to money?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And also by being a thrifty worker who satisfies only his necessary appetites and spends nothing on other things but enslaves his other appetites as pointless.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: A pretty squalid fellow, at any rate, who tries to make a profit from everything: a treasury-builder—the sort the majority admire. Isn’t that the sort of man who resembles this sort of constitution? [b]

ADEIMANTUS: I certainly think so. At any rate, money is honored more than anything else by both the city and the one who is like it.

SOCRATES: Because I don’t suppose someone like that has paid any attention to education.

ADEIMANTUS: I don’t think so. I mean, if he had, he would not have chosen a blind leader for his chorus and honored him most.¹⁸

SOCRATES: Well put! But consider this. Wouldn’t we say that though the dronish appetites exist in him because of his lack of education, some of them beggars and others evildoers, they are forcibly kept in check by his general cautiousness? [c]

ADEIMANTUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Do you know, then, where you should look to see the evils such people do?

ADEIMANTUS: Where?

SOCRATES: Where they are guardians of orphans, or any other situation like that, where they have ample opportunity to do injustice.

ADEIMANTUS: True.

SOCRATES: So, doesn’t that make it clear that in other contractual matters, where someone like that has a good reputation and is thought to be just, something good of his is forcibly holding in check the other bad appetites within; not persuading them that [d] they had better not, nor taming them with arguments, but using compulsion and fear, because he is terrified of losing his other possessions?

ADEIMANTUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Yes, by Zeus, my friend, you will find that most of them, when they have other people’s money to spend, have appetites in them akin to those of the drone.

ADEIMANTUS: Indeed, you certainly will!

SOCRATES: So, someone like that would not be entirely free from internal faction, and would not be a single person but somehow a twofold one, although his better appetites would generally master his worse appetites. [e]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Because of this, I suppose someone like that would be more respectable than many other people; but the true virtue of a single-minded and harmonious soul would somehow far escape him.

ADEIMANTUS: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: Furthermore, the thrifty man is a worthless individual contestant in the city for any prize of victory or any of the other fine things the love of honor craves. He is unwilling to spend money [555a] for the sake of fame or other such results of competition, and, fearing to arouse his appetites for spending by allying them with love of victory, he fights in true oligarchic fashion, with only a few of his resources, and is mostly defeated, but remains rich!

ADEIMANTUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Are we still in any doubt, then, that, as regards resemblance, a thrifty moneymaker corresponds to an oligarchic city? [b]

ADEIMANTUS: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Then democracy, it seems, must be considered next—both the way it comes to exist and what it is like when it does—so that when we know the character of this sort of man, we can present him for judgment in turn.

ADEIMANTUS: At any rate, that would be consistent with what we have been doing.

SOCRATES: Well, then, isn’t the change from an oligarchy to a democracy due in some way or other to the insatiable desire for the good set before it—the need to become as rich as possible?

ADEIMANTUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Since the rulers rule in it because they own a lot, I suppose they are not willing to enact laws [c] to prevent young people who have become intemperate from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by buying and making loans on the property of such people, the rulers themselves can become even richer and more honored.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s their primary goal, at any rate.

SOCRATES: So, isn’t it clear by now that you cannot honor wealth in a city and maintain temperance in the citizens at the same time, but must inevitably neglect one or the other? [d]

ADEIMANTUS: That is pretty clear.

SOCRATES: The negligent encouragement of intemperance in oligarchies, then, sometimes reduces people who are not ill born to poverty.

ADEIMANTUS: Indeed, it does.

SOCRATES: And these people sit around in the city, I suppose, armed with stings or weapons—some of them in debt, some disenfranchised, some both—hating and plotting against those who have acquired their property, and all the others as well; passionately longing for revolution. [e]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: These moneymakers, with their heads down,¹⁹ pretending not to see them, inject the poison of their money into any of the rest who do not resist, and, carrying away a multitude of offspring in interest from their principal, greatly increase the size of the drone and beggar class in the city. [556a]

ADEIMANTUS: They certainly do increase it greatly.

SOCRATES: In any case, they are not willing to quench evil of this sort as it flares up, either by preventing a person from doing whatever he likes with his own property, or alternatively by passing this other law to do away with such abuses.

