Book VIII

Socrates“Very well. We’ve agreed, Glaucon, that in the city that is to be governed at its best, women are to be in common, children are to be in common, and all education too; likewise their pursuits in war and peace are to be in common; and their kings are to be those who have proved best in philosophy and in war.”

“It’s agreed,” he said. 543b

“And we also granted this: that once the rulers are established, they’ll lead the soldiers and settle them in the sort of housing we described, where no one has anything private and everything is common to all. And besides housing like that, we also agreed, if you remember, what sort of possessions they would have.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said. “We thought none of them should own any of the things other people own now; instead, like athletes of war 543c and guardians, they should receive from the others their year’s keep as wages for their guarding, and devote themselves to caring for themselves and the rest of the city.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But come on, now that we’ve finished this, let’s recall where we turned off to get here, so that we can go back along the same road.”

“That’s not hard,” he said. “You were talking pretty much as you are now, as if you’d finished describing the city. You said that you would set down as good the sort of city you had then described, 543d and the man who resembles it — and that, apparently, though you had a still finer 544a city and man to tell of.

“Anyway, you said that if this one is right, the others are defective. Of the remaining constitutions, as I recall, you said there were four kinds worth discussing, whose faults we should look at, along with the men who resemble each of them. That way, once we had seen them all and agreed on who is the best man and who the worst, we could investigate whether the best is happiest and the worst most wretched, or not. And when I asked which 544b four constitutions you meant, Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted at that point; and that’s how you took up the discussion and arrived here.”

“You’ve remembered it exactly,” I said.

“Then give me the same hold again, like a wrestler: I’ll ask the same question, and you try to say what you were going to say then.”

“If I can,” I said.

“Well, I really do want to hear for myself,” he said, “which four constitutions you meant.” 544c

“You won’t find that hard to hear,” I said. “The ones I mean are the ones that also have names. There’s the one most people praise, the Cretan and Spartan constitution. Second, and second in praise, is the one called oligarchy, a constitution full of evils. Then its opposite, which comes next, democracy. And then that noble thing, tyranny, which outdoes all of them, the fourth and last disease of a city. Or do you know some other form of constitution that falls into a clearly distinct 544d class? Hereditary dynasties, purchased kingships and other constitutions of that sort lie somewhere in between these, and you’d find them no less among non-Greeks than among Greeks.”

“Certainly there are many strange ones spoken of,” he said.

“Then do you realize,” I said, “that there must be as many kinds of human character as there are of constitutions? Or do you think constitutions come from some oak or rock, and not 544e from the characters of the people in the cities, which tip the scale, so to speak, and drag everything else along with them?”

“No,” he said, “I think they come from nowhere but there.”

“Then if the arrangements of cities are five, the arrangements of individual souls would be five too.”

“Of course.”note

“Now we’ve already described the man who resembles aristocracy, whom we rightly call good and just.”

“We have.”

“Next, then, shouldn’t we go through the worse ones? First the man who loves victory and honor, corresponding to the Spartan constitution; then the oligarchic, the democratic and the tyrannical man. That way we can look at the most unjust man and set him beside the most just, and our inquiry will be complete: how pure justice compares with pure injustice in the happiness or wretchedness of the person who has it. Then we can either be persuaded by Thrasymachus 545b and pursue injustice, or by the argument now coming to light and pursue justice.”

“Absolutely,” he said, “that’s what we must do.”

“Well, earlier we began by examining characters in constitutions before examining them in individuals, since that’s clearer. Shouldn’t we do the same now? First we examine the constitution that loves honor — I have no other name in use for it; we’ll have to call it timocracy or timarchy — and alongside it we’ll consider the man of that sort; 545c then oligarchy and the oligarchic man; next we’ll look at democracy and observe the democratic man; and fourth, we’ll go to the city ruled by a tyrant and look at it, and then look into the tyrannical soul. And so we’ll try to become competent judges of the questions we set ourselves.”

“That would certainly be a reasonable way,” he said, “to do both the viewing and the judging.”

