Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Very well. These points, then, have been agreed, Glaucon, for the city that is to be governed supremely well: women in common, children in common, and all education in common; likewise the pursuits common in war and in peace; and their kings to be those who have proved best in philosophy and in war. —Agreed, he said. —And we also conceded this: that when
the rulers are installed, they will lead the soldiers and settle them in dwellings of the kind we described earlier, with nothing private to anyone, but common to all. And besides such dwellings, we also agreed, if you remember, what sort of possessions they will have. —I do remember, he said: we thought that none of them should own any of the things others now own, but that as athletes of war and
guardians they should receive from the others, as a wage for their guarding, their yearly maintenance for these duties, and should care for themselves and for the rest of the city. —You put it correctly, I said. But come, since we have finished with that, let us recall where we turned aside to get here, so that we may go back the same way. —Not hard, he said. You were speaking, much as you are now, as though you had completed your account of the city, saying
that you would rank as good a city of the kind you had then described, and the man resembling it — and this even though, as it seems, you had a still finer city and man to tell of. But in any case, you were saying that the others are mistaken, if this one is right. Of the remaining constitutions, as I remember, you said there were four kinds worth having an account of and
seeing their errors — and likewise the men resembling them — so that having viewed them all, and agreed on who is the best man and who the worst, we might examine whether supreme happiness belongs to the best of them and utter misery to the worst, or whether it stands otherwise. And when I was asking which four constitutions you meant, at that point Polemarchus and Adeimantus broke in, and that is how you took up the argument
and arrived here. —You've remembered it exactly right, I said. —Well then, give me that same grip once more, the way a wrestler does, and when I ask the same question, try to say what you were about to say then. —If indeed I can, I said. —And in fact, he said, I am myself eager to hear which four constitutions you meant. —You will hear them without difficulty, I said. The ones I mean are those that
actually have names: first, the one praised by most people, this Cretan and Laconian constitution; second, and second in the praise it gets, the one called oligarchy, a constitution teeming with many evils; then its adversary, arising next in order, democracy; and then the noble tyranny, surpassing them all — the fourth and final disease of a city. Or have you some other idea of a
constitution that stands in some distinct class of its own? For hereditary lordships and purchased kingships and constitutions of that sort lie somewhere between these, and one would find them no less common among the barbarians than among the Greeks. —Many strange ones are indeed reported, he said. —Then do you know, I said, that there must also be as many kinds of human character as there are kinds
of constitutions? Or do you suppose constitutions spring from oak or rock somewhere, and not from the characters of the people in the cities, which tip the scale, as it were, and drag everything else after them? —From nowhere else, he said, than from there. —Then if the kinds of city are five, the arrangements of soul in individual men will also be five. —Certainly. —Now the man
resembling aristocracy we have already gone through — the man we rightly call good and just. —We have. —Must we next go through the worse ones: the lover of victory and of honor, corresponding to the Laconian constitution; then in turn the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical man — so that having seen the most unjust we may set him against the most just, and our inquiry may be complete: how
unmixed justice stands to unmixed injustice as regards the happiness or misery of the man who has it, so that we may either follow Thrasymachus and pursue injustice, or follow the argument now coming to light and pursue justice? —By all means, he said, that is what must be done. —Then, just as we began by examining characters in constitutions before examining them in individuals, as being the plainer course, shall we now likewise first
examine the honor-loving constitution — I have no other name in common use for it; it should be called timocracy or timarchy — and alongside it consider the corresponding man; then oligarchy and the oligarchic man; then, turning our gaze to democracy, view the democratic man; and fourth, going to the city ruled by a tyrant and seeing it, and looking in turn into the tyrannical soul, try to become adequate judges of what we
proposed? —That way, at least, he said, the viewing and the judging would proceed according to reason. —Come then, I said, let us try to say in what way timocracy would arise out of aristocracy. Or is this much simple: that every constitution changes from within the very group that holds the offices, when faction arises within it; but while that group is of one mind, even if it is very small,
the constitution cannot be shaken? —That is so. —How then, Glaucon, I said, will our city be shaken, and in what way will the auxiliaries and the rulers fall into faction against each other and among themselves? Or would you like us, like Homer, to pray to the Muses to tell us how faction first fell upon them, and say that they speak to us in high tragic style, as though playing with us as with children and
teasing us, while in fact speaking in earnest? —How? —Something like this. Hard it is for a city so constituted to be shaken; but since for everything that has come to be there is decay, not even a constitution such as this will endure for all time, but it will be dissolved. And its dissolution is this: not only for plants in the earth but also for animals upon it there come fertility and barrenness of soul and of body, whenever the revolutions
of their several kinds complete the circuits of their orbits — short circuits for the short-lived, the opposite for their opposites. As for your race, the men you have educated to be leaders of the city, wise though they are, will nonetheless fail to hit, by calculation joined with perception, the times of good birth and of barrenness for your kind; these will escape them, and they will beget children at the wrong season. For a divine begotten thing there is a period which a perfect number comprehends; but for a human one, the first number in which increases, dominating and
dominated, taking three intervals and four terms of likening and unlikening, of waxing and waning, render everything conversable and rational with one another. Of these the base four-thirds, wedded to the five, thrice increased, yields two harmonies: one equal an equal number of times, so many times a hundred; the other of equal length one way but oblong — one side of a hundred numbers from the rational diameters of five, each diminished
by one, or from the irrational diameters, diminished by two; the other side of a hundred cubes of three. This whole number is geometrical, sovereign over such things — over better and worse births; and when your guardians, in ignorance of these, join brides to bridegrooms out of season, the children will be neither well-natured nor fortunate. The best of them the predecessors will install in office, but being unworthy nonetheless, once they come into their fathers' powers,
they will begin, guardians though they are, to neglect us Muses — first by valuing the arts of music less than they should, and second the arts of gymnastic — so that your young men will become less musical. And from these will be installed rulers not very capable of guarding, when it comes to testing Hesiod's races and yours — the golden and silver and bronze and iron. And when iron is mingled with
silver and bronze with gold, unlikeness will arise, and inharmonious irregularity; and wherever these arise, they always breed war and hatred. Of such descent, one must declare, is faction, wherever it arises. —And we shall say, he said, that they answer rightly. —They must, I said, being Muses. —And what, he said, do the Muses say next?
