summary of book 8 of the republic

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The Republic

The republic summary and analysis of book viii.

"Four Forms of Government"

Summary: Book VIII

The discourse begins with Socrates heralding their need to backtrack a little. Now that the true State and true human have been clearly illustrated, the philosophers can revive the thread introduced earlier in the dialogue: that on the nature of corrupt forms of government and individual. They begin with government, of which there are principally four defective forms.

Taking the ideal aristocratic State as a starting point, Socrates describes its disintegration into timocracy, the first and least unjust form of corrupt government. The timocratic man then, reflects the State in that he is contentious and ambitious. Oligarchy comes next and is a government ruled by the wealthy property owner who, in terms of individual men, is the avaricious son of the timocrat.

The democratic State arises when a third‹a middle‹class forms between the very rich and the very poor, and, through and alliance with the poor, sparks a revolution, overthrowing the complacent rulers. Afterward, Socrates says, magistrates are normally elected by lots from among the most varied population of any State. Democracy is presented as a sort of blissfully depraved and disordered State, and its representative is a man ruled by unbridled appetites tamed only by an enfeebled moral sense.

Socrates, slowly closing the door on democracy, shows how each State's central quality engenders its dissolution. Therefore, Socrates tells his auditors, the insatiable desire for freedom evolves democracy into tyranny. The tyrant, as result of ruthlessness during his ascendancy, must invariably either kill or be killed. He chooses to kill, and continues killing until all opposition, good or bad, is annihilated. In the end the tyrant enslaves the entire state upon threat of death or expulsion; and thus excessive freedom becomes the harshest slavery.

Analysis: Book VIII

The timocratic State (or government of honor) arises from the ideal when there is discord. Socrates creates a suitable discord in their State by projecting a future mistake in population control. But this mistake is treated satirically, not seriously; and Plato is, perhaps mendaciously, protecting his investment. The problem of controlling nature, duly acknowledged by Plato in the passage, is, in fact, a very real‹and insurmountable‹obstacle the State faces in practice. By satirizing it, Plato degrades the difficulty unfairly.

Timocracy is the result of the intermixing of races (gold and silver with iron and brass, etc.) and the unbalancing of education in favor of gymnasium over music. Plato provides a delightful and credible psycho-social portrayal of the timocratic man as torn between a father of philosophic and noble temperament and a mother and society moving more and more toward materialistic ends.

Oligarchy (wealth and property) is the tipping of the balance over into abject greed and materialism. Class division between rich and poor immediately appear; and for Plato, any division is negative and a sign of injustice. The oligarchic man's chief concern is acquisition; only vanity and regard for his status in the community prevent him from roguery.

The final blow to the security of the fattened democratic rulers is the perception by the middle or poor man that his governor is a coward. The rulers of a democracy tend toward extravagance and thus are softened physically and mentally. All that needs happen, Plato writes, is for enough of the underclass to see the debility of their Œsuperiors' in action; or, alternatively, an outside force‹a new party, for example‹may do the same incendiary work..

Plato's critique of democracy is highly ironic at first. Then the moral is exposed. What democracy theoretically stands for: freedom, variety, Œindividuality,' is, in reality, an equality of unequals. It is based on the presumption that, in modern terms, Œall men are created equalŠ' Plato has throughout the entire book rejected this as a premise. Instead of supposing every man is innately good, Plato holds that every man has a right to pursue the good.

Because the democratic man forfeits the leadership of both reason and soul, he is subject to the caprices of the appetites. He is scattered‹the opposite of the uniformly integrated man, the man under rule of reason, the philosopher.

How freedom engenders tyranny is rather complicated, and hinges on intrigue, deception, and misunderstanding. Since the rulers are neither rich nor poor (nor competent), they are forced to constantly switch allegiances between their two benefactors, of which the rich are, obviously, the more financially valuable, while the poor are the more quantitatively valuable. As a result of some misunderstanding, the magistrates are variously accused and, eventually, overthrown by the poor. The poor then chooses a champion who promises the abolition of debts, etc. This champion inevitably realizes his power, the angry mob, and uses it for personal ends‹namely, power and wealth; thus is born the tyrant.

The tyrant utterly abuses his position; in fact, he must abuse it or face pain of death. He enters a race against his opponents; he enters wars so that he may have a reason to lead; he taxes; he surrounds himself with guardians; and, finally, he robs the elders of the State, who have conserved their money in the oligarchic fashion. The lesson of the tyrant, as it comes from Plato, is that the illusion of unlimited freedom in a democracy makes the slavish limitation of tyranny possible. Having no moral restraints, no conception of the good, the tyrant need not obey laws nor any other formal or public injunctions against his behavior. Unlimited freedom, as Dostoyevsky warns, means "everything is permitted."

The Republic Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Republic is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What was Socrates main criticism of Athenian democracy?

Socrates main criticism of Athenian democray was centered around the indviduals within the democracy that gained their wealth and power using words, propaganda, and flattery to garner the support of the Athenian citizens.

Why are shadows tree than objects outside the cave?

Socrates suggests that the shadows are reality for the prisoners because they have never seen anything else; they do not realize that what they see are shadows of objects in front of a fire, much less that these objects are inspired by real things...

Plato's The Republic Book 6

• Truthfulness

• Temperance

• Gentility

• Keenness of memory

Study Guide for The Republic

The Republic study guide contains a biography of Plato, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Republic
• The Republic Summary
• Character List
• Book I Summary and Analysis
• Related Links

Essays for The Republic

The Republic literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Republic.

• The Abolishment of Gender Roles in On Liberty and The Republic: Mill's Ethic of Choice Transcends Plato's Doctrine of Justice
• Plato and Gender Equality
• Property in the Ideal State
• The Metaphor of the Cave
• Equal Opportunity in the Republic

Lesson Plan for The Republic

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Republic
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• The Republic Bibliography

E-Text of The Republic

The Republic e-text contains the full text of The Republic by Plato.

• THE INTRODUCTION

Wikipedia Entries for The Republic

• Introduction
• Place in Plato's corpus

The Republic Book VIII Summary

Five kinds of government.