“Come on, then,” I said, “let’s try to say how a timocracy would arise from an aristocracy. Or is it simply this: 545d every constitution changes because of the very group that holds office, when civil strife breaks out within that group; but as long as it is of one mind, however small it is, it can’t be shaken?”

“Yes, that’s so.”

Something like this. It is hard for a city constituted like this to be shaken. But since everything that comes into being must decay, not even a structure like this will last for all time; it will be dissolved. And this is how. Not only for plants in the earth but also for animals upon it, there come times of fertility and barrenness of soul and body, whenever the revolutions complete the circuits of each kind’s cycles — short circuits for the short-lived, and the opposite for the opposite. As for the fertility and barrenness of your race, those 546b you have educated as leaders of the city, wise though they are, will be no more successful at hitting on them through reasoning combined with perception. The times will slip past them, and they will beget children when they should not.

When iron is mixed with silver and bronze with gold, unlikeness will arise, and a discordant irregularity; and wherever these arise, they always breed war and hatred. “Of this lineage,” we must say, is civil strife, wherever it arises.

“And we’ll say that their answer is right,” he said.

“It has to be,” I said, “since they’re Muses.” 547b

“Then what do the Muses say next?” he said.

“Once strife has arisen,” I said, “the two races pull in different directions. The iron and bronze pull toward moneymaking and the acquisition of land and houses, gold and silver. The other two, the gold and silver, since they are not poor but rich by nature, draw their souls toward excellence and the old order. They struggle and strain against each other, and then they agree on a middle course: they distribute land and houses 547c as private property; they enslave those they previously guarded as free friends and providers, and hold them as dependents and servants; and they themselves see to war and to keeping guard over them.”

“I think that’s where this change comes from,” he said.

“Then wouldn’t this constitution be somewhere between aristocracy and oligarchy?” I said.

“Certainly.”

“That’s how the change will happen. But once changed, how will it be run? Isn’t it 547d clear that since it’s in between, it will imitate the previous constitution in some ways and oligarchy in others, and also have something peculiar to itself?”

“Just so,” he said.

“So in honoring its rulers; in having its warrior class keep away from farming, crafts and other moneymaking; in establishing common meals and attending to physical training and the contests of war — in all such things it will imitate the previous one?”

“Yes.” 547e

“But in being afraid to bring the wise into office, since it no longer has men of that kind who are simple and intense, only mixed ones; in leaning instead toward spirited and simpler men, more naturally suited to war than to 548a peace; in holding the tricks and stratagems of war in honor; and in spending all its time at war — in most such things it will have features peculiar to itself?”

“Yes.”

“Men like these will also be greedy for money,” I said, “like those in oligarchies. They’ll have a fierce, secret reverence for gold and silver, since they’ll own storehouses and private treasuries where they can put it away and hide it, and walled houses — private nests, quite literally — in which 548b they can spend lavishly on women and on anyone else they like.”

“Very true,” he said.

“And won’t they be stingy with their own money, since they value it and can’t acquire it openly, but happy to spend other people’s to satisfy their appetites? They’ll enjoy their pleasures in secret, running away from the law like boys from their father. That’s because they’ve been educated not by persuasion but by force, since they’ve neglected the true Muse, the one who goes with discussion 548c and philosophy, and honored physical training above music and poetry.”

“The constitution you’re describing,” he said, “is a complete mixture of bad and good.”

“Yes, it is mixed,” I said. “But one thing alone stands out most clearly in it, because the spirited part is in control: love of victory and love of honor.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“So this constitution would come into being in this way and be of this sort,” I said, “to sketch the outline of a constitution in words 548d without working it out precisely. The sketch is enough to let us see the most just and the most unjust man, and it would be an impossibly long task to go through every constitution and every character without leaving anything out.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Then who is the man who corresponds to this constitution? How does he come into being, and what is he like?”

“I think,” said Adeimantus, “that he comes pretty close to Glaucon here, at least in his love of victory.” 548e

“Perhaps in that respect,” I said, “but I don’t think he’s like him in these ways.”

“Which ones?”