—Once faction had arisen, I said, the two pairs of races began pulling apart: the iron and the bronze toward money-making and the acquisition of land and houses and gold and silver; the other two, the gold and the silver, being not poor but rich by nature, led souls toward virtue and the ancient order. Struggling and straining
against one another, they compromised on a middle course: to distribute land and houses to be held privately; and those whom they had formerly guarded as free men, friends, and providers, they then enslaved and held as serfs and servants, while they themselves attended to war and to guarding against the enslaved. —It seems to me, he said, that this transformation begins from just there. —Then, I said, would this constitution not be
midway between aristocracy and oligarchy? —Very much so. —This, then, is how the change will come. But once changed, how will it be governed? Isn't it plain that in some things it will imitate the earlier constitution, in others oligarchy, being midway between them, and will also have something of its own? —So it will, he said. —In honoring the rulers, then, and in its fighting class abstaining from farming
and handicrafts and money-making generally; in maintaining common messes and attending to gymnastic and the contest of war — in all such things it will imitate the earlier one? —Yes. —But in fearing to bring the wise into office — since it no longer possesses men of that sort who are simple and earnest, but mixed ones — and in inclining toward spirited and simpler men,
born for war rather than for peace; in holding the tricks and stratagems of war in honor; and in spending all its time making war — in most of these features it will have traits of its own? —Yes. —And such men, I said, will be desirous of money, like those in oligarchies, fiercely honoring gold
and silver in the dark — since they possess storehouses and private treasuries where they can stash and hide it, and walled enclosures round their dwellings, veritable private nests, where they can lavish great expense on women and on whomever else they please. —Very true, he said. —And they will be stingy with money, since they honor it and do not acquire it openly, yet fond of spending other people's through desire, and reaping their pleasures in secret,
running away from the law like boys from a father — for they were educated not by persuasion but by force, because they neglected the true Muse, the companion of discussion and philosophy, and honored gymnastic above music. —You describe, he said, a constitution thoroughly mixed of bad and good. —It is mixed indeed, I said. But one thing alone stands out most conspicuous in it, from the dominance of the
spirited element: love of victory and love of honor. —Very much so, he said. —Well then, I said, this is how this constitution would come to be, and this is what it would be like — sketching the outline of a constitution in speech without working it out exactly, since even from the sketch it is enough to see the most just man and the most unjust; and it would be an impossibly long task to go through all
—constitution, and leave out none of the characters as we go through them. —That's right, he said. —Then who is the man who corresponds to this constitution? How does he come to be, and what sort of man is he? —I think, said Adeimantus, that as far as love of victory goes he comes pretty close to Glaucon here. —Perhaps in that respect, I said, but it seems to me these other traits don't belong to him the way they belong to Glaucon. —Which traits?
He has to be more self-willed, I said, and less cultivated—though still a lover of the arts—and fond of listening to things, but by no means a gifted speaker. Toward slaves a man like this would be harsh, not from the contempt a properly educated man feels, but gentle toward free men, thoroughly obedient to those in authority, and himself a lover of rule and honor—claiming the right to rule not on the grounds of speaking well or anything of that kind,
but on the grounds of deeds done in war and things connected with war, being a lover of gymnastics and of hunting. —Yes, he said, that is the character of that constitution. —And such a young man, I said, would despise money while young, but the older he grew the more he'd come to embrace it, since he shares in the moneyloving nature and
is not pure in his devotion to virtue, having been left without the best guardian. —Guardian of what? said Adeimantus. —Of reason, I said, blended with music—which alone, once it takes root, lives on as the savior of virtue throughout a man's life for whoever has it. —Well put, he said. —And such, I said, is the timocratic young man, resembling that kind of city. —Quite so. —And he comes
to be, I said, more or less in this way: sometimes he is the young son of a good father living in a city that is not well governed, a father who avoids honors and offices and lawsuits and all that kind of officious meddling, and is willing to accept a lesser position so as not to have troubles— —How does this come about? he asked. —It happens, I said, when the boy first listens to his mother grumbling that the man she married is not one of
the rulers, and that she is looked down on for it among the other women; and then she sees that he isn't very eager about money, and doesn't fight and hurl abuse in the courts, private or public, but bears all such things easily, and always seems to have his mind on himself, while toward her he is neither excessively respectful nor disrespectful; and out of all this she is upset
and says that his father is unmanly and far too easygoing, and all the other things that women love to sing about on such subjects. —Yes indeed, said Adeimantus, plenty of it, and all of a kind. —Now you know, I said, that the household slaves of such men sometimes say similar things privately to the sons, those who seem to be
well-disposed, and if they see someone who owes money and whom the father doesn't pursue, or someone else doing wrong, they urge the boy that when he becomes a man he will punish all such people and prove himself manlier than his father was. And going out he hears and sees other such things, seeing that people who attend quietly to their own affairs get labeled simpletons in the city and held
in small regard, while those who don't mind their own business are honored and praised. Then the young man, hearing and seeing all this, and on the other hand hearing his father's words and seeing his father's pursuits close up, in contrast to those of others, is pulled by both of these forces—his father watering and cultivating