ADEIMANTUS: What law?

SOCRATES: The one that is next best and that compels the citizens to care about virtue. You see, if someone prescribed that most voluntary contracts be entered into at the lender’s own risk, money would [b] be less shamelessly pursued in the city and fewer of those evils we were mentioning just now would develop in it.

ADEIMANTUS: Far fewer.

SOCRATES: But as it is, and for all these reasons, the rulers in the city treat their subjects in the way we described. And as for themselves and those belonging to them, don’t they bring up the young to be fond of luxury, incapable of effort either mental or physical, too soft to endure pleasures or pains, and lazy? [c]

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And haven’t they themselves neglected everything except making money and been no more concerned about virtue than poor people are?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, they have.

SOCRATES: And when rulers and subjects, socialized in this way, meet on journeys or some other shared undertakings, whether in an embassy or a military campaign; or as shipmates or fellow soldiers; or when they watch one another in dangerous situations—in these circumstances, don’t you think [d] the poor are in no way despised by the rich? On the contrary, don’t you think it is often the case that a poor man, lean and suntanned, is stationed in battle next to a rich one, reared in the shade and carrying a lot of excess flesh, and sees him panting and completely at a loss? And don’t you think he believes that it is because of the cowardice of the poor that such people are rich and that one poor man says to another when they meet in private: “These men are ours for the taking; they are good for nothing”? [e]

ADEIMANTUS: I know very well they do.

SOCRATES: Well, just as a sick body needs only a slight shock from outside to become ill and sometimes, even without external influence, becomes divided into factions, itself against itself, doesn’t a city in the same condition need only a small pretext—such as one side bringing in allies from an oligarchy or the other from a democracy—to become ill and fight with itself? And doesn’t it sometimes become divided into factions even without any external influence?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, violently so. [557a]

SOCRATES: Then democracy comes about, I suppose, when the poor are victorious, kill or expel the others, and give the rest an equal share in the constitution and the ruling offices, and the majority of offices in it are assigned by lot.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is how a democratic political system gets established, whether it comes to exist by force of arms or because intimidation drives its opponents into exile.

SOCRATES: In what way, then, do these people live? What sort of constitution do they have? For clearly the sort of man who is like it will turn out to [b] be democratic.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Well, in the first place, aren’t they free? And isn’t the city full of freedom and freedom of speech? And isn’t there license in it to do whatever one wants?

ADEIMANTUS: That’s what they say, anyway.

SOCRATES: And where there is license, clearly each person would arrange his own life in whatever way pleases him.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: I imagine it is in this constitution, then, that multifarious people come to exist. [c]

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: It looks, then, as though it is the most beautiful of all the constitutions. For just like an embroidered cloak embroidered with every kind of ornament, it is embroidered with every sort of character, and so would appear to be the most beautiful. And presumably, many people would behave like women and children looking at embroidered objects and actually judge it to be the most beautiful.

ADEIMANTUS: They certainly would.

SOCRATES: What is more, bless you, it is also a handy place in which to look for a constitution! [d]

ADEIMANTUS: Why is that?

SOCRATES: Because it contains all kinds of constitutions, as a result of its license. So whoever wants to organize a city, as we were doing just now, probably has to go to a democracy and, as if he were in a supermarket of constitutions, pick out whatever pleases him and establish it.

ADEIMANTUS: He probably wouldn’t be at a loss for examples, anyway! [e]

SOCRATES: There is no compulsion to rule in this city, even if you are qualified to rule, or to be ruled if you do not want to be; or to be at war when the others are at war, or to keep the peace when the others are keeping it, if you do not want peace; or, even if there happens to be a law preventing you from ruling or from serving on a jury, to be any the less free to rule or serve on a jury—isn’t that a heavenly and pleasant way to pass the time, while it lasts? [558a]

ADEIMANTUS: It probably is—while it lasts.

SOCRATES: And what about the calm of some of their condemned criminals? Isn’t that a sophisticated quality? Or have you never seen people who have been condemned to death or exile in a constitution of this sort staying on all the same and living right in the middle of things, without anyone giving them a thought or staring at them, while they stroll around like a hero?²⁰

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, I have seen it a lot.