• All right, so the dudes have all agreed that in the best city, people will have everything in common: women, the education of children, and the military. Soldiers will have common housing and will receive only a very small wage to cover their service to the city.
• Now Socrates wants to return to whatever they were talking about way back when, before they got on this tangent. Glaucon reminds him that he was about to outline four types of government and four types of men that are different from what they've created but still worth discussing. This discussion will hopefully help them understand whether the best people are also happy and whether the worst are unhappy.
• The four types of governments are: 1) the Cretan and Laconian regimes (the kind of government Sparta was famous for, where athleticism and military ability were the most important things—Socrates later invents a word and calls it a "timocracy," which means "the rule of honor"), 2) oligarchy (when a group of powerful, often wealthy people are in charge), 3) democracy, and 4) tyranny.
• Socrates suggests that these four types are more like a general outline of common forms of government; there are actually a huge number of types of governments. There are probably as many kinds of governments as there are types of people—since, you know, people ultimately make up all kinds of government.
• Socrates has already said the best kind of government, the kind that their republic is, is an aristocracy, and that a person who rules himself as if he were an aristocracy himself is the best kind of person.
• Socrates then suggests that they go through each kind of regime step-by-step in order to determine what qualities each has. They'll then imagine the kind of individual who would have these qualities. This will allow them to see how justice and injustice function, and it will allow them to decide whether justice or injustice makes you happier.
• The first regime they consider is 2) the Laconian regime, which Socrates names a "timocracy" ("a government of honor") because this kind of government is completely obsessed with honor and glory.
• First, Socrates wants to understand how such a government comes to be. He imagines that a timocracy arises when something goes wrong in an aristocracy.
• How? Well, even though aristocracy is the best kind of government, no one is perfect, so Socrates imagines that at some point some people will disobey the rules of the government and will have children when they shouldn't. For some very strange and weird reasons related to geometry, these children will be worse than they should be and will not govern as well.
• Eventually, there will be a division between those who are interested in making money and having possessions and those interested in philosophy and virtue. Eventually, they will reintroduce private property, people will be enslaved, and war will consume all their energy.
• Everyone agrees that this is how such a government would come to exist. They also agree that timocracy is the type of government that comes between aristocracy and oligarchy.
• They next imagine that some aspects of this new government will be like aristocracy, so they will divide the duties of the city into separate roles (farming vs. military) and will engage in their meals and their athletic training all in common spaces.
• But, unlike the previous regime, and more like an oligarchy, the timocracy won't put the wisest guys in charge of the city; they'll put the ones who are totally into war and conflict in charge. These rulers will also be into money and will try to do anything to acquire and save their own moolah while happily spending their friends' money on bad things.
• Why are these rulers like this? Because their education was forced on them and because athletics was way more emphasized than music or philosophy.
• They all agree that they've done a good job describing this kind of government, considering that they can't spend too much time on each. This government, they decide, will be especially characterized by its love of victory and of honor.
• Now they need to figure out what kind of person would be most like this government.
• Adeimantus suggests that it might be someone like Glaucon, but Socrates says that Glaucon is not stubborn enough and too good at music. Furthermore, this kind of person would love rhetoric, without actually being good at it. He would be harsh to his slaves but respectful to his equals. He would be a hunting enthusiast and would love athletics. Even though he would not be obsessed with money in his youth, he would come to like it when he grew older.
• Because this man would not have been properly trained in both music and argumentation, he wouldn't be as devoted to virtue as he should be.
• Everyone agrees that this sounds like a timocratic man, so Socrates goes on to explain how such a man would come to be.
• Socrates says such a person would be the child of an idealistic father and a nagging mother. Because the father hated all the gossip and pettiness of political life, he would have left that world and tried to mind his own business.
• As a result, his wife would always be angry with him because their family wasn't in a better position socially and financially. So the young boy would hear both these things and perceive that his father wasn't very highly esteemed in the city. He would feel divided in what he cared about. His father would appeal and cultivate the boy's sense of thoughtfulness and virtue, but the other outside influences would cultivate his spirit and his desires (the lower two parts of the soul, remember?).
• He would therefore not be a bad kid, but he would be too arrogant and too obsessed with honor.
• Everyone thinks Socrates has got it exactly right, and so they decide to move onto oligarchy.
• Socrates defines oligarchy as the rule of the rich founded on an obsession with acquiring property.
• Next, Socrates describes how a timocracy will turn into an oligarchy as people become greedier and greedier.
• As people compete with each other to acquire more wealth, it soon becomes the case that the most honorable thing to be in the city is wealthy. Virtue is totally degraded, because wealth and virtue are always at odds, and soon no one will care about being virtuous at all. They'll just care about money... and more money.
• Now that the city is obsessed with money, the people will select the wealthiest people in the city to be their rulers. They'll make all these laws dictating how much money you need to have in order to rule.
• Next, Socrates describes the character of the city and the problems it has.
• First of all, because it makes wealth the criterion for ruling, it's quite possible that the best potential leaders won't be in charge, simply because they aren't rich enough.
• Second, because there is such a sharp divide between the rich and the poor, they will always be plotting against each other and causing problems.
• The oligarchy will be terrible at fighting war because they won't want to arm their citizens out of fear of a rebellion. They also won't want to fight themselves. And they won't want to actually fund a war, because they love their money too much. That doesn't leave many options.
• Also, everyone will be trying to do too many things at once—like farm, make money, and fight—so no one will do one particular thing very well.
• Intense poverty will be a huge problem, because everyone will want more for themselves and won't care if someone else loses everything.
• And these super-duper wealthy people... are they even helping the city out? Doing anything for it? Nope. They're just interested in their own moolah and their own private problems.
• Just as drones (you know, bees) have either wings or stingers but are annoying either way, so will the city be filled will either beggars or troublemakers. Everyone knows that wherever you see lots of poverty, you're also sure to see lots of crime, too.
• In fact, Socrates and friends all suspect that pretty much everyone in that kind of city will end up being poor except for the rulers.
• All these problems come from the fact that this city will have a bad educational system, bad parenting, and a bad form of governing.
• Next, Socrates and company need to figure out what kind of person corresponds to this government and how he comes into being.
• Socrates imagines that the oligarchic man will be the son of a timocratic man who will at first look up to his father and emulate him. But then he will see his father fall from office due to corruption in the government, and he will watch his father lose everything.
• Once he sees this, he'll be afraid of the same thing happening to him. So he'll decide that he doesn't care about honor; he only cares about money.
• The oligarchic man will end up making the rational and the spirited parts of his soul subservient to the desiring part, and everything his soul will aim for will be about money.
• They all agree that this description sounds like the oligarchic man, and now they want to characterize him.
• He'll be intensely greedy. He'll think that money is the most important thing in life, and so he'll be totally stingy.
• He'll be kind of a hoarder, keeping things to himself and always trying to make a profit.
• He won't devote himself at all to education and will probably have plenty of nasty desires that he'll only keep in check because he's afraid of spending money.
• Socrates thinks that a way to really tell what the oligarchic man is like is to watch how he cares for other people, such as orphans.
• Because the oligarchic man's desires are never in order but are always competing for attention, he himself will be divided.
• He will be rather graceful, but not because he is harmonious on the inside.
• He won't be a very good member of any community, either, because he won't spend money on anything, not even to fight a war properly.
• Everyone agrees that this pretty much sums up what an oligarchic man would be like.
• All right. We're on to democracy. Let's find out how it came into being out of oligarchy.
• Socrates imagines that because an oligarchy isn't very well ruled and doesn't have any kind of legal system in place to monitor and aid the poor, the poor will become very angry and bitter.
• People become poor in the oligarchic city very easily because they can enter into contracts without any kind of potential risk to themselves.
• Now, because this city is sick, just the smallest little thing can push it over the edge and make it completely ill. For even a small reason, the poor will rise up, cast out the wealthy rulers, and establish a democracy.
• In this democracy, the poor will get to be the ones ruling, and they will create a system of ruling by vote.
• A city like this will be characterized by freedom. People will have freedom of speech, and they'll have the freedom to do whatever they want. Because they can do what they want, people will tend to involve themselves in their own private business.
• This kind of government will also produce the most diverse population. Socrates admits that there is a certain loveliness to this kind of government. It's like a cloak that is beautiful because it has so many colors.
• In fact, because democracy is so striking and beautiful, many people become mistakenly convinced that it's the best kind of government.
• Democracies are useful to people like Socrates and company, who are interested in studying all kinds of governments, because they contain such a variety of people and leadership styles.
• Democracies don't provide any legal compulsion for certain people to rule or to fight wars and they tend to be compassionate toward people who have been condemned.
• Furthermore, because of the way democracy works, it doesn't enforce rules that might determine what kind of people should be in charge; it simply rewards the person who has the most popular appeal.
• Now to figure out the democratic man. Socrates imagines that he will be the son of a stingy, oligarchic man and will be the kind of person who thinks that any of his desires that don't lead to moneymaking are unnecessary.
• Before describing the democratic man further, Socrates wants to quickly differentiate necessary desires from unnecessary ones.
• Necessary desires are desires that a person cannot justly ignore, often because they are part of human nature.
• Unnecessary desires are those that, with lots of practice, a person can free himself from and whose presence doesn't do the person any good.
• So, an example of a necessary desire would be eating out of hunger, while overeating just for pleasure would be an unnecessary desire.
• Socrates then compares these two kinds of desires to two attitudes towards money. He suggests that necessary desires are like making money, because they are useful and productive, while unnecessary desires are like being stingy, since they hoard without use.
• So, they conclude that the stingy, oligarchic man will be like necessary desires while a big spender will be like the unnecessary desires.
• Okay, so back to how the democratic man comes to exist. He's the son of a stingy, oligarchic guy, so his childhood is, well, stingy. When he gets a bit older and meets other people who are into pleasures and doing fun things, he'll follow them, since he's sick of his stingy childhood.
• However, he's still his father's son, so he's excited by new, fun opportunities, but at the same time, he's wary of being too overindulgent. So he's constantly at war with himself, not knowing what to do and not being able to rely on the solid foundation of a good education.
• Without this good education, arrogance and boasting will take hold of him, and in the end, he'll choose to hang out with the fun, pleasure-loving people who breed chaos, anarchy, and wastefulness.
• For the rest of his life, the democratic man will go and back forth between greater indulgence and lesser indulgence, not understanding why either might be better or worse for him but deciding it's best to just treat them equally.
• The democratic man will live day by day and try out whatever new and exciting thing strikes his fancy. Many people will say he lives a good life, full of variety, excitement, and freedom.
• Finally, it's time to talk about tyranny, which, you won't be at all surprised to hear, is born out of democracy.
• Just as oligarchy collapsed under its own obsession with wealth, so, too, will democracy collapse under its own obsession with freedom.
• If a ruler doesn't grant enough freedom, or if he tries to punish his citizens, he—and any of his followers—will be condemned as compromising freedom.
• Anarchy will be a part of every aspect of the city, since even animals will model themselves on the example of their government.
• Instead of people fearing their elders and those in positions of authority, the opposite will happen: people in authority will fear the people and so flatter and placate them.
• Disorder will be everywhere, and people will become so protective of the idea of their freedom that they will stop obeying the law altogether.
• So this is the kind of climate that ends up producing tyranny, a climate cursed with the same disease as oligarchy. It's a disease that makes them both fail, since an excessive amount of anything tends to lead to its opposite excess: too much freedom in democracy leads to slavery under tyranny.
• Adeimantus wants to know what exactly this disease is that's plagued both oligarchy and democracy. Socrates responds that it's having a class of opinionated, lazy, and extravagant people who have a bunch of tedious followers.
• Socrates says this metaphorical disease is what both doctors and rulers need to be the most diligent about preventing.
• To explain this disease in democracy further, Socrates goes on to say that in a democracy there are three distinct categories of people.
• First, there are 1) these lazy extravagant people. They're also the fiercest: because they're not given any actual positions of power in the city, so they're always having to fight to be heard.
• Next, there are 2) the wealthy, who are also the most powerful.
• Finally, there are 3) your average citizens who work, don't have much, and are very interested in participating in government.
• The leaders of a democracy realize this, and so they strategically keep giving money to the poor as a way to actually keep the majority of it for themselves.
• Now, when someone is in trouble and might have his property taken, he has to plead with the public in order to defend himself.
• It's also usually the case in a democracy that certain men grow very popular and are supported and groomed as future leaders. Socrates sees this as the very beginning of tyranny.
• A leader becomes a tyrant when he's fighting against the crowd and becomes vicious, for example by executing someone for no reason.
• Now that he's shed blood, this ruler will become ruthless and will either be killed or become a tyrant.
• Once he survives as a tyrant, he will forget any promises of legal change he's made.
• He'll lead an attack on the wealthy of the city and will cause resentment to build up against him. He'll then require the help of bodyguards from the city.
• The typical trajectory of a tyrant's reign begins on a good note: he's friendly, delivers on his promises, and feeds the poor to keep them quiet.
• Then he stirs up a war as a way to eliminate some of his internal enemies, and he starts to become less and less liked.
• When his trusted advisors offer him any kind of criticism, he'll kill them, too. He'll start to kill anyone who seems too impressive and who might be a challenger.
• Naturally, the people will hate him more and more, so he'll need even more security and more companions. He'll either get them from abroad or by freeing the slaves of some his citizens, making them his personal bodyguards.
• Socrates imagines that among these companions will be some wise men, since Euripides, a tragic poet, said that tyrants often surround themselves with the wise. For praising tyranny in this way, it's obvious yet again that poets won't be allowed in Socrates's city.
• In fact, poets are known to go around spreading praise for both tyranny and democracy, because both those regimes—but especially tyranny—offer poets the most support.
• Anyway, back to tyrants. Adeimantus suggests that a tyrant will get his money from spending the sacred money of the city and from all the property he's confiscated from his enemies.
• Once this runs out, the tyrant will rely on his friends, then on the parents of his friends, then even on his own parents, not at all respecting the idea that adults should take care of their parents.
• In fact, if the tyrant's father refuses to support his son, the tyrant will probably kill him.
• Well, now Socrates and the gang have seen how a government can change from being totally free to totally enslaving.

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W hy's T his F unny?

The Dialogues of Plato — Translation by David Horan

Plato’s republic.

Version Date: 11 January 2023

Persons in the dialogue: Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Polemarchus, Cephalus, Thrasymachus, Cleitophon, and others

543A “So there it is. This has now been agreed, Glaucon. For a city to be governed at its very best, women are to be shared, children are to be shared, and all education too. And in like manner, all activities are to be shared, both in war and in peace, and those among them who turn out best in philosophy and in warfare too, are to be their kings.”

“This was agreed,” said he.

543B “And indeed we also accepted that once the rulers are in place, they will take the soldiers in hand and settle them in living arrangements of the sort we have already described, which are common to all, with nothing private to anyone. And as well as such living arrangements, we also agreed upon the sort of possessions they will have, as you may recall.”

“Yes,” said he, “I recall. We thought that none of them should acquire any of the possessions that everyone else has nowadays. Rather, like warrior athletes and guardians, they must care for themselves and for the rest of the city, 543C  accepting their guardians’ pay for the year from the others, to sustain them in their work.”[1]

“You are right,” said I, “but come on. Now that we have concluded this, let us remember where we digressed from, so that we may proceed along the same course once more.”

“That is not difficult,” said he. “You presented your arguments about the city then, much as you are doing now, as though the exposition was complete.[2] You proposed a city, saying that a city like the one you had described was good, and so was the man who resembled it, 543D even though, it seems, you were able to speak of a still more beautiful city 544A and a more beautiful man too. But in any case, you were saying that if this city is right, the others are in error, and you maintained, as I recall, that there are four other forms of government besides this one. You said these would be worth describing, to see their particular errors, and the kinds of people who resemble these forms, and having agreed upon who is the most excellent and who is the worst man, we might then investigate whether the most excellent person is happiest, and the worst is most wretched, or whether the situation is otherwise. And when I was asking you which four forms of government 544B you meant, Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted at that stage,[3] and so it was that you took up the argument again and arrived here.”

“That is right,” said I. “You have remembered this very well.”

“So then, like a wrestler, offer me the same hold once more, and in response to my same question try to say what you were about to say at the time.”

“I shall, if I am able to,” said I.

“And indeed,” said he, “I am also anxious to learn for myself what four forms of government you were referring to then.”

544C “That is not difficult,” said I, “so listen. The forms I am referring to are those that have names. First is the one that most people praise, your Cretan or Spartan form. Second to arise, and second too in terms of praise, is the one called oligarchy, a form of government full of evils aplenty. Next comes the adversary of this form, democracy. And then there is noble tyranny, set apart from all the others, the fourth and last disease of the city. Or can you think of any other form of government of any type that constitutes 544D another obvious form? Indeed dynasties, purchased kingships, and other forms of government of this sort are presumably something intermediate between these four, and they are to be found no less among the Barbarians than among the Greeks.”