the rational part of his soul, while the others cultivate the appetitive and the spirited parts; and because he is not by nature a bad man, but has been exposed to the bad company of others, he is pulled by both these forces and comes to a middle point, and hands over the rule within himself to the middle part, the part that loves victory and is spirited, and he becomes a haughty and honor-loving man. —You seem to me
to have described his origin exactly, he said. —So now we have, I said, both the second constitution and the second man. —We have them, he said. —Then after this, shall we speak, in the words of Aeschylus, of "another man arrayed against another city"—or rather, following our plan, of the city first? —Certainly, he said. —It would be, I think, oligarchy that comes after
this kind of constitution. —What kind of arrangement do you mean by oligarchy? he said. —The constitution based on property assessments, I said, in which the rich rule and the poor man has no share in office. —I understand, he said. —Then should we first explain how it changes from timarchy into oligarchy? —Yes. —Well, I said,
even a blind man could see how the change occurs. —How? —That treasury, I said, which each man fills up with gold, is what destroys that kind of constitution. First they invent expenditures for themselves, and twist the laws to permit this, disobeying them themselves, they and their wives. —Likely enough, he said. —Then, I think, each man watching another and rivaling him, they make the majority like themselves. —Likely. —And from there,
I said, as they advance further in moneymaking, the more they honor that, the less they honor virtue. Or isn't it the case that wealth and virtue stand opposed like weights lying in the two pans of a scale, always tilting in opposite directions? —Quite so, he said. —So when wealth is honored in a city, and the wealthy, virtue and the good become less honored. —Clearly. —And whatever is always honored is practiced, while what is
dishonored is neglected. —So it is. —So in place of lovers of victory and honor, they end up becoming lovers of money and moneymaking, and they praise and admire the rich man and put him into office, while they dishonor the poor man. —Quite so. —Then don't they at that point pass a law, marking out the boundary of an oligarchic constitution, setting an amount of property—more where the oligarchy is more pronounced, less where it is less—and declaring that no one whose property does not
reach the appointed assessment may share in ruling? And they carry this through either by force of arms, or even before resorting to that they establish such a constitution by intimidation. Isn't that so? —Yes, that's how it is. —This, then, roughly speaking, is how it is established. But, he said, what is the manner of life under this constitution? And what are the flaws we said it
has? —First, I said, this very thing—the nature of its boundary. Consider: if someone were to appoint ship's captains this way, by property assessment, and refuse the office to a poorer man even if he were more skilled at piloting— —They would make a wretched business, he said, of their seafaring. —And isn't it the same with anything else, any other kind of rule? I think so myself. —Except when it comes to the city? I said—or
does it apply to the city too? —Most of all there, he said, since ruling a city is the hardest and greatest kind of rule. —This, then, is one flaw as great as this that oligarchy would have. —So it appears. —And what of this—is it any less than that? —What is it? —That such a city is necessarily not one but two, one of the poor and one of the rich, living in the same place, always plotting against each other.
—That's no less a flaw, by Zeus, he said. —And surely this isn't good either—that they should be unable perhaps to wage any war, because they're forced either, if they use the armed masses, to fear them more than the enemy, or, if they don't use them, to show themselves truly oligarchic in the very moment of battle, and at the same time to be unwilling to contribute money, being lovers of money. —Not good. —And what of what we
criticized long ago—the meddling of the same people farming, moneymaking, and fighting wars all at once in such a constitution—does that seem right to you? —Not in the least. —Consider now whether of all these evils this is not the greatest that this constitution is the first to admit. —What is it? —That it is possible for a man to sell off all he owns, and for another to acquire it, and having sold it, for him to live in the city being none of
the parts of the city—neither a moneymaker nor a craftsman nor a horseman nor a hoplite, but called poor and destitute. —The first, he said, to allow this. —Indeed such a thing is not prevented in oligarchic cities; otherwise some would not be extremely rich while others are utterly poor. —Right. —Now consider this: when such a man was rich and was spending, was he then any more useful to the city
in the ways we were just speaking of? Or did he only seem to be one of the rulers, while in truth he was neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but merely a consumer of what lay ready at hand? —So it was, he said; he seemed to be, but was nothing else than a consumer. —Shall we say then, I said, that as a drone arises in a honeycomb, a disease of the hive, so such a man arises in a household, a disease
of the city? —Quite so, Socrates, he said. —Now, Adeimantus, hasn't the god made all the winged drones stingless, while among these wingless ones some are stingless but others carry terrible stings? And from the stingless ones come beggars in their old age, while from the stinged ones come all who are called wrongdoers? —Most true, he said. —It's clear, then,
I said, that in any city where you see beggars, there are, hidden somewhere in that same place, thieves and cutpurses and temple-robbers and craftsmen of all such evils. —Clear, he said. —Well then? In oligarchic cities don't you see beggars present? —Nearly, he said, all who are outside the ruling class. —Then shouldn't we suppose, I said, that there are many wrongdoers too
in these cities, men carrying stings, whom the rulers hold in check by force, with careful watching? —We should suppose so, he said. —Then shall we not say that it is through lack of education and bad upbringing and the arrangement of the constitution that such men come to be there? —We shall say so. —Well then, such is roughly what the oligarchic city would be, and such are the evils it has, and perhaps even more.