“He has to be more self-willed,” I said, “and somewhat less cultivated, though he loves the arts; fond of listening, but 549a no speaker at all. A man like this would be harsh to slaves, instead of simply looking down on them as an adequately educated man does; gentle to free men, and very obedient to those in office. He loves ruling and loves honor, but he thinks he deserves to rule not because of his speaking or anything of that sort, but because of his deeds in war and in matters related to war. He’s a lover of physical training and of hunting.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s the character that goes with that constitution.”

“And a man like this,” I said, “would despise money while he’s young, 549b but the older he got, the more he’d welcome it. That’s because he shares in the money-loving nature, and his commitment to excellence isn’t pure, since he’s been deprived of the best guardian.”

“What guardian?” said Adeimantus.

“Reason blended with music and poetry,” I said. “It’s the only thing that, once it’s present in a person, lives in him all his life as the preserver of his excellence.”

“Well put,” he said.

“That, then, is the timocratic young man,” I said, “resembling the city of that sort.” 549c

“Certainly.”

“And he comes into being something like this,” I said. “Sometimes he’s the young son of a good father who lives in a badly governed city, who shuns honors and offices and lawsuits and all that kind of busybodying, and is willing to take less so as to avoid trouble—”

“How does he come into being, then?” he said.

“First,” I said, “when he hears his mother complaining that her husband isn’t one of the rulers, and that because of this she’s slighted 549d among the other women. Then she sees that he isn’t very serious about money, and doesn’t fight or trade insults in private lawsuits or in public, but takes all that sort of thing easily; and she notices that his mind is always on himself, and that he neither particularly honors her nor slights her. The boy hears her resenting all this and telling him that his father is unmanly and far too easygoing, and all the other things 549e women love to harp on in such cases.”

“Yes,” said Adeimantus, “plenty of them, and just what you’d expect from them.”

“And you know,” I said, “that the servants of such men — the ones who seem loyal — sometimes say the same sort of thing to the sons in secret. If they see someone who owes the father money and isn’t being prosecuted by him, or who wrongs him in some other way, they urge the son to punish all such people when he grows up, 550a and to be more of a man than his father. And when he goes out, he hears and sees more of the same: people who mind their own business in the city are called fools and held of little account, while those who don’t are honored and praised.”

“I think you’ve described his origin exactly,” he said. 550c

“Then we have the second constitution and the second man,” I said.

“We do,” he said.

“Next, then, shall we tell, as Aeschylus has it, of ‘another, posted at another gate’ — or rather, following our plan, of the city first?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“And the constitution that comes after this sort, I think, would be oligarchy.”

“And what sort of system,” he said, “do you mean by oligarchy?”

“The constitution based on property assessment,” I said, “in which the 550d rich rule and the poor man has no share in office.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Then shouldn’t we first describe how the change from timarchy to oligarchy happens?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” I said, “even a blind man can see how it happens.”

“How?”

“That storehouse full of gold that each man has,” I said, “destroys a constitution like this. First they find new ways to spend money on themselves, and bend the laws to suit, disobeying them — both they and their wives.”

“That’s likely,” he said. 550e

“Then, I think, each one watches the next and tries to match him, and so they make the majority of them like this.”

“Likely.”

“From there,” I said, “they go further and further into moneymaking; and the more they value it, the less they value excellence. Or isn’t wealth at odds with excellence in just this way — as if each lay in one pan of a scale, always tipping opposite ways?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“So when wealth and the wealthy are honored in a city, excellence and good men are less honored.”

“Clearly.”

“And whatever is honored at any time is practiced, and whatever is dishonored is neglected.”

“Just so.”

“So in place of men who love victory and honor, they end up lovers of moneymaking and of money. They praise and admire the rich man and bring him into office, and they treat the poor man with contempt.”

“Certainly.”

“Then at that point they pass a law defining the oligarchic constitution 551b by fixing an amount of wealth — larger where it’s more of an oligarchy, smaller where it’s less — and announcing that no one whose property doesn’t reach the fixed assessment may hold office. They carry this through by force of arms, or else they’ve already set up this sort of constitution beforehand by intimidation. Isn’t that so?”

“It is.”

“Well, that, roughly speaking, is how it’s established.”

“Yes,” he said. “But what is this constitution like? And what 551c are the faults we said it has?”