“Yes,” said he, “many unusual forms are spoken of.”

“Now,” said I, “do you know that there must be as many types of human character as there are forms of government? Or do you think that forms of government come into existence from oak or from rock,[4] and not 544E from the characters of the people in the cities which, in a sense, exert their influence, and pull everything else in their direction.”

“Yes,” said he, “that is where they come from and not from anywhere else at all.”

“In that case, if there are five types of cities, there would also be five conditions of individual souls.”

“Indeed.”

“Well now, we have already described the person who resembles the aristocracy, whom we rightly declare to be good and just.”

545A “We have.”

“Now after this should we not describe the lesser men – first the ambitious fellow who loves honour and corresponds to the Spartan form of government, then the oligarchic man, the democratic, and finally the tyrannical? Would this not enable us to look at the most unjust man, alongside the most just man, and complete our enquiry as to where exactly pure justice stands relative to pure injustice, in relation to the happiness or wretchedness 545B of their possessor, so that we could either be persuaded by Thrasymachus and pursue injustice, or accept the argument that is now emerging, and pursue justice?”

“Yes,” said he, “that is what we should do. Entirely so.”

“Well now, we began this process by considering the characters of the various forms of government, where they are more obvious, prior to considering those of the individuals. So should we proceed in a similar way now, and consider first the form of government that loves honour? In our language I have no other name to call it except timocracy or timarchy, and in relation to this we shall consider the man who resembles it. Then after that we shall consider the oligarchy and the oligarchic man. 545C And after looking at the democracy, we shall behold the democratic man. And arriving at the fourth city, the tyrannical one, and looking at that, and at the tyrannical soul too, we shall try to become competent judges of the issues we have put forward.”

“Well,” said he, “if we proceed in this way, our perspective and our judgement would surely be reasonable.”

“Come on then,” said I. “Let us try to describe the way in which timocracy would arise from aristocracy. Or is it simply that 545D change in any form of government comes from the part of it that exercises authority, whenever faction arises in that particular part, whereas if it is of one mind, even if it is very small, no disturbance is possible?”

“Yes, indeed so.”

“So Glaucon,” said I, “how shall this city of ours be disturbed, and in what way shall our auxiliaries and our rulers develop factions against one another, and against themselves? Or would you prefer that we copy Homer, and pray to the Muses to tell us how faction 545E first came about,[5] and we could declare that they are playing with us, like children, speaking lightly but in a tragic style, pretending to be serious by speaking in a lofty manner?”

“How?”

546A “As follows. Although it is difficult to disturb a city that has been constituted in this way, nevertheless, since destruction is the lot of anything that has come into being, even something constituted like this will not endure for all time. It too will be dissolved, and its dissolution will be as follows. Not alone for the plants in the earth, but also among the animals on the earth, there is productiveness and sterility of their souls and bodies as they run their circular course and complete their cycles, which are short for those who are short- lived, and longer for the long-lived. But for your 546B race, although the people whom you educated as leaders of the city are wise, they will be unable by calculation combined with sense experience, to hit upon the best time for bringing children to birth, and for not bearing children. This will evade them, and they will on occasion bring forth children when they should not.

“Now, divine birth has a cycle that the perfect number encompasses. But for a human being the number is the first in which root and square increases, having comprehended three distances and four limits of whatever brings about likenesses and unlikenesses, waxings 546C and wanings, renders all things mutually agreeable and expressible towards one another. Of these four, three yoked together with five yields two harmonies when increased threefold. The first is equal, an equal number of times, one hundred times this amount. The other is equal in length on one side, but it is oblong on the other side of one hundred squares of rational diameters of five diminished by one each; or if of irrational diameters, by two, on the other of one hundred cubes of three.

“This entire geometrical number is lord of anything like this,[6] of better and worse births. And whenever our guardians, in 546D ignorance of this, make brides cohabit with bridegrooms inappropriately, their children will be neither well developed nor fortunate. And although their predecessors will install the best of them in power, nevertheless, being unworthy, when their turn comes to rule and exercise the powers of their fathers they will begin, as guardians, firstly to pay little heed to us Muses by regarding our realm of music as less important, and secondly they will neglect the realm of gymnastics too, and so your own young people will become less musical. From these, 546E rulers will be installed who cannot exercise much guardianship when it comes to testing 547A for the races of Hesiod,[7] and of your people too,[8]the gold, silver, bronze and iron. The indiscriminate mixing of iron with silver, and of bronze with gold, will produce dissimilarity and an inappropriate inconsistency, which always beget war and enmity wherever they arise. So we should declare that ‘such is the lineage’ of faction,[9] whenever and wherever it occurs.”

“And we shall declare,” said he, “that they have answered correctly.”

“As they must,” said I, “since they are Muses.”

547B “Well then,” said he, “what shall the Muses say next?”

“Once faction had arisen,” said I, “both races began to exert their influence, the iron and brass kinds drawing the city towards the acquisition of money, land and property, gold and silver, while the gold and silver kinds, for their part – since these are not in poverty but are naturally wealthy of soul – led in the direction of excellence and the ancient order. As they struggled violently in opposite directions, they eventually agreed to compromise, distribute land and property for themselves, and make these private. 547C With this, they enslaved those they had previously guarded as free men, friends and supporters, by treating them as serfs and underlings, while they themselves attended to warfare and guarding themselves against their former friends.”

“I think,” said he, “that this is how the change comes about.”

“Would not this form of government,” said I, “be something in between aristocracy and oligarchy?”

“Very much so.”

“Well that is how it will change, but once it has changed, how will it be administered? Or is it obvious 547D that in some respects it will imitate the previous form of government, and in other respects the oligarchy, since it is in between them, and that it will also have something that is particular to itself?”

“Quite so,” said he.

“In the respect given to its rulers; the fact that its military class refrains from working the land, and from skilled labour, and from other sorts of money making; in its provision of common meals, and the attention it pays to physical exercise and military competition; in everything of this sort, will it not imitate the previous form?”

“Yes.”

547E “Will not the features, that for the most part are particular to itself, be its fear of admitting the wise to positions of authority, since it no longer has people of this sort who are straightforward and sincere, rather than complicated? Will it not also prefer spirited types who are simpler, more fitted by nature for war than peace, 548A who attach value to its tactics and strategies? And will it not spend all its time waging war?”

“And yet,” said I, “people like this will have a longing for money, just like those in the oligarchies, harbouring a concealed but fierce reverence for gold and silver because they have storehouses and private treasuries in which to keep it all hidden; and enclosures too, houses which are really private nests in which they spend their money, 548B lavishing it extravagantly on women, and on many others, whomever they please.”

“Very true,” said he.

“And they will also be miserly with money since they revere it and may not acquire it openly. Yet because of desire they love spending other people’s money, and enjoying their pleasures in secret, running away from the law like boys from their father, having been educated by force rather than persuasion, because they paid no heed to the true Muse who accompanies argument and philosophy, 548C and had more respect for gymnastics than for music.”

“You are,” said he, “most certainly describing a form of government that is a mixture of good and bad.”

“Yes, it is mixed,” said I, “but what is most distinctive about it is one particular feature. Due to the dominance of spiritedness in it, it is ambitious and loves honour.”

“Most certainly,” said he.

“Well,” said I, “this form of government would arise in this way, and this is what it would be like. This is just a verbal sketch providing an outline without the detail, 548D because a sketch will indeed be enough to reveal the most just person, and the most unjust. But to describe all forms of government and all their characters, omitting nothing, would be an inordinately lengthy undertaking.”

“That is right,” said he.

“Now, what about the man who corresponds to this form of government? How did he arise, and what sort of person is he?”

“I think,” said Adeimantus, “that when it comes to ambition at any rate he is quite like Glaucon here.”

548E “Well, in that respect,” said I, “perhaps you are right, but in other respects his nature is different.”

“In what respects?”

“He must be more stubborn,” said I, “and less musical even though he loves music, and despite being a good listener he is not at all 549A eloquent. And he would be aggressive towards slaves rather than merely looking down upon them, as an adequately educated person would do. Yet he would be gentle towards free men, and highly respectful towards those in authority. He himself loves authority, and he loves honour, and he is worthy of authority, not because of what he says or anything of that sort, but because of his achievements on the battlefield and in military affairs generally, being fond of physical exercise and of hunting.”

“Yes,” said he, “this is the character of that form of government.”

“Would not a person like this,” said I, “despise 549B money when young, but grow more and more fond of it the older he gets, because he has a share of this money-loving nature and is no longer directed towards excellence, purely and simply, because he has been deprived of its very best guardian?”

“What is that?” asked Adeimantus.

“Reason,” said I, “combined with music, which alone, once engendered, dwells as the lifelong preserver of excellence for whoever possesses it.”

“Very good,” said he.

“So that is what the young timocrat is like,” said I. “He is just like this sort of city.”

“Yes, indeed.”

549C “Now this person arises somewhat as follows,” said I. “Sometimes he is the young son of a good father who is living in a city that is not well run. His father shuns the honours, positions of authority, legal disputes and all business of that sort, and he is willing to accept loss of status to avoid trouble.”

“And how,” he asked, “does he become timocratic?”

“Whenever,” said I, “in the first place, he hears his mother being annoyed at the fact that her husband is not one of the rulers, and that she is losing status among the other women as a result. 549D She sees that he is not particularly serious about money, and does not fight or engage in slander, either in private or in the law-courts or public gatherings, but is indifferent to everything like this. She notices that he is constantly turned in on himself, does not show her much respect, and does not disrespect her either. And she gets annoyed at all this and tells her son that his father is unmanly, and extremely neglectful, and she repeats all the other expressions of this sort that women like to use when speaking of such men.”

549E “Yes,” said Adeimantus, “there are lots of them. That is what they are like.”

“And you know,” said I, “that the servants of such men, the ones that seem well- intentioned, sometimes say this sort of thing secretly to the sons. And if they see someone owing money to his father, or someone doing him some other injustice, someone whom the father will not pursue, they exhort him to take revenge on all such people 550A when he becomes a man, and be more of a man than his father. And when he goes out, he hears and sees other things of this sort. Those who do what belongs to themselves in the city[10] are called simple-minded and are held in little regard, while those who do not are honoured and praised. Then the young man, seeing and hearing all this, and also hearing the words of his father, and seeing his father’s actions from close up, alongside those of everyone else, is dragged in both 550B directions: his father encouraging and fostering the rational element in his soul, while the others foster the appetitive and spirited elements. Because he is not, by nature, a bad man, but has fallen into bad company of others, he is pulled by both of these, ends up in the middle, hands over the authority within himself to the middle element of ambition and spiritedness, and becomes a high-spirited man who loves honour.”

“I think,” said he, “that you have described the origin of this fellow quite accurately.”

550C “In that case,” said I, “we have our second form of government, and the corresponding man too.”

“We have, indeed,” said he.

“After this, should we, as Aeschylus says, speak of ‘another man set before another city’[11] or, according to our procedure, speak of the city first?”

“Yes, certainly,” said he.

“And the form of government that comes after this one would, I think, be oligarchy.”

“Well,” said he, “what kind of constitution do you call oligarchy?”

“The one that is based on a property qualification,” said I, “in which the rich rule, and the poor man has no share of authority.”

550D “I understand,” said he.

“Should we not say how the change from timocracy to oligarchy first begins?”

“And indeed,” said I, “even to the blind, it is obvious how this changes.”