he said. —Let us consider this constitution, then, finished, I said—the one they call oligarchy, which draws its rulers from property assessments—and after this let us examine the man who resembles it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is once he has come to be. —Quite so, he said. —Does he change into the oligarchic type out of that timocratic one chiefly in this way? —How? —When a son is born to such a man, at
first he emulates his father and follows in his footsteps, but then he sees him suddenly stumble against the city as against a reef, spilling out both his own possessions and himself—having perhaps served as a general or held some other great office, and then having fallen into court, injured by false accusers, either put to death or exiled or disenfranchised and stripped of his whole estate. —Likely enough,
he said. —And seeing this, my friend, and suffering it, and having lost his property, in fear, I think, he immediately thrusts headlong from the throne in his own soul that love of honor and that spirited part, and humbled by poverty he turns to moneymaking, and little by little, scraping and saving and working, he gathers wealth together. Don't you think that such a man
—So then he seats desire—the money-loving part—on that throne, and makes it the great king within himself, girding it with tiaras and collars and daggers. —I do, he said. —And the rational and spirited parts he sits on the ground on either side, enslaved beneath it, and allows the one no other business than to calculate and consider only how
more money can come from less, and the other he allows to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to be ambitious for nothing except the acquisition of money and whatever leads to it. —There's no other change, he said, so swift and forceful as that from an ambitious young man into a money-loving one. —Is this man, then, I said,
oligarchic? —At least the change in him parallels the change in the constitution from which oligarchy arose. —Let's look and see whether he's similar. —Let's. —First, then, wouldn't he be similar in valuing money above everything? —Of course. —And also in being stingy and hard-working, satisfying only the necessary desires within himself,
and not providing for other expenditures, but enslaving his other desires as pointless. —Quite so. —A rather dry sort, I said, squeezing a surplus out of everything, a hoarder of treasure—the kind the crowd praises—wouldn't this be the man similar to that kind of constitution? —It seems so to me at least, he said; money is certainly most honored, both
by the city and by such a man. —Because, I said, I don't think such a man has paid attention to education. —I don't think so, he said; otherwise he wouldn't have set a blind guide over his chorus and honored it most. —Well put, I said. Now consider this: shall we not say that drone-like desires arise in him because of his lack of education—some beggarly, some criminal—held in check by force by
the rest of his vigilance? —Certainly, he said. —Do you know, I said, where you'll have to look to observe their criminality? —Where? he said. —In his trusteeships over orphans, and any situation of that kind where he gets a good deal of license to act unjustly. —True. —Isn't it clear from this that in his other dealings, where he has a good reputation and is thought to be just, he restrains
by some decent force of his own certain other bad desires present in him—not persuading them that it's not better, nor gentling them with argument, but through compulsion and fear, trembling for the rest of his property? —Quite so, he said. —And, by Zeus, my friend, I said, in most of them you'll find, whenever they have to spend someone else's money, desires akin to the drone's present within them. —Yes indeed,
he said, very much so. —Such a man, then, could not be free of internal faction, nor a single unity but somehow double, though for the most part his better desires would prevail over his worse. —That's so. —For this reason, I think, such a man would be more presentable than many others, but the true virtue of a soul in harmony and concord would escape him by a long way. —So it seems to me.
—And indeed as a private competitor in the city, the stingy man is a poor contender for any victory or other honorable ambition—unwilling to spend money for reputation and such contests, fearing to arouse the spendthrift desires and call them in as allies for the sake of rivalry and ambition—fighting his own private oligarchic war with only a few of his resources, he's mostly defeated, but he stays rich. —Very much so, he said.
—Do we still doubt, then, I said, that by analogy to the oligarchically-run city, the stingy money-maker has been correctly placed? —Not at all, he said. —Democracy, it seems, is what we must examine next—how it comes about, and what character it has once it exists—so that, knowing in turn the character of such a man, we may bring him forward for judgment. —That way, at least, he said, we'd be proceeding consistently with our own method.
—Well then, I said, doesn't it change in some such way from oligarchy to democracy, through insatiable desire for the proposed good—the need to become as rich as possible? —How so? —Because, I think, since the rulers in it rule on account of possessing much property, they're unwilling to restrain by law those of the young who become unrestrained, forbidding them to spend and squander their own property,
so that by buying up such men's property and lending against it they themselves become still richer and more honored. —Nothing more certain. —Isn't it clear by now in the city that honoring wealth and acquiring adequate self-control at the same time is impossible for the citizens, but one or the other must be neglected? —That's fairly clear, he said. —By neglecting this in oligarchies and permitting unrestraint, they've sometimes forced people not of low birth
into poverty. —Very much so. —And these men sit, I think, in the city armed with stings and weapons, some owing debts, others disfranchised, others both, hating and plotting against those who've acquired their property and against everyone else, longing for revolution. —That is so. —But the money-makers, bent over their own affairs, not even appearing to notice these men, wound whoever among the rest
submits by injecting money, and collecting many times the parent sum in interest, they breed a great number of drones and beggars in the city. —How could they not breed many? he said. —And they're unwilling either to quench such an evil once it's blazing up, in that way—by restraining people from disposing of their own property however they wish—or in this other way, by which such things
are resolved by a different law. —Which one is that? —The one that comes after that first one, and compels the citizens to care about virtue. For if one required that most voluntary contracts be entered at one's own risk, people would transact business less shamelessly in the city, and fewer of the evils we've just mentioned would grow in it. —Much fewer, he said. —But as it is,
I said, for all these reasons the rulers put those they rule in such a condition in the city; and as for themselves and their own people—aren't the young among them made soft, unused to labor, both in body and in soul, weak in the face of pleasures and pains, and idle? —Certainly. —And do they
neglect everything except money-making, and take no more care for virtue than the poor do? —No indeed. —So prepared, whenever they come into contact with one another—rulers and ruled—whether on journeys, or in other shared undertakings, at festivals or on campaigns, sailing together or serving as fellow soldiers, or even in the midst of
dangers, observing one another—do you think the poor are in any way looked down upon by the rich in such moments? Isn't it rather that often a lean, sun-tanned poor man, standing in battle beside a rich man raised in the shade, carrying much borrowed flesh, sees him gasping and helpless—don't you think he'd conclude that it's through their own cowardice that such men are rich, and would pass the word to another, when they're alone together, that 'our men are',
for there's nothing to them? —I know very well, he said, that that's what they do. —So just as a diseased body needs only a small push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes, even without external causes, is at war within itself, so too a city in the same condition, from a small pretext—when one faction brings in an alliance from an oligarchically run city outside, or the other faction
from a democratically run one—falls sick and fights against itself, and sometimes even without any outside involvement is torn by internal strife? —Very much so. —Democracy, I think, comes about whenever the poor, having won, kill some of the other side, banish others, and grant the rest an equal share in the constitution and offices, and for the most part offices in it are assigned by lot.