SOCRATES: And what about the city’s tolerance, its complete lack of petty-mindedness, and its utter [b] disregard for the things we took so seriously when we were founding the city—that unless someone had transcendent natural gifts, he would never become a good man if he did not play fine games right from early childhood and engage in practices that are all of that same sort? Isn’t it magnificent how it tramples all that underfoot, gives no thought to what sort of practices someone went in for before he entered politics, and honors him if only he tells them he wishes the majority well? [c]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s true nobility!

SOCRATES: These, then, and others akin to them are the characteristics a democracy would possess. And it would, it seems, be a pleasant constitution—lacking rulers but not complexity, and assigning a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that’s well known!

SOCRATES: Look and see, then, what sort of private individual resembles it. Or should we first consider, as we did in the case of the constitution, how he comes to exist?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, doesn’t it happen this way? Mightn’t we suppose that our thrifty oligarchic man had a son brought up by his father with his father’s [d] traits of character?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Then he too would rule by force the pleasures that exist in him—the spendthrift ones that do not make money; the ones that are called unnecessary.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: In order not to have a discussion in the dark, would you like us first to define which appetites are necessary and which are not?

ADEIMANTUS: I would.

SOCRATES: Well, then, wouldn’t those we cannot deny rightly be called necessary? And also those whose satisfaction benefits us? For we are by nature compelled [e] to try to satisfy them both. Isn’t that so?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: So, we would be right to apply the term “necessary” to them? [559a]

ADEIMANTUS: We would be right.

SOCRATES: What about those someone could get rid of if he started practicing from childhood, those whose presence does no good but may even do the opposite? If we said that all of them were unnecessary, would we be right?

ADEIMANTUS: We would be right.

SOCRATES: Let’s pick an example of each, so that we have a pattern to follow.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, let’s.

SOCRATES: Wouldn’t the desire to eat to the point of health and well-being, and the desire for bread and relishes be necessary ones? [b]

ADEIMANTUS: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: The desire for bread is surely necessary on both counts, in that it is beneficial and that unless it is satisfied, we die.²¹

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And so is the one for relishes, insofar as it is beneficial and conduces to well-being.

ADEIMANTUS: Indeed.

SOCRATES: What about an appetite that goes beyond these and seeks other sorts of foods; that, if it is restrained from childhood and educated, most people can get rid of; and that is harmful to the body and harmful to the soul’s capacity for wisdom and temperance? Wouldn’t it be correct to call it unnecessary? [c]

ADEIMANTUS: Entirely correct.

SOCRATES: Wouldn’t we also say that the latter desires are spendthrift, then, whereas the former are moneymaking because they are useful where work is concerned?

ADEIMANTUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And won’t we say the same about sexual appetites and the rest?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And didn’t we say that the person we just now called a drone is full of such pleasures and appetites and is ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the one who is ruled by his necessary appetites is a thrifty oligarch? [d]

ADEIMANTUS: Of course we did.

SOCRATES: Let’s go back, then, and say how the democrat develops from the oligarch. It seems to me as if it mostly happens this way.

ADEIMANTUS: What way?

SOCRATES: When a young man who is reared in the uneducated and thrifty manner we described just now tastes the honey of the drones and associates with wild and terrible creatures who can provide multifarious pleasures of every degree of complexity and sort, that probably marks the beginning of his transformation from having an oligarchic constitution within [e] him to having a democratic one.

ADEIMANTUS: It most certainly does.

SOCRATES: So, just as the city changed when one party received help from a like-minded alliance outside, doesn’t the young man change in turn when external appetites of the same type and quality as it come to the aid of one of the parties within him?

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: And I suppose if a counter-alliance comes to the aid of the oligarchic party within him—whether from his father or from the rest of his family, who exhort and reproach him—then there is a faction and an opposing faction within him, and he battles [560a] against himself.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And sometimes, I suppose, the democratic party yields to the oligarchic, some of its appetites are overcome while others are expelled, and a kind of shame rises in the young man’s soul and order is restored.

ADEIMANTUS: That does sometimes happen.