“That treasury,” said I, “private to each, filled with gold, is what destroys a form of government of this sort. For in the first place they invent various extravagances for themselves, and divert the laws to this end by disobeying them themselves, and their wives do likewise.”

“Quite likely,” said he.

550E “Next, I imagine, they start watching each other, and by entering into rivalry they eventually make almost everyone else behave just like themselves.”

“That is likely.”

“And thereafter,” said I, “as they proceed further with their moneymaking, the more honour they assign to wealth, the less honour they assign to excellence. Or is this not how excellence contrasts with wealth, as if they were each being weighed on a balance that is constantly inclining in opposite directions?”

“Very much so,” said he.

551A “So, when wealth and the wealthy people are honoured in a city, excellence and the good people are shown less honour.”

“Evidently.”

“But whatever is honoured constantly is practised, and whatever is dishonoured is neglected.”

“Just so.”

“Then, instead of being ambitious men who love honour, they finally become men who love money and moneymaking. They praise the wealthy man, and they are in awe of him, and put him in positions of authority, while they dishonour the poor man.”

“Absolutely.”

“And at that stage, they pass a law that defines the oligarchical form of government. They prescribe 551B a particular sum of money, which is more when it is more of an oligarchy, less when it is less so, and they decree that anyone whose property falls short of the prescribed valuation may have no involvement in ruling the city. They bring this about either through force of arms, or else they will establish a form of government like this through fear. Is this not so?”

“Yes, this is so.”

“Well then, this is what we might call its establishment.”

“Yes,” said he. “But what is the manner of this form of government, and what defects do we say it possesses?”

551C “Well firstly,” said I, “consider its own defining characteristic and what it is like. What if helmsmen for ships were to be appointed based upon a property qualification, and the poor man was never given the role, even if he was a better helmsman?”

“Their sea voyage,” said he, “would be terrible.”

“Does not the same also apply to the control of anything else at all?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Except a city,” said I. “Or does this also apply to a city?”

“Very much so,” said he, “to a city most of all, since the rule of a city is so difficult and important.”

551D “Then oligarchy would possess this one significant defect.”

“Apparently.”

“What about this? Is the following defect any less significant?”

“Which one?”

“The fact that such a city is not one, but necessarily two: a city of poor folk and a city of wealthy people, living in the same place but always scheming against one another.”

“By Zeus,” said he, “that is not a less significant defect!”

“And indeed, it is not good that they are unlikely to be able to wage a war, because that compels them either to arm the general population, 551E and then be more afraid of them than of the enemy, or not to arm them and thus be true oligarchs, a few rulers alone on the battlefield. And at the same time, they are unwilling to contribute to military expenditure because they love money so much.”

“Not good, indeed.”

“And what about the aspect we criticised a while ago? What about the fact that people have lots of different roles? Under such a form of government, the same people simultaneously engage in agriculture, 552A make money, and fight in wars. Do you think this is all right?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then let us see if such a form of government is the first to tolerate the greatest of all these evils.”

“Which is?”

“Allowing someone to sell everything he has, and allowing someone else to take possession of this. Having sold everything, the man may live on in the city without any role as a businessman, a craftsman, a cavalryman, 552B or an infantry-man. They call him poor, a man without means.”

“It is the first to tolerate this,” said he.

“This sort of thing certainly will not be prohibited in oligarchies, or else some people could not be excessively wealthy while others are in total poverty.”

“That is right.”

“Think about this too. When he was still wealthy, was this fellow of any more benefit to the city in the various roles we have described? Or did he seem to be one of the rulers of the city, when in truth he was neither a ruler nor an underling, but a mere spender of anything that was available?”

552C “That is it,” said he. “He seemed to be something else, but he was nothing more than a spendthrift.”

“Would you like us to declare,” said I, “that just as a drone is born in a cell of honeycomb, a pestilence to the hive, so too is a man like this, born in a private dwelling house, a drone and a pestilence to the city?”

“Yes certainly, Socrates,” said he.

“Now, Adeimantus, although the god made all the winged drones without any stings, did he not make some of the drones that go by foot stingless, and others with terrible stings? Is it not the case that those who remain beggars to the very end belong to the stingless 522D sort, while all the so-called evildoers are from the drones which have stings?”

“So it is evident,” said I, “that in any city where you see beggars, there are thieves and cutpurses somewhere in the vicinity, hidden away, temple robbers too, and artificers of all sorts of evil deeds.”

“That is evident,” said he.

“What about this? Do you not see beggars in the oligarchical cities?”

“Yes,” said he, “almost everyone apart from those in authority are beggars.”

552E “Should we not presume then,” said I, “that there are also lots of evildoers in these cities, complete with stings, whom the rulers deliberately restrain by force?”

“We should presume so,” said he.

“Well then, shall we declare that people like this arise there because of ill-education, bad upbringing, and the evil foundations of this form of government?”

“We shall.”

“In that case then, the oligarchical city would be something of this sort, and would have as many evils as this, and perhaps even more.”

“That just about sums it up,” said he.

553A “Then,” said I, “we have dealt with this form of government too, the one they call oligarchy, the one having rulers appointed on the basis of a property qualification. Next, we should consider the person who resembles this, how he arises, and what he is like once he has arisen.”

“Does not the change from that timocratic type to the oligarchic type take place, for the most part, as follows?”

“It happens when a son, born to a timocratic man, emulates his father at first and follows in that man’s footsteps. Then he sees him suddenly dashed 553B against the city, like a ship against a reef, his property and the man himself being lost overboard. Perhaps he was serving as a general, or exercising some other important position of authority, and then ended up in court because of damaging allegations by false informers, and was put to death, or exiled, or lost his civil rights and had all his property confiscated.”

“And the son, my friend, seeing all this, suffering its consequences, and losing all his property, is presumably afraid, and immediately thrusts any love of honour, and that spiritedness too, from the throne 553C in his own soul. Humbled by poverty, he turns to moneymaking, and greedily, gradually, by being thrifty and working hard, he gets some money together. Now do you not think someone like this, at that stage, would install the appetitive element with its love of money on that throne, turn this into the Great King within himself, and deck it out with tiaras, necklets and ceremonial swords?”

“I do,” said he.

553D “And I presume that he seats the rational and the spirited elements on the ground on either side, beneath that king, as his slaves. He would not allow the rational element to work out or consider anything except how to turn smaller sums of money into larger ones. And he would not allow the spirited element to hold anything in awe, or to have any respect for anything apart from wealth and wealthy people, or to take pride in anything at all except the acquisition of wealth, and anything that brings this about.”

“There is,” said he, “no other transformation of a young man 553E who loves honour into one who loves money that is as swift and sure as this.”

“So, is this fellow our oligarchical man?” I asked.

“Well at any rate, the transformation of this fellow starts with a man who resembles the timocracy, the form that turns into oligarchy.”

“Let us investigate whether he himself resembles the oligarchy.”

554A “Let us investigate it.”

“Would he not resemble it firstly by assigning the utmost importance to money?”

“Of course.”

“And indeed, by being miserly and diligent, satisfying only the most necessary of his desires without making provision for any other expenditure, and enslaving the other desires because they are unprofitable.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“He is a squalid fellow,” said I, “a man who builds up a fortune by making a profit out of everything, the sort of man that most people praise. 554B Would not this person be the one who resembles a form of government like oligarchy?”

“Well, I think so,” said he. “At any rate, money is what this city honours most, and so does a man like this.”

“Yes,” said I, “presumably because a man like this has not paid attention to education.”

“It seems not,” said he, “or else he would not have installed blind wealth as the leader of his chorus, and honoured this most.”[12]

“Nicely explained,” said I, “but consider this. Should we not state that because of his lack of education, drone-like desires arise in him – the desires of the beggar 554C in some cases, those of the evildoer in others – but these are restrained by his other concern?”

“Indeed,” said he, “very much so.”

“Now,” said I, “do you know where you will see the evil deeds of these people, if you look?”

“Where?” he asked.

“In their guardianship of orphans, and any other opportunity like this that arises, where they get unrestricted licence to act unjustly.”

“True.”

“So, is it not obvious from this that in the other business dealings, those in which a man like this is well-regarded and seems to be acting justly, he is forcibly restraining other bad innate desires by some moderation of his own 554D devising? He does not persuade them that it is better not to do this, nor does he tame them by reason, but by compulsion and fear, because he is afraid of losing the rest of his property.”

“Yes, entirely so,” said he.

“And by Zeus, my friend,” said I, “once they have the opportunity to spend other people’s money, you will find that the drone-like desires are present in most of them.”

“Yes,” said he, “with great intensity.”

“So a man like this would not be free of internal factions, nor would he be one person, but 554E somehow double, although his better desires would, for the most part, prevail over his worse desires.”

“Quite so.”

“Because of this, I believe, such a person would be more respectable than many others. But the true excellence of the even-minded and harmonious soul would escape him by some distance.”

“I think so.”

555A “And indeed this miserly fellow, as a private citizen, is a poor competitor when it comes to any civic ambition or love of noble achievements, as he is not prepared to spend money for the sake of good reputation, or on any rivalries of this sort. He is afraid to awaken the desires that make him spend money, and summon them to join the battle and fulfil his ambition. So he fights like a true oligarch with only a few of his own resources, loses most of the time, but remains wealthy.”

“Now,” said I, “are we still in any doubt that the miserly money-maker corresponds to the oligarchical 555B city, and resembles it?”

“Not at all,” said he.

“Then we should, it seems, consider the democracy next – the manner in which it arises, and what it is like once it has arisen. This will allow us to recognise the character of the man who is like this, and judge him alongside the others.”

“Well we would at least be proceeding much as we did earlier,” said he.

“Does not the change from oligarchy to democracy come about, somehow, because of this insatiable desire for what is presented as good, this need to become as wealthy as possible?” I asked.

“How so?”

555C “Since the rulers hold office in that city because they have acquired so much wealth, they are, I think, unwilling to restrict by law any young people who are becoming unrestrained, and prevent them from spending and wasting all they possess. This enables them to buy up the property of such young folk, and also to lend money on security of the property, thus becoming even wealthier and more privileged than before.”

“More than anything.”

“Now, is it not obvious already that in a city it is impossible to have reverence for wealth, and sufficient sound-mindedness among the citizens, at the same time? Is it not necessary 555D rather to neglect one or the other?”

“Yes,” said he, “that is fairly obvious.”

“In fact, when they neglect this in the oligarchies, and encourage unrestrained behaviours, good people are sometimes forced into poverty.”

“So these people, I imagine, sit there in the city, complete with stings, in armed array, some of them in debt, some of them deprived of their rights, some in both predicaments. They hate and conspire against those who took their possessions, and against everyone else too, 555E and they are passionate for revolution.”

“And yet the money-makers, keeping their heads down, and without even seeming to notice these people, insert their silver, injuring anyone else who does not consistently resist them. And they recover their original sum, many times over 556A in interest, and cause the drone and the beggar to multiply in the city.”

“Yes,” said he, “why would they not multiply?”

“Nor,” said I, “are they willing to extinguish an evil of this sort, as it blazes up in the city, by restricting a person’s right to do what he likes with his own property, nor again will they undo such arrangements by another law.”

“What law do you mean?”

“A law that is second best after that, one that compels the citizens to pay attention to excellence. For if it were decreed that a person enters into 556B most voluntary contracts at his own risk, there would be less shameless money-making in the city, and fewer evils like those we have been describing would spring up there.”

“Much fewer,” said he.

“But as matters stand,” said I, “for all sorts of reasons such as those we have given, the rulers of the city put their subjects in this predicament. As for themselves and their own kindred, do they not make the young folk delicate, averse to hard work be it physical or mental, too soft 556C to withstand pleasures or pains, and lazy too?”