“First,” I said, “its very defining standard, and what that is like. Just consider: if someone appointed ships’ pilots this way, on the basis of property, and wouldn’t entrust a ship to a poor man, even a better pilot—”

“They’d make a wretched voyage of it,” he said.

“And isn’t it the same with the leadership of anything else whatever?”

“I think so.”

“Except a city?” I said. “Or with a city too?”

“Far more so,” he said, “since it’s the most difficult and the greatest kind of rule.” 551d

“So that’s one fault, and a big one, that oligarchy would have.”

“Evidently.”

“What about this one? Is it any smaller than that?”

“What?”

“That a city like this is necessarily not one but two — one of the poor and one of the rich — living in the same place and always plotting against each other.”

“No, by Zeus,” he said, “that’s no smaller.”

“Nor is this a fine thing: that they’re probably unable to fight a war. They’re forced either to use 551e the masses armed, and fear them more than the enemy, or not to use them, and then turn out to be oligarchs in the truest sense — the few — on the battlefield itself. And at the same time they’re unwilling to pay taxes for it, being lovers of money.”

“Not fine.”

“And what about the thing we condemned long ago — the same people farming, 552a making money and fighting at once in such a constitution, meddling in many things? Does that seem right?”

“Not in the least.”

“Now see whether this constitution is the first to admit the greatest of all these evils.”

“What’s that?”

“Allowing someone to sell everything he has, and another to acquire it; and allowing the one who has sold it to go on living in the city while being no part of it — neither moneymaker nor craftsman nor cavalryman nor hoplite, but called poor and destitute.” 552b

“Yes, it’s the first,” he said.

“Certainly nothing prevents this in oligarchies. Otherwise some wouldn’t be enormously rich and others utterly poor.”

“Right.”

“Now look at this. When a man like this was rich and spending his money, was he any more use to the city for the purposes we were just talking about? Or did he seem to be one of the rulers, while in truth he was neither ruler nor servant of the city, but just a consumer of what was at hand?” 552c

“Just so,” he said. “He seemed to be one, but he was nothing but a consumer.”

“Then shall we say,” I said, “that just as a drone grows up in the honeycomb, a disease of the hive, so a man like this grows up in his house as a drone, a disease of the city?”

“Certainly, Socrates,” he said.

“And, Adeimantus, hasn’t god made all the winged drones stingless, while of these walking ones he has made some stingless and some with terrible stings? From the stingless ones come those who end up as beggars in old age, while from 552d those with stings come all who are called criminals?”

“Very true,” he said.

“So it’s clear,” I said, “that wherever you see beggars in a city, there are hidden somewhere in that place thieves, pickpockets, temple-robbers and craftsmen of every such evil.”

“It’s clear,” he said.

“Well then, don’t you see beggars in oligarchic cities?”

“Nearly everyone outside the ruling class,” he said. 552e

“Then aren’t we to think,” I said, “that there are also many criminals in them with stings, whom the authorities carefully hold down by force?”

“We certainly are,” he said.

“And won’t we say that such people arise there because of lack of education, bad upbringing and the way the constitution is set up?”

“We will.”

“Well, anyway, the oligarchic city would be something like this, and would have all these evils, and perhaps even more.”

“Pretty much,” he said.

“Then let’s take this constitution too as completed,” I said, “the one they call oligarchy, which takes its rulers on the basis of property assessment. Next let’s examine the man who resembles it: how he comes into being, and what he’s like once he has.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Isn’t it mostly in this way that the timocratic man we described changes into an oligarchic one?”

“How?”

“When a son of his at first emulates his father and follows in his footsteps, and then suddenly sees him 553b crash into the city like a ship on a reef, losing his property and himself. He has been a general, perhaps, or held some other high office, and then he’s dragged into court, harmed by malicious prosecutors, and put to death or exiled or stripped of his civic rights, losing all his property.”

“That’s likely,” he said.