SOCRATES: Moreover, I suppose, as some appetites are expelled, others akin to them are being nurtured undetected because of the father’s ignorance of upbringing, and become numerous and strong. [b]

ADEIMANTUS: At any rate, that’s what usually happens.

SOCRATES: Then these desires draw him back to his old associates²² and, in secret intercourse, breed a multitude of others.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Finally, I suppose, they seize the citadel of the young man’s soul, since they realize that it is empty of the fine studies and practices and the true arguments that are the best watchmen and guardians in the minds of men loved by the gods.

ADEIMANTUS: By far the best. [c]

SOCRATES: Then, I suppose, beliefs and arguments that are lying imposters rush up and occupy this same part of him in place of the others.

ADEIMANTUS: They do, indeed.

SOCRATES: Won’t he then return to those Lotus-eaters and live with them openly? And if any help should come to the thrifty part of his soul from his relatives, don’t those imposter arguments, having barred the gates of the royal wall within him, prevent the allied force itself from entering and even refusing to admit arguments of older, private individuals as ambassadors? Proving stronger in the battle, won’t [d] they call reverence foolishness and drive it out as a dishonored fugitive? And calling temperance cowardliness, won’t they shower it with abuse and banish it? As for moderate and orderly expenditure, won’t they persuade him that it is boorish and illiberal, and join with a multitude of useless appetites to drive it over the border?

ADEIMANTUS: They will indeed.

SOCRATES: And when they have somehow emptied and purged these from the soul of the one they are seizing hold of and initiating with solemn rites, [e] they then immediately proceed to return arrogance, anarchy, extravagance, and shamelessness from exile in a blaze of torchlight, accompanied with a vast chorus of followers and crowned with garlands. They praise them and give them fine names, calling arrogance “good breeding,” anarchy “freedom,” extravagance “magnificence,” and shamelessness “courage.” Isn’t it in some such way as this that a young person [561a] exchanges an upbringing among necessary appetites for the freeing and release of useless and unnecessary pleasures?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that’s clearly the way it happens.

SOCRATES: Then in his subsequent life, I suppose, someone like that spends no less money, effort, and time on the necessary pleasures than on the unnecessary pleasures. But if he is lucky and does not go beyond the limits in his bacchic frenzy, and if, as a result of his growing somewhat older, the great tumult within him passes, he welcomes back some of the exiles and ceases to [b] surrender himself completely to the newcomers. Then, putting all his pleasures on an equal footing, he lives, always surrendering rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were chosen by lot,²³ until it is satisfied; and after that to another, dishonoring none but satisfying all equally.

ADEIMANTUS: He does, indeed.

SOCRATES: And he does not accept or admit true argument into the guardhouse if someone tells him that some pleasures belong to fine and good appetites and others to bad ones, and that he must practice [c] and honor the former and restrain and enslave the latter. On the contrary, he denies all this and declares that they are all alike and must be honored on an equal basis.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s exactly what he feels and does.

SOCRATES: And so he lives from day to day, gratifying the appetite of the moment. Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute, while at others he drinks only water and is on a diet. Sometimes he goes in for physical training, while there are others when he is idle and neglects everything. Sometimes [d] he spends his time engaged in what he takes to be philosophy. Often, though, he takes part in politics, leaping to his feet and saying and doing whatever happens to come into his mind. If he admires some military men, that is the direction in which he is carried; if some moneymakers, then in that different one. There is neither order nor necessity in his life, yet he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and follows it throughout his entire life.

ADEIMANTUS: You have perfectly described the life of a man devoted to legal equality.²⁴ [e]

SOCRATES: I certainly think he is a multifarious man and full of all sorts of characters, beautiful and complex, like the democratic city. Many men and women would envy his life because of the great number of examples of constitutions and characters it contains within it.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that’s right.

SOCRATES: Well, then, will we set this man alongside democracy as the one who would rightly be [562a] called democratic?

ADEIMANTUS: We will.

SOCRATES: The finest constitution and the finest man remain for us to discuss: tyranny and the tyrant.

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Come on, then; tell me, my dear comrade, how does tyranny come to exist? That it evolves from democracy, you see, is fairly clear.