“And do they not turn themselves into money-makers who neglect everything else besides this, caring no more for excellence than the poor people do?”

“Yes, no more than that.”

“Then, under such an arrangement, whenever the rulers and their subjects come into contact with one another, either on a journey or in some other communal activities such as a festival, or on a military campaign as shipmates or fellow soldiers, and when they see one another facing actual dangers, 556D the poor are no longer held in contempt by the wealthy folk at all. Indeed very often the poor man, lean and sunburnt, stationed in battle beside a wealthy man who has been reared in the shade, with far more flesh than he needs, sees this rich fellow out of breath and in total confusion. So, do you not think he will then conclude that such people are wealthy due to some failing on the part of the poor, and when the poor get together in private, will they not proclaim 556E to one another that ‘These men are good for nothing. They are ours for the taking’.”

“I know quite well,” said he, “that that is what they will do.”

“Is it not like an unhealthy body that needs only the slightest external influence to tip it into disease, and is sometimes in conflict with itself, without any external influence? Will not a city that is in the same condition as that unhealthy body become diseased at the slightest prompting, and fight against itself? Perhaps one group might bring in allies from an oligarchic state, or the others might bring them in from a democratic state, and there may sometimes be conflict even without any external influence.”

557A “Yes, emphatically so.”

“Then democracy, I imagine, comes about when the poor, having won their victory, execute some of their opponents, exile others, and grant an equal involvement in civic affairs and in positions of authority to those who remain. And positions of authority in the city are, for the most part, assigned by lot.”

“This is indeed how the democracy is established,” said he, “whether it happens through force of arms, or the others withdraw out of fear.”

“Well then,” said I, “in what way do these people live their lives, and what will a form of government of this sort 557B be like? For it is obvious that a man like this will prove to be a democratic man.”

“That is obvious,” said he.

“Well in the first place, are they not free, and does not the city become full of freedom, and unrestricted speech, with license for anyone there to do what he likes?”

“So they say, anyway,” said he.

“And wherever there is license, it is obvious that each person would make individual arrangements for his own life there, an arrangement that pleases him.”

“That is obvious.”

557C “So under this form of government especially, I imagine, an enormous variety of people of all sorts would arise.”

“Inevitably.”

“Perhaps,” said I, “it is the most beautiful of all the forms of government. Just like a many coloured robe, embroidered with flowers of all sorts, this city, decked out with characters of all sorts, would prove to be the most beautiful one there is. Indeed it is quite likely,” said I, “that most people, just like children and women when they see decorated objects, would decide that this form of government is the most beautiful one.”

“And indeed, my friend,” said I, “it is somehow quite appropriate to search for a form of government in this one.”

557D “Why is that?”

“Because it contains forms of government of every kind, on account of the licence that it allows. Indeed, anyone who intends to arrange a city, as we have been doing just now, should really go to one that is governed democratically, and select whatever arrangement pleases him, as if he was entering a general market selling forms of government of all sorts, to make his selection and found his city accordingly.”

“Well,” said he, “there would surely be no shortage of examples to choose from.”

557E “There is no compulsion to exercise authority in this city, even if you are qualified to do so,” said I, “or indeed to be subject to authority if you do not feel like it, or to go to war in time of war, or to observe the peace when everyone else does so, if you do not want peace. What is more, if some law is preventing you from holding office or being on a jury, you may hold office or serve on the jury anyway, if it suits you to do so. Now is this not a 558A divinely pleasant and sweet way of carrying on, for a while?”

“For a while, perhaps,” said he.

“And what about the calmness of those who have ended up in court? Is that not nice? Or have you never seen people who have been sentenced to death or exile under a form of government like this, remaining on in the city nevertheless, and going about in public. Or how a convicted person stalks about the place unheeded and unseen by anyone, like a ghost?”

“This happens a lot,” said he.

“And note the tolerance of this form of government, and its lack of any attention to detail. It despises 558B anything we were so serious about when we were founding our city, and said that unless someone had an exceptional nature he would never become a good man, unless he were to play in the midst of beauty from his earliest childhood, and engage in pursuits of a similar sort thereafter. See how high-mindedly it tramples upon all this, pays no heed to the sort of pursuits someone engaged in before they got involved in public life, but honours him as long as he declares that he is well disposed towards the people.”

“How utterly noble,” said he.

558C “So democracy would, it seems, have these qualities and others akin to these,” said I. “It is a pleasant form of government, anarchic and variegated, that bestows some equality on equals and un-equals alike.”

“Yes,” said he, “what you say is all very recognisable.”

“Then,” said I, “think carefully about what the corresponding person will be like. Or should we first consider how he arises, just as we did with the form of government?”

“Yes,” said he.

“Well, would it not happen in the following way? The miserly oligarchic man might have 558D a son, I imagine, who has been brought up in the habits of his father.”

“Yes, why not?”

“Then the son too would forcibly control any pleasures within him that are conducive to spending money rather than making it, the pleasures that are referred to as unnecessary.”

“Obviously,” said he.

“Now,” said I, “so that we do not discuss this in an obscure manner, do you first want to distinguish between the desires that are necessary, and those that are not?”

“Well, desires which we would be unable to divert, 558E and those whose fulfilment benefits us, may we justifiably refer to these as necessary? In fact it is necessary for us, by our very nature, to pursue both of these. Is this not so?”

559A “Then we may justifiably use the word ‘necessary’ to refer to these.”

“Justifiably.”

“What about those which someone may be rid of, through practice from his earliest years, which do not do him any good when they are present, and can indeed do the opposite? If we declare that all these are unnecessary, would we be right to say so?”

“Right indeed.”

“Then should we pick an example of each, so that we may grasp what they are, in rough outline?”

“We should do that.”

“Would not the desire to eat, just to maintain health and wellbeing, the desire 559B just for bread and for relish, be necessary?”

“I believe so.”

“The desire for bread is presumably necessary for both reasons: it is beneficial, and it can bring our lives to an end if we do not satisfy it.”

“Whereas the desire for relish is necessary insofar as it confers some benefit in terms of wellbeing.”

“What about desire that goes beyond these, desire for different things to eat besides this sort of food, desire that is capable of being eliminated from most people by restraint and education from their earlier years, and is harmful to the body and harmful to the soul’s intelligence and soundness of mind? May this correctly 559C be referred to as not necessary?”

“Most correctly.”

“Now, should we not say that these desires are conducive to spending money, and the others to making money because they are useful in relation to work?”

“And shall we say the same about sexual desires and the others?”

“The same.”

“Now, is it not the case that the fellow we called a drone just now, this man, according to us, is full of pleasures and desires of this sort, and is ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the miserly oligarchic type is ruled by the necessary ones?”

559D “Well,” said I, “let us go back again and say how the democratic type arises from the oligarchic. It seems to me to happen, in general, as follows.”

“Whenever a young man, brought up in the manner we just described, ill-educated and miserly, being a mere drone, gets a taste of honey, and keeps company with wild, clever creatures who are able to ply him with a whole variety of pleasures of all sorts and types – this, you may safely assume, 559E is the source of the change from the oligarchic system within himself to the democratic one.”

“It must be,” said he, “very much so.”

“Well then, just as the city changed when an external alliance came to the aid of one of its parts, like supporting like, so too does not the young man change when some form of external desire comes in turn to the aid of similar, corresponding, kindred desires within himself?”

“Entirely so.”

“And I presume that if some alliance provides assistance, in turn, to the oligarchic element within him, either from his father’s circle, or any other 560A relations who are censuring and criticising him, then faction, and counter faction, and internal warfare against himself, arises.”

“And sometimes, I imagine, the democratic element yields to the oligarchic, and some of the desires are destroyed while others are expelled, some shame arises in the soul of the young man, and its good order is restored once again.”

“Yes, this sometimes happens,” said he.

“At other times I believe, other desires, akin to those that have been expelled, arise in their place, because the father lacks knowledge of proper nurture, and these can become numerous 560B and strong.”

“Yes,” said he. “That is what is inclined to happen.”

“Do they not drag him back into the same bad company, and by getting together in secret give birth to a rabble?”

“Then finally, I believe, they seize the citadel of the young man’s soul, having noticed that it is devoid of understanding, noble pursuits, and words of truth, which are of course the very best watchmen and guardians in the minds of men whom the gods love.”

560C “Much the best,” said he.

“False and arrogant arguments and opinions then rush up and seize the self-same citadel of a man like this, usurping the place of the true ones.”

“With great energy,” said he.

“So, does he not go back once more to those Lotus Eaters, and live openly among them this time? And if any assistance from the relatives arrives to help the miserly aspect of his soul, do not those arrogant words close the gates in the walls of the kingly element within him, refuse to allow the alliance itself 560D to get through, or to accept the words of private persons who are older and wiser as ambassadors? They themselves do battle and prevail. Shame they rename as silliness, and they thrust it out as an exile, showing it no respect. Sound-mindedness they rename as unmanliness, and having trampled it in the mud, they cast this out too. Is it not the case that they convince him that measure, and orderly expenditure, are crude restraints on freedom, and with the help of lots of useless desires, they drive these beyond the frontier?”

“They do indeed.”

“And once they have somehow emptied and purged the soul they have occupied, 560E and are initiating with magnificent rites, they proceed at that stage to reinstate insolence, anarchy, wastefulness and shamelessness, in a blaze of light, accompanied by a vast procession, crowning them with garlands, singing their praises and calling them by sweet names. They refer to insolence as good education, anarchy as freedom, wastefulness as magnificence, 56IA and shamelessness as courage. Is this not somehow the way,” said I, “that he changes, as a young man, from being reared on the necessary desires to the liberation and licence that goes with unnecessary and unprofitable pleasures?”

“Yes,” said he, “that’s very clear.”

“After all this, I imagine, a person like this lives on, spending money, effort and time on the necessary and unnecessary pleasures in equal measure. But if he is fortunate, and his frenzy 561B does not go beyond all bounds, and he gets a bit older too, then once the great inner tumult has passed he may readmit some parts that he had expelled, and not give himself over entirely to the new arrivals. He proceeds to place the various pleasures on some sort of equal footing, handing authority over himself to any pleasure that comes along, in a sort of lottery, until it is satisfied, then he moves on to another, cherishing them all equally and showing no disrespect to any of them.”

“And he does not accept true argument,” said I, “nor admit it into that citadel, when someone says that there are pleasures that belong to noble 561C and good desires, and others that belong to base desires, and that the former should be pursued and honoured, while the others are to be restrained and kept in subjection. No, he shakes his head at all such arguments, and declares that these pleasures are all much the same, and equally worthy of honour.”

“Yes, indeed,” said he, “that is his position, and that is what he would do.”

“And that is how he passes his life,” said I, “from day to day, gratifying whatever desire comes along. At one moment he is a drunkard, charmed by sweet music; 561D next he becomes a water-drinker and goes on a diet; then he starts exercising, but he soon gets lazy and completely careless; and after that he seems to be engaged in philosophy. He often turns to politics, jumping up and saying or doing whatever occurs to him; and if he ever develops an admiration for military folk, he takes himself off in that direction; or he might admire business people and go that way instead. There is no order in his life, nor any compulsion to do anything, and yet he calls this life pleasant, free and blessed, and he holds to this through and through.”

561E “You have,” said he, “given a comprehensive description of a ‘legal equality man’.”