—Yes, he said, that is the establishment of democracy, whether it comes about by arms or by the other side withdrawing out of fear. —In what manner, then, I said, do these people live? And what sort of constitution is this in turn? For clearly such a man will turn out to be democratic. —Clearly, he said. —So first of all, they're free, and the city is full of freedom
and free speech, and there's license in it to do whatever one wants? —So it's said, at any rate, he said. —And where there's license, clearly each person would arrange his own manner of life privately in it, however each pleases. —Clearly. —All sorts and conditions of men would come into being most of all, I think, in this constitution. —Of course. —This constitution risks being the most beautiful
of all the constitutions; just as an embroidered cloak decorated with every kind of flower, so too this city, embroidered with every kind of character, might appear most beautiful. And perhaps, I said, many would judge this one too the most beautiful, just as children and women judge embroidered things when they look at them. —Very much so, he said. —And it is, you blessed man, I said, a convenient place to look for
a constitution in it. —Why so? —Because it has every kind of constitution within it on account of its license, and it risks being necessary, for anyone who wants to found a city—as we ourselves were just doing—to go into a democratically run city, as into a general store of constitutions, and pick out whichever type pleases him, and having chosen, to found his city that way. —Perhaps, he said, he wouldn't lack for models at any rate. —And the fact that there's no compulsion
to rule in this city, I said, even if you're capable of ruling, nor again to be ruled, if you don't wish to be, nor to make war when others are making war, nor to keep peace when others keep it, if you don't desire peace, nor again, if some law prevents you from ruling or judging cases, no less to rule and to judge if it occurs to you to do so—isn't this a divine and
pleasant way to pass one's time, at least for the moment? —Perhaps, he said, at least for that moment. —And what about this? Isn't the mildness of some of those condemned rather charming? Or haven't you yet seen, in such a constitution, men condemned to death or exile nonetheless remaining and walking about in the midst of things, and as if no one cared or noticed, the man struts about like a hero? —Yes, and many of them, he said.
—And its forgiveness, and its utter lack of pettiness about any of it, but rather its contempt for the things we were solemnly saying, when we were founding our city, that unless someone had an exceptional nature he could never become a good man, if he didn't play as a child amid fine things and pursue all such practices—how magnificently it tramples all that underfoot, caring nothing about what sort of pursuits
a man engaged in before he goes into politics, but honoring him if only he says he's well disposed toward the masses? —Quite noble, he said. —These traits, then, I said, and others akin to them, democracy would have, and it would be, it seems, a pleasant constitution, without rule, and full of variety, dispensing a kind of equality to equals and unequals alike. —Yes, he said, what you're describing is quite familiar. —Now consider, I said
—said I—who is such a man, taken individually? Or should we first consider, just as we considered the constitution, how he comes to be? Yes, he said. Isn't it like this? A son might be born to that stingy, oligarchic man, and raised under his father in the father's own habits. Why not? And this son too rules by force the pleasures within himself—all those that spend money but don't make it, the ones called unnecessary—
—clearly, he said. Do you want us, then, said I, so that we don't argue in the dark, first to define the necessary desires and the unnecessary ones? I do, he said. Well then, wouldn't we rightly call necessary those desires we're unable to turn aside, and those whose fulfillment benefits us? Because our nature is compelled to pursue both of these—
—isn't that so? Very much so. So we'd rightly apply the word "necessary" to those. Rightly. And what about desires a person could get rid of, if he practiced from youth, and which do no good by being present—indeed some do the opposite—if we said all these were not necessary, wouldn't we be speaking correctly? Correctly indeed. Let's pick out some example of each kind—
—so we can grasp them in outline. We should. Isn't the desire to eat, up to the point of health and good condition, and for plain bread and relish, necessary? I think so. The desire for bread, at least, is necessary on both counts—both because it's beneficial and because it's capable of sustaining life. Yes. And the desire for relish, insofar as it provides some
benefit toward good condition—yes, certainly. But what about the desire that goes beyond these, for different and fancier foods—one that can, if disciplined from youth and properly trained, be gotten rid of in most people, and is harmful to the body, and harmful to the soul as regards both wisdom and self-control? Wouldn't that rightly be called unnecessary? Most rightly. And shouldn't we also say these desires are
spendthrift, while the others are money-making, because they're useful for productive work? Of course. And shall we say the same about sexual desires and the rest? The same. And didn't we say that the one we just now called the drone is the man crammed full of such pleasures and desires, ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the man ruled by the necessary ones is the stingy,
oligarchic type? Well, of course. Let's go back, then, said I, and discuss how the democratic man comes to be out of the oligarchic one. It seems to me it happens, for the most part, like this. How? When a young man, raised as we just described—without education, and stingily—gets a taste of the drones' honey, and falls in with fierce and clever creatures capable of concocting pleasures of every sort, all kinds and varieties, there, I think, you should
suppose is the beginning of his transformation from an oligarchic to a democratic character. It's bound to happen, he said. Then, just as the city changed when one faction was helped by an outside alliance, like joining like, doesn't the young man change too, when a kindred, similar kind of desire from outside comes to the aid of the desires he already has within him? Absolutely. And if, I suppose, some counter-alliance
comes to the aid of the oligarchic element within him—whether from his father, or from other relatives admonishing and reproaching him—then faction and counter-faction and battle arise within him, against himself. Of course. And sometimes, I think, the democratic element yields to the oligarchic, and some of the desires are destroyed, others driven out, as a certain sense of shame