ADEIMANTUS: It is clear.

SOCRATES: So, isn’t the way democracy evolves from oligarchy much the same as that in which tyranny evolves from democracy?

ADEIMANTUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: The good they proposed for themselves, and because of which oligarchy was established, was wealth, wasn’t it?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And its insatiable desire for wealth and its neglect of other things for the sake of money making was what destroyed it.

ADEIMANTUS: True.

SOCRATES: So, isn’t democracy’s insatiable desire for what it defines as the good also what destroys it?

ADEIMANTUS: What do you think it does define as the good?

SOCRATES: Freedom. For surely, in a democratic city, that is what you would hear described as its finest [c] possession, and as what makes it the only place worth living in for someone who is naturally free.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, you often hear that said.

SOCRATES: As I was about to say, then, isn’t it the insatiable desire for this good and the neglect of other things that changes this constitution and prepares it to need a dictatorship?

ADEIMANTUS: How does it do that?

SOCRATES: I suppose it is when a democratic city, athirst for freedom, happens to get bad cupbearers for its leaders and gets drunk by drinking more than [d] it should of unmixed wine.²⁵ Then, if the rulers are not very gentle and do not provide plenty of freedom, it punishes them and accuses them of being filthy oligarchs.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is what it does.

SOCRATES: It showers with abuse those who obey the rulers as voluntary slaves and nonentities, but both in public and private it praises and honors rulers who are like subjects, and subjects who are like rulers. And isn’t it inevitable in such a city that freedom should spread everywhere? [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, and so it is bound to make its way into private households until finally it breeds anarchy among the very animals.

ADEIMANTUS: What do you mean by that?

SOCRATES: For instance, a father gets into the habit of behaving like a child and fearing his son, and the son gets into the habit of behaving like a father, feeling neither shame nor fear in front of his parents—all in order to be free. A resident alien feels himself equal to a citizen and a citizen to him, and a foreigner likewise. [563a]

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, those sorts of things do happen.

SOCRATES: They do—and so do other little things of the same sort. A teacher in such circumstances is afraid of his students and flatters them, while the students belittle their teachers and do the same to their tutors, too. In general, the young are the spitting images of their elders and compete with them in words and deeds, while the old stoop to the level of the young and are full of wit and indulgence, imitating the young for fear of being thought disagreeable [b] and masterful.

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: The ultimate freedom for the majority, my friend, comes about in such a city, when males and females bought as slaves are no less free than those who bought them. Then there is the case of women in relation to men, and men to women, and the extent of their legal equality and freedom—we almost forgot to mention that!

ADEIMANTUS: Are we not, with Aeschylus, going to “say whatever it was came to our lips just now?”²⁶ [c]

SOCRATES: Certainly. At any rate, I am going to say it. I mean, no one who had not experienced it would believe how much freer domestic animals are here than in any other city. Bitches follow the proverb exactly and become like their mistresses. Horses and donkeys are in the habit of proceeding with complete freedom and dignity, bumping into anyone they meet on the road who does not get out of their way. And everything else is full of freedom, too. [d]

ADEIMANTUS: It is my own dream you are telling me.²⁷ That often happens to me when I go to the country.

SOCRATES: Summing up all these things together, then, do you notice how sensitive they make the citizens’ souls, so that if anyone tries to impose the least degree of slavery, they get irritated and cannot bear it? In the end, as I am sure you are aware, they take no notice of the laws—written or unwritten—in order to avoid having any master at all. [e]

ADEIMANTUS: I certainly am aware.

SOCRATES: This, my friend, is the fine and impetuous beginning from which tyranny seems to me to grow.

ADEIMANTUS: It is certainly impetuous. But what comes next?

SOCRATES: The same disease that developed in oligarchy and destroyed it also develops here—only more widespread and virulent because of the general permissiveness—and eventually enslaves democracy. In fact, excessive action in one direction usually sets up a great reaction in the opposite direction. This happens in seasons, in plants, in bodies, and particularly in constitutions. [564a]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s probably right.

SOCRATES: For extreme freedom probably cannot lead to anything but a change to extreme slavery, whether in a private individual or a city.