“And I think,” said I, “that he is a man of great variety, full of character traits aplenty, and this fellow, just like that city, is the fair and many-coloured one. Most men and women would admire his life, which contains so many models for systems of government and personal traits.”

“Yes,” he said, “that is him.”

562A “Well now, should we have aligned a person like this with the democracy, as a man who may correctly be referred to as democratic?”

“We should,” said he.

“Then,” said I, “all that is left for us to describe is the most beautiful form of government, and the most beautiful man: tyranny and the tyrant.”

“Certainly,” said he.

“Come on then, my dear friend, what does the manner of tyranny prove to be? Indeed, it is quite obvious that it develops out of a democracy.”

“It is.”

“Now, does tyranny arise from democracy in somewhat the same manner as democracy arose from oligarchy?”

“In what manner?”

562B “The good that they proposed,” said I, “which is the very basis of the oligarchy, was wealth. Is this not so?”

“Well, the insatiable desire for wealth, and the disregard of everything else in favour of making money, destroyed the oligarchy.”

“True,” said he.

“And whatever democracy defines as good, and the insatiable desire for this, is what breaks the democracy apart, is it not?”

“What, according to you, does it define as good?”

“Freedom,” said I. “For you would surely hear it said in the democratically governed city, 562C that this is its most precious possession, and that’s why it is the only city worth living in for anyone who is free by nature.”

“Yes, indeed,” said he. “That is what is said, and it is said often.”

“Well then,” said I, “as I was just about to say, the insatiable desire for this sort of thing, to the neglect of everything else, changes this form of government too, and puts it in a position where it needs tyranny.”

“How so?” he asked.

“This happens, I believe, whenever a democratically governed city with a thirst for freedom gets leaders who behave like bad 562D wine pourers. The city gets intoxicated by drinking too much unadulterated freedom, and unless the rulers are very obliging and provide the city with a lot of freedom, it punishes them and accuses them of being despicable oligarchs.”

“Yes,” said he, “that is what it does.”

“And,” said I, “it hurls insults at those who are obedient to their rulers, for being willing slaves and mere nobodies. But in private, and publicly too, it praises and honours any rulers who are like the subjects, and any subjects who are like rulers. Now, is it not inevitable that freedom in a city like this would extend to everything?”

562E “How could it do otherwise?”

“And this,” said I, “must also seep down into private households, my friend, until finally the anarchy springs up even among the wild beasts.”

“How are we saying this happens?” he asked.

“We would say, for example,” said I, “that a father gets accustomed to behaving like a child, and is afraid of his sons. A son behaves like a father, and feels neither shame nor fear 563A before his parents, so that he may, of course, be free. A foreigner residing in the city has equal status with a citizen, and a citizen has equal status with a foreigner, and the same applies to a visitor.”

“Indeed,” said he, “that is what happens.”

“It does,” said I, “and there are other trivial examples. A teacher in such a situation fears and flatters the pupils, while the pupils belittle their teachers and whoever else is put in charge of them. And the young become like their elders in all respects, competing with them in word and deed, while the elders come down to the level of 563B the young folk by being full of banter and wit, imitating the young, for fear of seeming disagreeable or oppressive.”

“And yet, my friend,” said I, “freedom in such a city reaches its extreme when slaves, male and female, are just as free as those who buy them. And I almost forgot to mention how much equality and freedom there is among women in relation to men, and among men in relation to women.”

563C “Should we not follow Aeschylus,” said he, “and say ‘whatever now comes to our lips’?”

“Certainly,” said I, “and accordingly I say that unless he had experienced it first hand, no one would believe how much freer the domesticated animals are in this city than in any other. Indeed, it is literally the case that, as the proverb says, ‘the bitches become just like their mistresses’. And indeed, horses and donkeys get used to going about with total freedom and solemnity, bumping into anyone they happen to meet on the road who doesn’t get out of their way, and everything else becomes just as full of freedom.”

563D “You are describing my own dream,” said he. “I experience this myself when I am making my way out into the countryside.”

“And,” said I,” the outcome of all of these factors combined together is the observable softness it produces in the souls of the citizens. Consequently, if anyone tries to introduce any subjugation to any authority at all, they get angry and cannot stand it. Indeed, I am sure you recognise that in the end they don’t even pay attention to the laws, written or unwritten, so that no one 563E may have any authority whatsoever over them.”

“Yes,” said he, “I know quite well.”

“Well, my friend,” said I, “this, in my view, is the beautiful and high-spirited source from which a tyranny springs up.”

“High-spirited indeed,” said he. “But what happens after this?”

“The same disease,” said I, “that developed in the oligarchy and destroyed it, also develops in the democracy, but it is more pervasive and more virulent on account of the licence it allows, and it dominates the democracy completely. In fact, anything that is done to excess tends to reciprocate with an enormous corresponding change in the opposite direction, in seasons, in plants 564A and in human bodies, and especially in forms of government.”

“Indeed, the excessive freedom seems to transform simply into excessive slavery, in the individual and in the city.”

“Yes, quite likely.”

“Then,” said I, “it is likely that tyranny arises from no other form of government besides democracy. From the very pinnacle of freedom comes the most extensive and savage slavery.”

“Yes,” said he, “that is reasonable.”

“But I do not think that is what you were asking,” said I. “I think you asked what kind of disease develops identically in an oligarchy 564B and in a democracy too and reduces it to slavery.”

“Well,” said I, “I was referring to that class of idle, spendthrift men, the most courageous of whom take the lead while the less vigorous among them follow. These we compare to drones, some having stings, others stingless.”

“And rightly so,” said he.

“Well,” said I, “these two cause trouble in any city when they arise there. 564C They are like phlegm and bile in the body which a good physician, and a lawgiver in the case of a city, must be careful about from afar, just as careful as a wise beekeeper, so that ideally they do not arise in the first place, and then if they do arise they are cut out as quickly as possible, along with the wax that surrounds them.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” said he, “entirely so.”

“Well,” said I, “to see what we want to see with greater precision, let us proceed in the following way.”

“In what way?”

“Let us use the argument to divide the democratically governed city into three, which 564D is how matters actually stand.One part is presumably this drone-like class that develops there, no less than it does in an oligarchy, because there is so much licence.”

“So it does.”

“But this class is much fiercer in a democracy than in an oligarchy.”

“In the oligarchy it gets no exercise and doesn’t get strong, because it is not respected, and it is excluded from positions of authority. But in the democracy, with few exceptions, this is presumably the dominant class, and the fiercest part of it is vocal and active, while the rest gather about the speaker’s platform, sit there buzzing, and will not stand for any opposition. 564E Consequently, with few exceptions, everything in such a form of government is managed by this class.”

“And another distinct part always emerges from the general population as follows.”

“Presumably, if everyone is involved in making money, those who are by nature most orderly generally become wealthier than everyone else.”

“Quite likely.”

“Well, that is where the drones find most honey, and it is easiest to extract from there.”

“Yes,” said he. “How could someone extract it from the others who have so little? “

“Then, I imagine, wealthy people like this are called ‘the drones’ feeding-ground’.”

“Pretty much,” said he.

565A “The ‘People’ would be the third class, consisting of easy-going types, those who work their own land and do not own a lot. They constitute the most numerous and most powerful group in a democracy when they gather in an assembly.”

“That is right,” said he, “but they are not inclined to do this very often unless they get a share of the honey.”

“Do they not always get a share,” said I, “as much as the people in charge are able to spare, since they confiscate property from those who have it, distribute some to the people, but hold on to most of it themselves?”

565B “Yes,” said he, “that is indeed how they get a share.”

“In that case, I imagine, those whose property is being confiscated are compelled to put up a defence by speaking in the assembly, and by taking whatever action they can.”

“Then an accusation against them is made by those on the other side, and even though they have no desire for revolution, they are accused of conspiring against the people and acting like oligarchs.”

“Finally, they see that the people are trying to do them an injustice, not intentionally but out of ignorance, because they have been deceived by various 565C slanderers. And at this stage they really do become oligarchs, whether they wish to do so or not. They are acting against their will, but the drone is stinging them and that is what produces this evil too.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Then the two sides launch impeachments, lawsuits, and court cases against one another.”

“And in such a situation are not the people always inclined to put forward one person in particular as their own protector, whom they nurture and turn into a great man?”

“That is what they are inclined to do.”

“So this much is obvious,” said I. “Whenever a tyrant 565D springs up, the root from which he springs is a protectorate, and nothing else.”

“Yes, that is quite obvious.”

“So, what is the origin of the change from protector to tyrant? Or is it obvious that this happens once the protector begins to do the same thing as the fellow in the story about the sanctuary of Lycean Zeus[13] in Arcadia?”

“What story?” he asked.

“The story is that someone who tastes one piece of the innards of a human being, chopped up and mixed with the innards of other sacrificial animals, must necessarily turn into a wolf. Or have you not heard the account?”

565E “I have.”

“Now, does not someone who has become a protector of the people do something like this? Does he not take control of a faithful mob and show no restraint, even to shed the blood of his own people, making unjust accusations, the mob’s usual favourites? And does he not drag someone into court and commit murder, doing away with a man’s life, tasting the blood of his own kin with defiled lips and tongue? Does he not banish people, slay 566A them, and hint at the cancellation of debts and the redistribution of land? Now, is it not inevitable that such a person, after all this, is destined either to be destroyed by his enemies or to become a tyrant, and transform from a man to a wolf?”

“Quite inevitable,” said he.

“Then this fellow,” said I, “turns out to be someone who is at odds with those who own the wealth.”

“He does.”

“Now, if he is expelled and then returns in defiance of his enemies, will he not return as a finished tyrant?”

“But if they are unable to expel him, or to have him killed by spreading slander 566B in the city, they conspire to have him slain in secret and die a violent death.”

“Yes,” said he, “that is what tends to happen.”

“Then comes the request of the tyrant, all too familiar, the one that they all come up with at this stage. They ask the people for some bodyguards, so that the saviour of the people may be kept safe for them.”

“Indeed so,” said he.

“And they grant his request, I believe, because they are afraid on his behalf, although they are confident about their own situation.”

566C “Now, when the man with money sees and all this, a man who besides having money is accused of hating the common people, then, my friend, as the oracle given to Croesus says,

            He flees along the shore of many pebbled Hermus

            He abides not, nor is he ashamed to be a coward.”[14]

“Indeed,” said he, “he will not get a second chance to be ashamed.”

“And I imagine,” said I, “that he is done to death if he gets caught.”

“And yet that protector of the people does not of course lie fallen, ‘a great man brought down in his greatness’.[15] 566D No, he overthrows numerous adversaries, and stands in the controlling position of the city, a complete tyrant rather than a mere protector.”

“It must be so,” said he.

“Should we,” said I, “give an account of the happiness of this man, and of the city in which such a creature has arisen?”

“Yes, certainly,” said he. “Let us give the account.”

“Well,” said I, “initially, in the early days, does he not have a smile, and a warm greeting for anyone he meets? Does he not deny that he is a tyrant, 566E and make lots of promises in private and in public, free people from their debts, and distribute land to the people and to his own circle, and does he not pretend to be kind and gentle to everyone?”

“He must,” said he.

“And yet I believe once he is reconciled with some of his enemies in exile, and has destroyed the others, and all is quiet in that regard, he sets about waging some war or other constantly, so that the people will be in need of a leader.”

567A “He does this so that they will also be impoverished by paying taxes, forced to focus upon their day-to-day needs, and be less inclined to conspire against him.”

“Obviously.”