arises within the youth's soul, and things are set in order again. That does sometimes happen, he said. But then again, I think, other desires akin to the ones expelled are secretly nourished, and because of the father's ignorance of how to raise him, they grow numerous and strong. Yes, that's the usual way it happens, he said. And these draw him back to the same company, and, meeting secretly, breed a whole multitude. Of course. And in the end, I think, they seize the
citadel of the young man's soul, finding it empty of knowledge and fine practices and true accounts—which are in fact the best guards and sentinels in the minds of men beloved by the gods. Yes, quite empty, he said. Then false and boastful accounts and opinions, I think, rush up and take that same place instead of the true ones. Very much so, he said. Doesn't he then
go back again and openly settle among those Lotus-Eaters, and if some aid comes from his household to the stingy element in his soul, those boastful accounts shut the gates of the royal fortress within him—they let neither the alliance itself pass, nor accept as ambassadors the words of older, private citizens—but themselves fight and prevail, and they call shame foolishness and thrust it
out shamefully into exile, and calling moderation cowardice, they abuse it and cast it out; and persuading him that measured, orderly spending is boorish and unfree, they banish it beyond the border along with a crowd of useless desires. Very much so. And once they've emptied and purged the soul of the one possessed and initiated by them with these great rites, next they lead in, with great pomp and a large chorus, insolence
and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness, crowned and radiant, singing their praises and calling them by flattering names—calling insolence good breeding, anarchy freedom, prodigality magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Isn't it in some such way, said I, that a young man changes, from one raised amid necessary desires, into the liberation and release of unnecessary and useless pleasures? Yes, very
clearly so, he said. After this, I think, such a man lives spending no more on necessary than on unnecessary pleasures—money, effort, and time alike. But if he's lucky and doesn't get carried away too far into frenzy, and if, once he's a bit older and the great tumult has passed, he takes back some part of what was banished and doesn't give himself over entirely to the newcomers, he lives
settling his pleasures into some kind of equality, always handing over the rule of himself to whichever pleasure happens along, as if it had won the lot, until it's satisfied, and then to another, dishonoring none but nourishing them all equally. Quite so. And, said I, he doesn't admit any true account into his fortress, or let it in, if someone says that some pleasures belong to
desires that are fine and good, and others to base ones, and that we should cultivate and honor the former, and discipline and enslave the latter—no, he shakes his head at all this, and says all pleasures are alike and equally worthy of honor. Yes indeed, he said, that's what a man in that condition does. So, said I, he lives out each day
gratifying whatever desire comes upon him—now drinking and listening to the flute, then again drinking only water and slimming down; now exercising, then idle and neglecting everything, then again spending time as if in philosophy. Often he goes into politics, and jumping up he says and does whatever occurs to him; and if he happens to admire some military men, he's carried in that direction, or if businessmen, in that one instead.
And neither order nor necessity governs his life, but calling this life pleasant, free, and blessed, he lives by it throughout. You've certainly, he said, described the life of a man devoted to equality. And I think, said I, he's also a man of every sort, full of the most character types—the fine and many-colored one, just like
that city was, this man is too; many men and women would admire his life, since it contains within it the most models of constitutions and characters. Yes, that's him, he said. Well then? Shall we set this man down as the democratic type, correctly so called? Let's set him down so, he said. The finest constitution, then, said I, and the finest
man remain for us to go through—tyranny, and the tyrant. Quite so, he said. Come then, my dear friend, in what way does tyranny arise? That it changes from democracy is pretty clear. Clear. And doesn't tyranny come from democracy in somewhat the same way democracy came from oligarchy? How so? The good, said I, which oligarchy set before itself, and through which
oligarchy was established—this was excessive wealth, wasn't it? Yes. Well then, the insatiable desire for wealth, and neglect of everything else for the sake of money-making, destroyed it. True, he said. And doesn't the same happen to democracy—doesn't the insatiable desire for the good it defines destroy it too? What do you say it defines as its good? Freedom, I said. For that, you'd hear, in a city governed democratically,
said to be its finest possession, and that for this reason it alone is worth living in, for anyone free by nature. Yes, that phrase is certainly said often, he said. Then, said I, as I was just about to say, doesn't the insatiable desire for this very thing, and neglect of everything else, transform this constitution too, and bring it to need a tyranny? How? he said. When
a city governed democratically, thirsting for freedom, happens to have bad cupbearers presiding over it, and gets drunk on unmixed freedom beyond what's fitting, then it punishes its rulers—unless they're very gentle and allow plenty of freedom—accusing them of being contemptible oligarchs. Yes, that's what they do, he said. And those who obey the rulers, said I, it abuses as willing slaves and nobodies, while those
rulers who behave like the ruled, and the ruled who behave like rulers, it praises and honors, both privately and publicly. Isn't it necessary that in such a city freedom extends to everything? Of course. And it seeps down, my friend, said I, into private households, and ends up with anarchy growing even among the animals. What, he said, do we mean by such a thing? For instance, said I, a father grows accustomed to behaving like his child and fearing his sons, and a son like his father, neither respecting nor fearing his parents, so as to be free; the resident alien becomes equal to the citizen and the citizen to the resident alien, and likewise the foreigner. Yes, that's how it happens, he said. These things, said I, and other small things like them happen too: a teacher
in such a city fears his students and flatters them, and students think little of their teachers, and likewise of their tutors; and generally the young make themselves equal to their elders and compete with them in both word and deed, while the old, lowering themselves to the level of the young, are filled with playfulness and wit, imitating the young, so as not to seem unpleasant or overbearing.