“And having seen this, my friend, and suffered it, and lost what he had, he’s frightened, I think, and at once throws love of honor and that spirited part headlong from the throne 553c in his soul. Humbled by poverty, he turns to moneymaking, and by stingy, penny-pinching saving and hard work he scrapes money together. Don’t you think that such a man will then set the appetitive, money-loving part on that throne and make it a great king within himself, girding it with tiaras, collars and short swords?”

“I do,” he said. 553dnote

“And the reasoning and spirited parts, I think, he makes sit on the ground on either side, beneath it, as its slaves. The first he allows to reason about and investigate nothing except how to make more money out of less; the second, to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to take pride in nothing but acquiring money and whatever leads to that.”

“There’s no other change,” he said, “so quick and so powerful as that of an honor-loving young man into a money-loving one.” 553e

“Then is this man oligarchic?” I said.

“Well, he has changed from a man who resembled the constitution from which oligarchy arose.”

“Then let’s see whether he resembles it.”

“Let’s.”

“First, wouldn’t he resemble it in valuing money above everything?”

“Of course.”

“And also in being thrifty and hardworking: he satisfies only his necessary appetites and allows himself no other expenses, but enslaves his other appetites as pointless.”

“Certainly.”

“He’s a squalid sort of man,” I said, “who makes a profit out of everything, a hoarder — just the kind the majority admire. 554b Isn’t he the one who resembles this sort of constitution?”

“I think so, anyway,” he said. “Money, at least, is what’s valued most, both by the city and by a man like this.”

“Yes, because I don’t think a man like this has paid any attention to education,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” he said, “or he wouldn’t have made a blind man leader of his chorus and honored him most.”note

“Good,” I said. “Now consider this. Shouldn’t we say that because of his lack of education drone-like desires spring up in him, some of them 554c beggarly, others criminal, but held down by force through his general carefulness?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Then do you know where to look,” I said, “if you want to catch sight of their criminality?”

“Where?” he said.

“At their management of orphans’ estates, and at any situation like that which happens to give them plenty of license to do wrong.”

“True.”

“So isn’t it clear from this that in his other dealings, where he has a good reputation because he seems to be just, a man like this uses some decent part 554d of himself to hold down by force the other bad desires within him—not by persuading them that it’s better not to, nor by taming them with reason, but by compulsion and fear, because he trembles for the rest of his property?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“And by Zeus, my friend,” I said, “in most of them you’ll find, when it comes to spending other people’s money, desires akin to the drone’s living inside them.”

“Very much so,” he said, “absolutely.”

“So a man like this wouldn’t be free of internal strife. He wouldn’t be one man but a sort of double one—though for the most part 554e his better desires would have the upper hand over his worse.”

“That’s how it is.”

“That’s why, I think, he’d be more respectable than many. But the true excellence of a soul in harmony and at one with itself would escape him and stay far away.”

“I think so.”

“And certainly as a private citizen competing in the city for a victory or any other fine distinction, the stingy man 555a is a poor contender. He’s unwilling to spend money for the sake of a good name or on contests of that kind, because he’s afraid to awaken his spending desires and call them in as allies for the struggle. So he fights in true oligarchic fashion, with only a few of his forces; he loses most of the time—and stays rich.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Then do we still doubt,” I said, “that the stingy moneymaker is placed 555b beside the oligarchic city because he resembles it?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Next, it seems, we have to examine democracy: how it comes into being, and what it’s like once it has, so that we can come to know the character of the corresponding man in turn and bring him forward for judgment.”

“That way,” he said, “we’d at least be proceeding consistently.”

“Well then,” I said, “doesn’t the change from oligarchy to democracy happen something like this—through an insatiable appetite for the good it has set before itself, the need to become as rich as possible?”

“How so?” 555c

“Since the rulers in it rule because they own a great deal, I think they’re unwilling to use the law to restrain those of the young who turn out undisciplined—to forbid them to spend and squander what’s theirs—so that by buying up these people’s property and lending money against it they can become still richer and more honored.”

“More than anything.”

“Then isn’t it clear by now that in a city it’s impossible to honor wealth and at the same time for the citizens to acquire enough 555d moderation—that one or the other is bound to be neglected?”

“That’s reasonably clear,” he said.