“And if he suspects that some people with exalted notions of freedom will not accept his authority, I believe he can come up with a pretext to destroy these people, by handing them over to the enemy. So, for all these reasons it is imperative that a tyrant stirs up war continuously.”

“Imperative.”

“And because he behaves like this, must he not expect to be increasingly hated by the citizens?”

“How can he not expect that?”

567B “And will not some of those who helped him to power, and are in power themselves, speak frankly to him and to one another, criticising the things that are happening – those who are brave enough to do so at any rate.”

“So, the tyrant needs to do away with all these people secretly if he is to have authority, until finally there is no one left, friend or foe, who is of any use to him.”

“So he must keep a sharp eye out to see who is courageous, who has a great mind, who is intelligent, 567C and who is wealthy. And such is his blessedness that whether he likes it or not, he must be an enemy to all these people, and conspire against them, until such time as he cleanses the city.”

“A fine cleansing that is,” said he.

“Yes,” said I, “it is the exact opposite of what physicians do to bodies. They remove the worst and leave the best, but the tyrant does the opposite.”

“Yes,” said he. “It seems he needs to do this if he is to rule the city.”

567D “So he is bound,” said I, “by a blessed necessity, which directs him either to live alongside people who are for the most part quite ordinary, or else not live at all.”

“He is,” said he.

“Now, is it not the case that the more he is hated by the citizens for doing all this, the greater his need for more bodyguards who are more trustworthy?”

“He has no alternative.”

“So who are these trustworthy people? And where will he source them from?”

“Lots of them will fly in of their own accord,” said he, “once he comes up with the money.”

“By the dog,” said I, “I think you are referring 567E to some more drones, foreign ones this time, of all varieties.”

“Yes,” said I. “I think that is true.”

“What about local ones? Would he be at all reluctant to take the slaves away from the citizens, set them free, and then make them part of his own circle of bodyguards?”

“He will be very keen to do so,” he said, “since men like this will be extremely loyal to him.”

“What a blessed thing this tyranny is,” said I, “if it relies upon such people as 568A trusted friends, having done away with their predecessors.”

“But of course he relies on people like this,” said he.

“And these companions of his admire him, of course,” said I. “And the new citizens associate with him, while the respectable citizens hate him and avoid him.”

“What else could they do?”

“It is no wonder,” said I, “that tragedy is generally thought to be wise, and Euripides is thought to excel in it.”

“Why so?”

“Because he uttered the following maxim, born of cogent thought: ‘tyrants are wise, 568B by associating with the wise’. And he meant of course that these people, with whom the tyrant is associating, are wise people.”

“And,” said he, “he praises the tyranny as the equal of the gods, and he himself says much else besides, as do the other poets.”

“And that,” said I, “is why the tragic poets, being wise, forgive us, and those with a form of government similar to ours, for not admitting them because they are advocates of tyranny.”

568C “I think,” said he, “that the more civilised among them do forgive us.”

“And yet, I believe, they go around the other cities, and by gathering crowds and paying for the services of good voices that are loud and persuasive, they influence those regimes in the direction of tyranny or democracy.”

“And besides this, will they not receive payment and be honoured too, mostly, as seems likely, by tyrannical regimes, and to a lesser extent by democracies? But the higher they climb along the ascending scale of systems of government, the more their honour 568D starts to flag, as if it were unable to go any further because it was out of breath.”

“But we have digressed here,” said I. “Let us go back to that noble, numerous, variegated and ever-changing army of the tyrant, and say how it is supported.”

“Obviously,” said he, “if there are sacred treasures in the city’s temples, he will spend these for as long as the proceeds from their sale is sufficient, 568E and make the people contribute less.”

“And what happens when this runs out?”

“Obviously,” said he, “he himself, his fellow drinkers and his companions, both male and female, will be supported from his father’s estate.”

“I understand,” said I. “The people who brought forth this tyrant will support the man himself and his companions too.”

“They need to,” said he, “very much so.”

“What are you saying?” I asked. “What if the people get angry and say that it is unjust for a grown-up son to be supported by his father, and that it should be the other way around – the father should be supported by the son? That was not why they created him 569A and put him in place, so that when he had grown up the people would then be enslaved by their own slaves, and end up supporting him, along with the slaves and a rabble of others too. They wanted to be liberated from the wealthy classes, and the so-called ‘noble and good’ people in their own city, with him as their protector. What if they now order him to get out of the city, himself and his companions, like a father driving an errant son out of the house, along with a rabble of revellers?”

569B “By Zeus,” said he, “the people would then realise what sort of beast they had brought forth, embraced and encouraged. They are now the weaker party driving out someone stronger.”

“What do you mean?” said I. “Would the tyrant dare to do violence to his father, and aim a blow at him if he was not compliant?”

“Yes,” said he, “after he had disarmed him.”

“You are saying,” said I, “that the tyrant is a parricide, and a harsh nurturer of the aged, and it seems that this would indeed be undisguised tyranny. And, as the saying goes, in fleeing from the smoke of slavery 569C to free men, the people would have fallen into the fire of total subjugation to slaves. Instead of that vast and immoderate freedom, they have donned a new robe, the harshest and most bitter slavery, slavery to slaves.”

“Yes, that is what happens,” said he, “very much so.”

“Well then,” said I, “would it be appropriate for us to claim that we have given a sufficiently detailed account of how tyranny follows after democracy, and what it is like then?”

“Sufficiently detailed indeed,” said he.

End Book VIII

[1] See 414d ff.

[2] See 445c–e.

[3] See 449b ff.

[4] See Odyssey xix.163.

[5] This is based on Iliad xvi.112–113.

[6] This text is difficult, and there is general disagreement about the value of Plato’s ‘entire geometrical number’. The most frequent value suggested is 216, but 3,600 and 12,960,000 have also been mooted.

[7] See Works and Days 109–202.

[8] See 415a ff.

[9] See Iliad vi.211.

[10] See 433a–b.

[11] Possibly an adaptation of Seven Against Thebes 451.

[12] Plutus, the god of wealth, was depicted by Aristophanes as having been blinded.

[13] The wolf-Zeus.

[14] See Herodotus 1.55. Croseus was a king of Lydia who was noted for his wealth. He asked the oracle at Delphi whether his reign would be long.

[15] See Iliad xvi.776.

PHIL103: Moral and Political Philosophy

Republic (Plato)

Read this summary of Plato's Republic. Pay particular attention to the summary of Books 6,7, and 8; the Theory of Universals; to the definition of justice; and to the Ideal City. What are the four types of government which Plato rejects, and why does he reject them?

Socrates discusses four unjust constitutions: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. He argues that a society will decay and pass through each government in succession, eventually becoming a tyranny, the most unjust regime of all.

The starting point is an imagined, alternate aristocracy (ruled by a philosopher-king); a just government dominated by the wisdom-loving element. When its social structure breaks down and enters civil war, it is replaced by timocracy. The timocratic government is dominated by the spirited element, with a ruling class of property-owners consisting of warriors or generals (Ancient Sparta is an example). As the emphasis on honor is compromised by wealth accumulation, it is replaced by oligarchy. The oligarchic government is dominated by the desiring element, in which the rich are the ruling class. The gap between rich and poor widens, culminating in a revolt by the underclass majority, establishing a democracy. Democracy emphasizes maximum freedom, so power is distributed evenly. It is also dominated by the desiring element, but in an undisciplined, unrestrained way. The populism of the democratic government leads to mob rule, fueled by fear of oligarchy, which a clever demagogue can exploit to take power and establish tyranny. In a tyrannical government, the city is enslaved to the tyrant, who uses his guards to remove the best social elements and individuals from the city to retain power (since they pose a threat), while leaving the worst. He will also provoke warfare to consolidate his position as leader. In this way, tyranny is the most unjust regime of all.

In parallel to this, Socrates considers the individual or soul that corresponds to each of these regimes. He describes how an aristocrat may become weak or detached from political and material affluence, and how his son will respond to this by becoming overly ambitious. The timocrat in turn may be defeated by the courts or vested interests; his son responds by accumulating wealth in order to gain power in society and defend himself against the same predicament, thereby becoming an oligarch. The oligarch's son will grow up with wealth without having to practice thrift or stinginess, and will be tempted and overwhelmed by his desires, so that he becomes democratic, valuing freedom above all.

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Book 8 Notes from The Republic

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The Republic

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Plato's The Republic . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Republic: Introduction

The republic: plot summary, the republic: detailed summary & analysis, the republic: themes, the republic: quotes, the republic: characters, the republic: symbols, the republic: theme wheel, brief biography of plato.

Historical Context of The Republic

Other books related to the republic.

• Full Title: Republic
• When Published: First transcribed circa fourth century BC.
• Literary Period: Classical
• Genre: Philosophical dialogues
• Setting: The house of Cephalus, in the Piraeus, or port section of Athens, Greece, around the 5th century BC.
• Antagonist: Thrasymachus and other debaters
• Point of View: First Person (Socrates is the narrator)

Extra Credit for The Republic

The Socratic Method. The method Plato has Socrates use in Republic, that is, asking leading questions that provoke discussion and encourage his audience to follow his train of thought until they arrive at the solution he favors, is called in Greek elenchus , and in English the "Socratic method." You can see the Socratic method particularly clearly in Book I of Republic, but Plato also uses it in many of his earlier works.

Aristotle's Teacher. Just as Plato is the most famous follower of Socrates, Aristotle is the most famous of Plato's students. Other followers include the Neo-Platonists, philosophers like Plotinus and Proclus who took Plato's ideas about the nature of reality and his theory of forms and developed them even further. The Neo-Platonists influenced Saint Augustine, one of the fathers of the early Christian Church.

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What is the Republic about?

• What did Plato do?
• What is Plato known for?
• What were Plato’s contributions to society?
• When was Plato alive?

The Republic

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• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Plato: The Republic
• The Internet Classics Archive - "The Republic"
• Internet Archive - "The Republic"

What is the Republic ?

The Republic is a dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato that dates from his middle period . It features the character of Socrates . The Republic is among Plato’s masterpieces as a philosophical and literary work, and it has had a lasting influence.

The  Republic is about justice. In this dialogue, Plato undertakes to show what justice is and why it is in each person’s best interest to be just, and he does so in both an ethical and a political context. According to Plato, justice in the individual, or ethical justice, is a condition analogous to that of political justice, which is why the Republic includes a description of the ideal city-state .

Why is the Republic important?

The ideas Plato introduced in the Republic about justice and its influence on the organization of the state have greatly influenced politics and government today. 

How does the Republic end?

Plato concludes the Republic with the myth of Er, which explores the fate of souls after death. 

The Republic , one of the most important dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato , renowned for its detailed expositions of political and ethical justice and its account of the organization of the ideal state (or city-state )—hence the traditional title of the work. As do other dialogues from Plato’s middle period, and unlike his early or Socratic dialogues, the Republic reflects the positive views of Plato himself rather than the generally skeptical stance of the historical Socrates , who had been Plato’s teacher. (“Socrates” is the main character in most of Plato’s dialogues.) The middle dialogues are literary as well as philosophical masterpieces, containing sensitive portrayals of characters and their interactions, dazzling displays of rhetoric , and striking and memorable tropes and myths , all designed to set off their leisurely explorations of philosophy .