ADEIMANTUS: No, it probably can’t.

SOCRATES: Tyranny probably does not evolve from any constitution other than democracy, then—the most severe and cruel slavery evolving from what I suppose is the most eminent degree of freedom.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that’s reasonable.

SOCRATES: But I think you were asking, not that, but rather what sort of disease develops both in oligarchy and democracy alike, and enslaves the [b] latter.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s true.

SOCRATES: Well, then, I meant that class of idle and extravagant men, with the bravest as leaders and the more cowardly as followers. We compared them to drones: the leaders to drones with stings, the followers to stingless ones.²⁸

ADEIMANTUS: Rightly so.

SOCRATES: These two cause problems in any constitution in which they arise, like phlegm and bile in the body.²⁹ And it is against them that the good doctor and lawgiver of a city must take no less advance [c] precaution than a wise beekeeper. He should preferably prevent them from arising at all. But if they should happen to arise, he must cut them out, cells and all, as quickly as possible.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, by Zeus, and as thoroughly as possible.

SOCRATES: Then let’s take up the question in this way, in order to see what we want more distinctly.

ADEIMANTUS: In what way?

SOCRATES: Let’s in our discussion divide a democratic city into three parts—which is also how it is actually divided. One part is surely this class of drones, [d] which, because of the general permissiveness, grows in it no less than in an oligarchy.

ADEIMANTUS: So it does.

SOCRATES: But it is much fiercer in it than in the other.

ADEIMANTUS: How so?

SOCRATES: There, because it is not honored but is excluded from the ranks of the rulers, it does not get any exercise and does not become vigorous. How ever, in a democracy, with few exceptions, it is surely the dominant class. Its fiercest part does all the talking and acting, while the other one settles near the speaker’s platform. It buzzes and does not tolerate any dissent. As a result, this class is in charge of everything in such a constitution—with a few exceptions.³⁰ [e]

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Then, there is a second distinct class that is constantly emerging from the majority.

ADEIMANTUS: Which one?

SOCRATES: Surely, when everyone is trying to make money, the ones who are by nature most orderly generally become the wealthiest.

ADEIMANTUS: Probably so.

SOCRATES: Then that is where the most plentiful honey for the drones exists, I take it, and the easiest for them to extract.

ADEIMANTUS: How could anyone extract it from those who have very little?

SOCRATES: I suppose, then, that these rich people, as they are called, are fodder for the drones.

ADEIMANTUS: Pretty much.

SOCRATES: The people—those who work their own land, take no part in politics, and own few [565a] possessions—would be the third class. This is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy when it meets in assembly.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, it is. But it is not willing to meet often, if it does not get a share of the honey.

SOCRATES: So, it always does get a share—one that allows the leaders, in taking the wealth of the rich and distributing it to the people, to keep the greatest share for themselves.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is the sort of share they get. [b]

SOCRATES: Then I suppose that those whose wealth is taken away are compelled to defend themselves by speaking in the popular assembly and doing whatever else they can.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: At which point—even if they have no appetite for revolution at all—they get accused by the others of plotting against the people and of being oligarchs.

ADEIMANTUS: They do.

SOCRATES: Finally, when they see the people—not intentionally, but through misapprehension and being misled by the accusers—trying to do injustice to them, then, whether they wish it or not, they really [c] do become oligarchs—not from choice, though, but because the drone, by stinging them, engenders this evil.

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Then there are impeachments, judgments, and trials on both sides.

ADEIMANTUS: Right.

SOCRATES: And don’t the people always tend to set up one man as their special leader, nurturing him and making him great?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And it is clear that when a tyrant arises, [d] the position of popular leader is the sole root from which he springs.

ADEIMANTUS: It is.

SOCRATES: What is the beginning, then, of the transformation from popular leader to tyrant? Isn’t it clear that it happens when the popular leader begins to behave like the character in the story told about the temple of the Lycaean Zeus³¹ in Arcadia?

ADEIMANTUS: What story?