“So in oligarchies, by their neglect and by letting people live undisciplined lives, they have sometimes forced men of no mean birth to become poor.”

“Very much so.”

“And these men, I think, sit idle in the city, stings at the ready and fully armed—some in debt, some stripped of their civic rights, some both—hating and plotting against those who acquired their property and everyone else, and longing 555e for revolution.”

“That’s so.”

“But the moneymakers keep their heads down and pretend not even to see them. They wound any of the rest who gives way to them by injecting their money, and, collecting as interest the parent sum’s offspring many times over, 556a they breed a large crop of drones and beggars in the city.”

“How could it not be large?” he said.

“And they’re unwilling to put out this evil as it flares up,” I said, “either in the one way—by preventing a man from doing whatever he likes with his property—or in the other, by which, under a different law, such problems are resolved.”

“And what law is that?”

“The one that comes second to it, which compels the citizens to care about excellence. If someone ordered that most voluntary contracts be made at the lender’s own 556b risk, people would make money less shamelessly in the city, and fewer evils of the kind we just described would grow up in it.”

“Far fewer,” he said.

“But as things are,” I said, “for all these reasons the rulers put the ruled in the city into this condition. As for themselves and their own—don’t they make their young men pampered and lazy, in body and 556c in soul alike, too soft to hold out against pleasures and pains, and idle?”

“Of course.”

“And themselves careless of everything but making money, paying no more attention to excellence than the poor do?”

“No more, certainly.”

“So when rulers and ruled, prepared like this, come alongside each other—on a journey, or in some other joint undertaking, on a festival delegation or a campaign, as shipmates or as fellow soldiers—or when they watch each other in the very 556d face of danger, the poor are in no way despised by the rich there. On the contrary, a lean, sunburned poor man is often posted in battle beside a rich man raised in the shade and carrying a lot of extra flesh, and sees him full of gasping and helplessness. Don’t you think he concludes that such people are rich because of the poor men’s own badness, and that when the poor get together in private they pass the word to one another: ‘Those men are ours. 556e They’re nothing’?”

“Oh, I know perfectly well,” he said, “that that’s what they do.”

“Then just as a sickly body needs only a slight push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes is at war with itself even without anything external, so too a city in the same condition falls sick and fights with itself on a slight pretext—when one side brings in allies from an oligarchic city, or the other side from a democratic one—and sometimes falls into civil strife even without outsiders?”

“Very much so.”

“Democracy comes into being, I think, when the poor win, kill some of the other side and banish others, and give the rest an equal share in the constitution and in the offices—and in it offices are mostly assigned by lot.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s how democracy is established, whether it happens by force of arms or because the other side withdraws out of fear.”

“Then how do these people live?” I said. “And what sort 557b of constitution is this one, in its turn? For clearly the man who resembles it will turn out to be a democratic sort of man.”

“Clearly,” he said.note

“Well, first of all, aren’t they free? Doesn’t the city become full of freedom and free speech, with license in it to do whatever one wants?”

“So it’s said, anyway,” he said.

“And where there’s license, clearly each person will arrange his own private way of life in it, whatever pleases him.”

“Clearly.” 557c

“Then in this constitution above all, I think, you’d find human beings of every kind.”

“Of course.”

“It may well be,” I said, “the most beautiful of constitutions. Like a many-colored cloak embroidered with every kind of flower, this one too, embroidered with every kind of character, might look most beautiful. And perhaps,” I said, “many people would judge it the most beautiful, like children and women gazing at colorful things.”

“Very much so,” he said. 557d

“And it’s also a convenient place, my dear fellow,” I said, “to look for a constitution.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because thanks to its license it contains every kind of constitution. Anyone who wants to set up a city, as we were doing just now, may well need to go to a democratic city and pick out whatever model pleases him, as if he’d come to a bazaar of constitutions, and then found his city on the one he’s chosen.” 557e

“At any rate,” he said, “he probably wouldn’t be short of models.”

“And there’s no compulsion to rule in this city,” I said, “even if you’re capable of ruling, nor again to be ruled if you don’t want to be, nor to go to war when the others are at war, nor to keep the peace when the others are keeping it, if you don’t want peace. And again, if some law forbids you to hold office or sit on a jury, you can hold office and 558a sit on juries all the same, if the fancy takes you. Isn’t that a heavenly, delightful way to live—for the moment?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “for the moment, anyway.”