In the  Republic , Plato undertakes to show what justice is and why it is in each person’s best interest to be just. Although the dialogue starts from the question “Why should I be just?,” Socrates proposes that this inquiry can be advanced by examining justice “writ large” in an ideal state. Thus, the political discussion is undertaken to aid the ethical one. According to Plato, the ideal state comprises three social classes: rulers, guardians (or soldiers), and producers (e.g., farmers and craftsmen). The rulers, who are philosophers, pursue the good of the entire state on the basis of their knowledge of the form of the Good and the form of the Just—both being abstract essences, knowable only by the mind, through which things or individuals in the sensible world are, to varying degrees, good or just, respectively. Political justice, then, is the condition of a state in which each social class performs its role properly, including by not attempting to perform the role of any other class.

Corresponding to the three social classes are the three parts of the individual soul—reason, spirit, and appetite—each of which has a particular object or desire. Thus, reason desires truth and the good of the whole individual, spirit is preoccupied with honour and competitive values , and appetite has the traditional low tastes for food, drink, and sex. Justice in the individual, or ethical justice, is a condition analogous to that of political justice—a state of psychic harmony in which each part of the soul performs its role properly. Thus, reason understands the form of the Good and desires the actual good of the individual, and the other two parts of the soul desire what it is good for them to desire, so that spirit and appetite are activated by things that are healthy and proper.

The middle books of the  Republic  contain a sketch of Plato’s views on knowledge and reality and feature the famous figures of the Sun and the Cave, among others. The position occupied by the form of the Good in the intelligible world is the same as that occupied by the Sun in the visible world: thus, the Good is responsible for the being and intelligibility of the objects of thought. The usual cognitive condition of human beings is likened to that of prisoners chained in an underground cave, with a great fire behind them and a raised wall in between. The prisoners are chained in position and so are able to see only shadows cast on the facing wall by statues moved along the wall behind them. They take these shadows to be reality. The account of the progress that they would achieve if they were to go aboveground and see the real world in the light of the Sun features the notion of knowledge as enlightenment. Plato proposes a concrete sequence of mathematical studies, ending with harmonics, that would prepare future rulers to engage in dialectic , whose task is to say of each thing what it is—i.e., to specify its nature by giving a real, rather than merely lexical, definition . The dialogue concludes with a myth concerning the fate of souls after death. See also Political philosophy: Plato .

Plato, Republic

("Agamemnon", "Hom. Od. 9.1", "denarius")

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1 Strictly speaking, this applies only to the guardians, but Cf. Laws 739 C ff. Aristotle, Pol. 1261 a 6 and 1262 a 41, like many subsequent commentators, misses the point.

2 Cf. 445 D and What Plato Said, p. 539, on Menex. 238 C-D.

3 So Jowett. Adam ad loc. insists that the genitive is partitive, “those of their number are to be kings.”

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The Republic

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

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Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

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Chapters 7-8 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 summary: “women, children, and warfare”.

What is the role of women in the ideal community? Socrates argues that they should be able to occupy the same positions as men provided they have the necessary attributes. However, Glaucon objects that “men and women have different natures” and, as such, they would not be able to occupy the same roles (165). Socrates’ retorts that while men and women may have different superficial, physical, attributes they are potentially equal in qualities relevant for certain jobs. For instance, some women may be equally skilled to men in the arts of medicine or carpentry. This means that those women who are suited to the task, should live alongside the male guardians . They should have the same physical and cultural education and participate in warfare.

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8 biggest ways the watchers changes a.m. shine's book.

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10 Best Horror Movies Like The Watchers

Why the watchers' reviews & 25% rotten tomatoes score are so bad, does the watchers have a post-credits scene.

Custom Image by Yeider Chacon

• The Watchers book and film share some similarities, but there are also notable differences.
• The movie adds some important elements to the lore established in the novel.
• The movie makes a crucial change to The Watchers' original ending

Warning: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for The Watchers and the book on which it's based. The 2024 film The Watchers is based on a 2022 horror-lit book of the same name by A.M. Shine, with some significant changes made to the source material. The lore in the book and film originates from Irish folklore of faeries and changelings , which A.M. Shine grew familiar with from his history degree from the University of Galway in Ireland. The film was adapted and directed by Ishana Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night. The Watchers book and film both have mixed reviews , with many of the movie's changes to the story proving particularly contentious.

The book and film revolve around Mina (played by Dakota Fanning), a woman lost in mysterious Irish woods . Mina finds a bunker called the Coop with three other people in it: Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), Ciara (Georgina Campbell), and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), all of whom have spent varying amounts of time trapped in the Watchers’ forest . At nightfall, the four of them are observed by deadly creatures with mysterious origins known as the Watchers . As the group escapes the forest, The Watchers' twist ending builds on the events of the book, shocking many audiences. However, this isn't the only difference from the novel.

Many excellent horror movies exist with similarities to Ishana Night Shyamalan's The Watchers, offering viewers more scares and thrills.

8 Mina’s First Night In The Woods

In the book, mina survives her first night in her car.

In the book, Mina stays in her car for the first night that she is lost in the woods. After being spooked by a loud screeching she hears in the woods, Mina hides in the car with the bird. In the morning, she wakes up, gets out of the car, and decides to look for help in the daylight. Though she is technically in the forest and not protected overnight, she remains safe. If she hadn't chosen to leave her car for help, she might have been able to survive there for a few days, though she would never truly understand the danger she was in.

In the film, Mina searches for help as soon as her car breaks down in the woods. She realizes the chance of running into someone back on the road on which she came is low, and she wanders into the woods, looking for a sign. She is then also immediately lost. In the setting sun of that same day, she encounters Madeline, who leads her into the Coop. This change speeds the film along, cutting out additional scenes of Mina in her car and getting into the action faster.

7 Mina’s First Night In The Coop

The watchers appear to have different motives.

In the film, on Mina’s first night in the Coop, she hears a strange sound from outside, which is explained as applause from the Watchers, who are excited about the new addition. It isn’t until later in the film that the Watchers seem to become violent, trying to break into the Coop. At first, the Watchers seem rather friendly and peaceful, albeit menacing. This applause is an addition to the film and does not happen in the book.

There is no specific applause for Mina on her first night being watched. They have always wanted to break into the Coop and reach the humans, whether Mina is there or not.

In the book, however, the Watchers are always actively trying to get into the structure after sunset. There is no specific applause for Mina on her first night being watched. They have always wanted to break into the Coop and reach the humans, whether Mina is there or not. This strange applause reaction in the film adds to the eeriness of the Watchers, who are mostly unseen.

6 The Captives Presenting Themselves To The Watchers

The movie creates a visual moment for the watched.

In the movie, the captives have to present themselves in front of the mirror for the Watchers to observe every night at sunset. This adds a very memorable and creepy visual to the film . In the film, Ciara even dances for the Watchers, who seem to like her movements and performance. This presentation is not the case in the book, where the captives are able to go about their nights as usual, knowing they are constantly being watched.

In the film, the captives’ rules include not turning their backs to the mirror at night , suggesting that the Watchers care a lot about their behavior. This rule does not exist in the book, and the characters can continue with their evenings, ignoring the break-in attempts of the Watchers. The change was added as a more cinematic manifestation of the unseen Watchers, lending itself better to developing the creepiness of the situation.

Ishana Shyamalan’s 2024 horror movie The Watchers has remarkably bad initial reviews-- here’s why and here’s what the critics are saying about it.

5 The Captives’ Rules Were Invented By The Film

Madeline’s four rules set the tone of the film.

In the daylight, the other captives recite the new rules of Mina’s life to her in uncanny unison. “ Do not turn your back to the mirror. Do not open the door after dark. Do not go near the burrows. Always stay in the light. ” While the book has rules that Madeline often reiterates, there is nothing as dramatic or creepy as these four rules, which the group enumerates dully. These were added to the film as easily digestible and memorable plot points , enhancing The Watchers’ creepiness and visual style.

In the movie, the rules begin to seem rather arbitrary, as the group ends up breaking most of them without serious consequences . Because they aren't included in the book, they are not well-incorporated throughout the film, acting as general guidelines instead of firm survival rules. On a rewatch, these fake rules are really clues to The Watchers' big twist , where they are revealed to be part of Madeline’s scheme.

4 Mina Does Not Go Into The Burrow In The Book

Mina’s open disobedience of madeline’s rules is a movie element.

In the film, Mina realizes that the rules might be fake when she descends into one of the burrows , a hole in the ground where the Watchers go during the day. With Daniel’s help, she looks around the burrow and salvages a bike that might help them escape. She doesn’t even see the danger lurking in the hole as she leaves before noticing the eerie hand watching her. That night, the Watchers attack more violently than ever, proving Madeline’s point that rules are important. Mina returns the bike the next day.

Mina’s scene in the tunnels is not in the book. Again, this is an element added to make the movie more visually compelling and add to the suspense. It also helps develop Mina’s character as a problem-solver and stubborn but brave hero. In the book, the burrows lead the captives closer to escape , as Daniel’s obsession and Mina’s sketches help them recognize a pattern between the burrows.

3 The Look Of The Watchers

The book never physically describes the watchers.

The book does not explain what the Watchers look like, leaving it open to the readers’ imaginations. Madeline vaguely describes them as “ leaner ” and “ longer." Mina cannot honestly explain what she sees when she encounters one in person . From her perspective, the Watcher is “ a restless animal, driven neither by conscious thought nor soul’s desire. It craved only soft, living flesh, and it thirsted only for blood. ”

While vague language like that works in a book, it is harder to translate into a visual format. In the film, Madeline and Mina see the Watchers from behind while stuck in the woods. They are monstrously tall, with long fingers, sharp nails, and animalistic mouths. The Watchers are only briefly seen in their true form s, and the film attempts to keep the creatures vague and scary.

2 Mina’s Victory In The Final Fight With Madeline

The movie’s fight scene is much more drawn out.

The movie has a twist when Mina realizes she has not been revealing her discovery of Madeline's true identity to Ciara. Instead, she talks to Madeline, who mimics Ciara's appearance. In the book, Mina is able to speak to the real Ciara first and form a plan before Madeline arrives, eliminating the twist. Instead of a harsh twist in the book, Mina is able to convince Madeline to choose the righteous path without violence.

This confrontation is vastly different from the attempted murder and drawn-out fight scene in the film. In the movie, Mina and Madeline have a much more intense struggle, after Ciara is taken by surprise and knocked out. The fight is more visually compelling than a simple pep talk and translates better to the screen. However, Mina still gives a motivational speech, convincing Madeline to spare her and seek out other halflings.

The Watchers could start a new horror franchise for Ishana Night Shyamalan, and its confirmed if there is a post-credits scene setting up a sequel.

1 Madeline’s Appearance In The Final Scene

The book sets up a sequel better than the movie.

At the end of the book, Madeline returns to Mina in the form of a middle-aged man to share that there are other halflings in the world. She also informs Mina that she is unsafe, as the other halflings take many forms and disguises, specifically to watch her. This sets up a dramatic and scary cliffhanger in the book, which will be further explored in the next book.

A sequel to The Watchers book, titled Stay In The Light is releasing in October 2024.

In the movie, Mina tells her sister that she knows Madeline could be anywhere, watching her. The film ends with a shot of a little girl standing on the street , knowingly staring at Mina’s window. With a glance at the camera, the audience understands that this is Madeline in disguise. But for all Mina knows, Madeline is the only halfling that exists. A sequel to The Watchers might be imminent, as Madeline still poses a threat to Mina and Ciara, even though the end of the film suggests she comes in peace.

The Watchers

Based on A.M. Shine's novel, The Watchers follows Mina, a twenty-eight-year-old artist stranded in the middle of a forest in Ireland. Her momentary relief when she finds shelter is shattered when she discovers other strangers in the same predicament - but they're stalked each night by unseen creatures.