SOCRATES: That whoever tastes the one piece of human innards cut up with those of all the other sacrificial victims inevitably becomes a wolf. Haven’t you heard that story? [e]

ADEIMANTUS: I have.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it the same, then, with a popular leader? Once he really takes over a docile mob, he does not restrain himself from shedding a fellow citizen’s blood. But by leveling the usual false charges and bringing people into court, he commits murder. And by blotting out a man’s life, his impious tongue and lips taste kindred blood. Then he banishes and kills and drops hints about the cancellation of debts and the redistribution of land. And after that, isn’t [566a] such a man inevitably fated either to be killed by his enemies or to be a tyrant, transformed from a man into a wolf?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes. That is the inevitable outcome.

SOCRATES: He is the one, then, who stirs up faction against the rich.

ADEIMANTUS: He is.

SOCRATES: And if he happens to be exiled but, despite his enemies, manages to return, doesn’t he come back as a full-fledged tyrant?³²

ADEIMANTUS: Obviously.

SOCRATES: And if they are unable to expel him or put him to death by accusing him before the city, [b] they plot a violent death for him by covert means.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s what tends to happen, anyway.

SOCRATES: And everyone who has reached this stage soon discovers the famous tyrannical request—to ask the people to give him a bodyguard to keep their popular leader safe for them.

ADEIMANTUS: Right.

SOCRATES: And the people give it to him, I suppose, fearing for his safety but confident of their own. [c]

ADEIMANTUS: Right.

SOCRATES: So, when a wealthy man sees this and is charged with being an enemy of the people because of his wealth, then, comrade, in the words of the oracle to Croesus, he “flees without delay to the banks of the many-pebbled Hermus, and is not ashamed at all of his cowardice.”³³

ADEIMANTUS: He would certainly never get a second chance to be ashamed!

SOCRATES: If he is caught, I would imagine he is put to death.

ADEIMANTUS: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: As for this popular leader of ours, he clearly does not lie on the ground “mighty in his might,”³⁴ but, having brought down all those others, [d] he stands in the chariot of the city as a complete tyrant instead of a popular leader.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s for sure.

SOCRATES: Shall we next describe the happiness of this man and of the city in which such a creature arises?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, let’s.

SOCRATES: To start with, in the early days of his reign, won’t he greet everyone he meets with a smile, deny he is a tyrant, promise all sorts of things in private and in public, free the people from debt, [e] redistribute the land to them and to his followers, and pretend to be gracious and gentle to all?

ADEIMANTUS: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: But once he has dealt with his exiled enemies by making peace with some and destroying others, and all is calm on that front, his primary concern, I imagine, is to be constantly stirring up some war or other, so that the people will need a leader.

ADEIMANTUS: Very likely.

SOCRATES: And also, wouldn’t you say, so that [567a] impoverished by war taxes, they will be forced to concentrate on their daily needs and be less likely to plot against him?

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And in addition, I suppose, so that if there are some free-thinking people he suspects of rejecting his rule, he can find pretexts for putting them at the mercy of the enemy and destroying them? For all these reasons, isn’t a tyrant bound to be always stirring up war?

ADEIMANTUS: He is.

SOCRATES: Don’t all these actions tend to make him more hateful to the citizens? [b]

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And don’t some of those who helped establish his tyranny and hold positions of power within it, the ones who are bravest, speak freely to him and to each other, criticizing what is happening?

ADEIMANTUS: Probably.

SOCRATES: Then the tyrant will have to do away with all of them if he intends to rule, until he is left with no friend or enemy who is worth anything at all.

ADEIMANTUS: Obviously.

SOCRATES: He will have to keep a sharp lookout, then, for anyone who is brave, magnanimous, wise, or rich. He is so happy, you see, that he is forced, whether he wants to or not, to be their enemy and [c] plot against all of them until he has purged the city.

ADEIMANTUS: A fine purge that is!

SOCRATES: Yes. The opposite of the one doctors perform on our bodies. They draw off the worst and leave the best, whereas he does just the opposite!

ADEIMANTUS: Yet that’s what he has to do, it seems, if he is to rule.

SOCRATES: It is a blessedly happy necessity he is bound by, then, which requires him to live with inferior [d] masses even though hated by them, or not live at all!

ADEIMANTUS: It is.