Quite so,
he said. And the ultimate, said I, my friend, extreme of the people's freedom, the kind that occurs in such a city—when those who've been bought, both men and women, are no less free than those who bought them. And as for the equality and freedom of women in relation to men, and men in relation to women, we almost forgot to mention it. Well then, in the words of Aeschylus,
he said, shall we say whatever comes to our lips? —Certainly, I said; and this is how I put it. No one who had not experienced it would believe how much freer the very animals under human ownership are here than anywhere else. The dogs, quite literally, become just like their mistresses, as the proverb has it; and so do the horses and donkeys, accustomed to march along with perfect freedom
and dignity, barging into anyone they meet on the roads who does not stand aside; and everything else likewise becomes bursting with freedom. —You are telling me my own dream, he said; it happens to me often when I go out to the country. —And the sum of all these things together, I said — do you notice how tender it makes the souls of the citizens, so that
if anyone brings anything that smacks of slavery near them, they are indignant and cannot bear it? For in the end, you know, they take no notice even of the laws, written or unwritten, so that no one may in any way be master over them. —I know it very well, he said. —This, then, my friend, I said, is the beginning — so fine and vigorous — from which tyranny grows, in my opinion. —Vigorous indeed, he said;
but what comes after it? —The same disease, I said, that broke out in oligarchy and destroyed it — this same disease, arising here in greater strength and force out of the general license, enslaves democracy. And in truth, doing anything to excess is apt to repay us with a great change to the opposite — in seasons, in plants, in bodies, and
not least in constitutions. —Likely enough, he said. —For excessive freedom seems to change into nothing else but excessive slavery, for individual and city alike. —That is likely. —Likely, then, I said, that tyranny is established out of no other constitution than democracy — out of extreme freedom, I suppose, the greatest and most savage slavery. —That makes sense, he said. —But that,
I think, I said, was not what you were asking; rather, what disease, growing in oligarchy and the same in democracy, enslaves it. —True, he said. —Well, I said, I meant that class of idle and extravagant men, the most courageous part leading, the less manly part following. We compared them, you recall, to drones — some with stings, some stingless. —And
rightly so, he said. —These two kinds, then, I said, arising in any constitution, throw it into turmoil, as phlegm and bile do in a body. Against them the good physician and lawgiver of a city must take precautions from afar, no less than a skilled beekeeper — best of all so that they never arise; but if they do arise, to see them cut out as quickly as possible, honeycombs and all. —Yes,
by Zeus, he said, absolutely. —Then let us take it this way, I said, so that we may see more distinctly what we are after. —How? —Let us in speech divide the democratic city into three parts, as indeed it actually is divided. One part, I take it, is this class of drones, which springs up in it through the general license no less than in the oligarchic city. —So it is. —But it is much fiercer in this one
than in that. —How so? —There, because it is held in no honor and is kept out of office, it goes untrained and never grows strong. But in a democracy this class is, with few exceptions, the very leadership of the city: its fiercest part does the talking and the acting, while the rest settle buzzing around the speakers' platforms and will not tolerate anyone saying anything different; so that
everything in such a constitution, apart from a few matters, is managed by this class. —Quite so, he said. —Then there is a second group that keeps separating itself out of the mass. —Which one? —When everyone is out making money, those who are by nature most orderly generally become the richest. —Likely. —And from them, I think, the drones can squeeze the most honey, and most easily. —How indeed, he said, could anyone squeeze it
out of those who have little? —So these rich men, I think, are called the drones' pasture. —Pretty much, he said. —And the third class would be the people: all those who work with their own hands, keep clear of public affairs, and own very little — the largest and most sovereign class in a democracy, whenever it assembles. —So it is, he said; but it is not often willing to do that unless it gets some share of the honey.
—And it always does get a share, I said, insofar as the leaders are able: stripping property from those who have it and distributing it to the people, they keep the greater part for themselves. —Yes, he said, that is how it shares. —Then those who are stripped are compelled, I suppose, to defend themselves, speaking before the people and acting as they can. —Of course. —And so they are accused by the others,
even if they have no desire for revolution, of plotting against the people and being oligarchs. —Naturally. —And in the end, when they see the people trying to wrong them — not willingly, but out of ignorance, deceived by the slanderers — then at last, whether they wish it or not, they become genuine oligarchs, not willingly, but this evil too is bred by that drone stinging
them. —Precisely. —Then come impeachments and trials and lawsuits against one another. —Yes indeed. —And is it not always the people's habit to set up some one man as their special champion, and to nurture him and make him great? —It is their habit. —This much, then, is clear, I said: whenever a tyrant grows, it is from the root of championship and from nowhere else that he shoots up. —Very clear. —What,
then, is the beginning of the change from champion to tyrant? Isn't it clear that it comes when the champion begins to do the same thing as the man in the tale told about the temple of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia? —What tale? he said. —That whoever tastes the one bit of human entrails minced in among the entrails of other victims must necessarily become a wolf. Haven't you heard
the story? —I have. —Isn't it the same, then, with a champion of the people? Once he has an obedient mob well in hand, and does not hold back from the blood of his own tribe, but with unjust accusations — as such men love to do — hales a man into court and stains himself with murder, blotting out a human life, tasting kindred blood with unholy tongue and mouth; and banishes and kills, and hints at cancellations of debts and redistribution of land — is it not thereafter necessity for such a man,
and fated, either to be destroyed by his enemies or to be tyrant, and to become a wolf instead of a man? —Great necessity, he said. —This, then, I said, is the man who raises faction against those who have property. —The very one. —And if he is driven out and comes back in despite of his enemies, does he not return a finished tyrant? —Clearly. —But if they lack the power to cast him out or to put him to death
by setting the city against him, they plot to kill him secretly by violent death. —That, at least, he said, is what tends to happen. —And thereupon comes that notorious tyrant's request which everyone who has advanced to this stage discovers: to ask the people for a bodyguard, so that the people's helper may be kept safe for them. —Exactly, he said. —And they grant it, I suppose, fearing for him
and confident about themselves. —Quite so. —And when a man with money sees this — a man who along with his money bears the charge of hating the people — then, my friend, in the words of the oracle given to Croesus, he flees along the pebble-strewn Hermus, will not stand his ground, and blushes not at cowardice. —No, he said, for he would never get a second chance to be ashamed. —And whoever is caught, I said,
is delivered to death. —Necessarily. —As for that champion himself, plainly he does not lie mighty in his mightiness, but having brought down many others he stands in the chariot of the city, a finished tyrant instead of a champion. —What else would he be? he said. —Shall we then go through, I said, the happiness of the man and of the city in which such a mortal arises?
