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