SOCRATES: And the more he makes the citizens hate him by doing those things, the larger and more trustworthy a bodyguard he will need, won’t he?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And who will these trustworthy people be? And from where will he get them?

ADEIMANTUS: Lots of them will come swarming of their own accord, if he pays them.

SOCRATES: Drones again, by the dog! That is what I think you are talking about. Foreign, multifarious ones! [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, you are right.

SOCRATES: What about the domestic ones? Wouldn’t he be willing to deprive citizens of their slaves somehow, set them free, and enlist them in his bodyguard?

ADEIMANTUS: He certainly would, since they are the ones he can trust the most.

SOCRATES: What a blessedly happy thing this tyrant business is on your view, if these are the sorts of friends and trusted men he must employ after destroying his former ones! [568a]

ADEIMANTUS: Nonetheless, they are the sorts he does employ.

SOCRATES: And these friends and new citizens admire and associate with him, whereas the good ones hate and avoid him?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: It is no wonder, then, that tragedy seems to be something wholly wise, or that Euripides is outstanding in it.

ADEIMANTUS: Why is that?

SOCRATES: Because, among other things, he expressed the following shrewd thought: “tyrants are [b] wise by associating with the wise.” He meant evidently that these associates of the tyrant are the wise ones.³⁵

ADEIMANTUS: Yes. And he also praises tyranny as godlike, and lots of other things besides—and the other poets do, too.

SOCRATES: Then surely, since the tragic poets are so wise, they will forgive us and those with constitutions like ours if we do not admit them into our city, since they hymn the praises of tyranny.

ADEIMANTUS: For my part, I think they will for give us—the more refined of them, anyway. [c]

SOCRATES: They can go around to all the other cities instead, I suppose, drawing large crowds and hiring actors with fine, loud, persuasive voices, and lead their constitutions to become tyrannies and democracies.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: What’s more, they are paid and honored for it, primarily—as one might expect—by tyrants and secondly by democracy. But the higher they go on the ascending scale of constitutions, the more their honor diminishes, as if unable to proceed for [d] lack of breath.

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: But all that is a digression. Let’s return to our tyrant’s camp—the one that is beautiful, populous, complex, and never the same—and ask how he is going to maintain it.

ADEIMANTUS: If there are sacred treasuries in the city, he will obviously use them for as long as they last, as well as the property of those he has destroyed, so the taxes he will require from the people will be smaller.

SOCRATES: What about when these resources give out? [e]

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly, his father’s estate will have to support him, his drinking companions, and his boyfriends and girlfriends, too.

SOCRATES: I understand. You mean the people who fathered the tyrant will have to support him and his friends.

ADEIMANTUS: They will have no choice.

SOCRATES: What if the people get irritated and say it is not just for a grown-up son to be supported by his father? On the contrary, the father should be supported by his son. They did not father him and establish him in power, they say, so that, when he had become strong, they would be enslaved to their [569a] own slave and have to support him, his slaves, and other assorted rabble as well; but so that, with him as their popular leader, they would get free from the rule of the rich and the so-called fine and good people in the city. At that point, they order him and his friends to leave the city, as a father might drive a son and his troublesome drinking companions from his house. What do you think would happen then?

ADEIMANTUS: Then, by Zeus, the people will soon learn what kind of creature they have fathered, welcomed, and made strong, and that it is a case of the weaker trying to drive out the stronger. [b]

SOCRATES: What do you mean? Will the tyrant dare to use force against his father or hit him if he does not obey?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes—once he has taken away his weapons.

SOCRATES: A tyrant is a parricide as you describe him, then, and a harsh nurse of old age; and we do now seem to have an acknowledged tyranny. And so the people, by trying to avoid the proverbial frying pan of enslavement to free men, have fallen into the fire of having slaves as their masters; and, in exchange [c] for the excessive and inappropriate freedom they had before, have put upon themselves the harshest and most bitter slavery to slaves.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s exactly what happens.

SOCRATES: Well, then, wouldn’t we be justified in saying that we have adequately described how tyranny evolves from democracy, and what it is like once it has come to exist?

ADEIMANTUS: We would. Our description was entirely adequate.