—By all means, he said, let us go through it. —Well, I said, in the first days and the first season doesn't he smile at everyone and greet whomever he meets, denying that he is a tyrant, promising much in private and in public, freeing men from debts, distributing land to the people and to his circle, and pretending to be gracious and gentle
to all? —Necessarily, he said. —But when, I suppose, he has settled with some of his enemies abroad and destroyed others, and there is quiet on that front, he first keeps stirring up wars, so that the people may be in need of a leader. —Likely enough. —And also so that, made poor by paying war-taxes, they may be forced to attend to their daily bread and plot less against him? —Clearly.
—And if, I think, he suspects some of harboring free thoughts and of being unwilling to leave him in power — so that he may destroy them on some pretext by handing them to the enemy? For all these reasons must a tyrant always be stirring up war? —He must. —And by doing this he is the readier to be hated by the citizens? —Of course. —And won't some of those who helped set him up, men who hold power, speak frankly to him
and to one another, criticizing what happens — the boldest among them at least? —Likely. —Then the tyrant must quietly do away with all of these, if he means to rule, until he has left not one of his friends or enemies who is worth anything. —Clearly. —He must keep a sharp eye, then, for who is courageous, who high-minded, who wise, who rich; and so happy is his lot that, whether he wishes it or not,
he is forced to be the enemy of all these and to plot against them until he has purged the city. —A fine purge, he said. —Yes, I said, the opposite of what physicians do with bodies: they remove the worst and leave the best; he does the reverse. —It seems, he said, that he must, if he is going to rule. —A blessed necessity binds him, then, I said,
which commands him either to live with a crowd of worthless men, hated by them at that, or not to live at all. —Blessed indeed, he said. —And the more he is hated by the citizens for doing these things, won't he need more bodyguards, and more trustworthy ones? —Of course. —Who, then, are the trustworthy? And where will he send for them? —They will come flying of their own accord, he said, in swarms,
if he pays the wage. —Drones again, I said — by the Dog, I think you mean drones of some foreign and motley sort. —You think truly, he said. —But what about recruits from the city itself? Wouldn't he be willing— —To do what? —To take the slaves away from the citizens, free them, and make them part of his bodyguard. —Very much so, he said; for these are indeed the most trustworthy men he has.
—What a blessed thing, I said, this tyrant business is, by your account, if such are the friends and trusty men he employs after destroying those earlier ones. —Well, he said, such are certainly the ones he employs. —And these companions admire him, I said, and the new citizens keep his company, while the decent people hate him and shun him? —How could they not? —It is not for nothing, I said,
"Tragedy in general is thought to be a wise thing, and Euripides outstanding in it." Why is that? "Because this too was a saying steeped in dense thought — that tyrants are wise through their association with the wise. And he clearly meant that those they keep company with are the wise ones." "And he praises tyranny," he said, "as being equal to a god, and many other things too — he and the other poets as well."
So then, I said, since the poets of tragedy are wise, they will forgive us and forgive those who govern along lines close to ours, for not admitting them into our constitution, since they are hymn-singers of tyranny. "I think they will forgive us," he said, "at least those of them who are sophisticated. But going around to the other cities, I imagine, gathering the crowds, and hiring beautiful, loud, persuasive voices,"
they drag the constitutions toward tyrannies and democracies. "Quite so." And besides this they also receive wages for it, and are honored — most of all, as one would expect, by tyrants, and second by democracies. But the further up they go, toward the steeper places among the constitutions, the more their honor gives out, as though unable to go on, out of breath. "Certainly." But well then, I said,
here we've made a digression — let's go back to speaking of that army of the tyrant, the fine and numerous and multifarious army, never the same, and ask where it will be fed from. "Clearly," he said, "if there are sacred funds in the city, he will spend these, for as long as the property of those selling off their goods holds out, forcing the people to pay in smaller contributions." "And what, when"
these run short? "Clearly," he said, "then he himself, and his fellow drinkers and companions, male and female, will be fed from his father's estate." I understand, I said — that the people who begot the tyrant will feed him and his companions. "That's a great necessity for it," he said. What do you mean? I said. "If the people get indignant and say that it isn't right for a grown son to be fed"
by his father — rather the opposite, the father by the son — nor did they beget him and set him up for this purpose, so that once he grew great, he himself, enslaved to his own slaves, should feed both him and the slaves along with a rabble of others, but rather so that, with him standing at their head, they might be freed from the rich and those called fine and good in the city — and now he orders
him and his companions to leave the city, just as a father drives a son out of the house along with his troublesome drinking-companions? "By Zeus, he'll come to know then," he said, "the people will, what sort of creature it was that it begot and cherished and made great, and that being weaker, it is driving out the stronger." What do you mean? I said. Will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and beat him, if he doesn't obey?
"Yes," he said, "once he's taken away his weapons." You mean, I said, that the tyrant is a father-beater, and a harsh nurse of his own old age, and, it seems, this at last would be tyranny openly acknowledged, and, as the saying goes, the people, fleeing the smoke of slavery to free men, would have fallen into the fire of despotism by slaves — exchanging that excessive and untimely freedom for the harshest and bitterest
slavery of slaves. "Yes indeed," he said, "that's just how it happens." Well then, I said, wouldn't it be fitting for us to say that we have adequately gone through how tyranny changes over from democracy, and what it is like once it has come to be? "Quite adequately indeed," he said.