“And what about it? Isn’t the calm of some of those who’ve been convicted charming? Or haven’t you yet seen how in a constitution like this, when people have been sentenced to death or exile, they stay on all the same and go about in public, and one of them roams around like a hero’s ghost, as if no one noticed or saw?”

“Lots of them,” he said. 558b

“And its tolerance—not the least bit petty—and its contempt for the things we spoke of so solemnly when we were founding our city: that unless someone had an exceptional nature, he could never become a good man unless from childhood he played among fine things and pursued everything of that sort. How magnificently it tramples all that underfoot, not caring at all what practices a man comes from when he goes into politics, but honoring him 558c if he merely says he’s a friend of the people!”

“Oh yes,” he said, “very noble of it.”

“These, then,” I said, “and other things akin to them, are what democracy would have. It would be, it seems, a pleasant constitution, anarchic and many-colored, handing out a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.”

“What you’re describing is very familiar,” he said.

“Now look,” I said, “at what the corresponding man is like in private. Or should we first examine, as we did with the constitution, how he comes into being?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then isn’t it like this? That stingy, oligarchic man 558d would have a son, I suppose, raised by his father in his father’s ways?”

“Why not?”

“And he too rules by force over the pleasures in himself that are spenders rather than moneymakers—the ones that have been called unnecessary—”

“Clearly,” he said.

“Then, so that we don’t argue in the dark,” I said, “would you like us first to define the necessary desires and the unnecessary ones?”

“I would,” he said.

“Well, the ones we couldn’t turn aside would rightly 558e be called necessary, and so would those whose satisfaction benefits us? For our nature compels us to crave both of these. Or not?”

“Very much so.”

“Then we’ll be right to apply the word ‘necessary’ to them.”

“Right.”

“And what about the ones someone could get rid of if he trained himself from youth, and which do no good by being present—and some even do the opposite? If we said all of these were unnecessary, wouldn’t we be speaking correctly?”

“Correctly, yes.”

“Shall we pick out an example of each kind, so that we can grasp them in outline?”

“We should.”

“Well, wouldn’t the desire to eat, up to the point of health and fitness, 559b the desire for bread itself and relish, be necessary?”

“I think so.”

“The desire for bread, at least, is necessary on both counts: it’s beneficial, and we can’t make it stop as long as we’re alive.”

“Yes.”

“And the desire for relish is necessary insofar as it provides some benefit toward fitness.”

“Certainly.”

“And what about the desire that goes beyond these, for other kinds of food and the like—one most people can get rid of if it’s checked and trained from youth, and which harms the body, and harms the soul with respect to understanding and moderation? Wouldn’t it 559c rightly be called unnecessary?”

“Most rightly.”

“Then shall we also call these spending desires, and the others moneymaking desires, because they’re useful for our work?”

“Of course.”

“And we’ll say the same about sex and the rest?”

“Yes.”

“And the man we were calling a drone just now—weren’t we saying he was the one full of such pleasures and desires and 559d ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the one ruled by the necessary ones was stingy and oligarchic?”

“Well, of course.”

“Then let’s go back,” I said, “and describe how the democratic man comes from the oligarchic one. It seems to me that it mostly happens like this.”

“How?”

“When a young man, raised as we were just describing, without education and stingily, gets a taste of the drones’ honey and falls in with fiery, dangerous beasts who can supply pleasures of every kind and variety and description—that, I suppose, 559e is where you should expect the change in him from an oligarchic to a democratic constitution within to begin.”

“Inevitably,” he said.

“Then just as the city changed when an alliance from outside came to the aid of one party, like helping like, doesn’t the young man change too when a kind of desire from outside, akin and alike, comes to the aid of one of the parties within him?”

“Absolutely.”

“And if, I think, some alliance comes to the aid of the oligarchic part in him from the other side, whether from his father or 560a from his other relatives admonishing and reproaching him, then there’s faction and counter-faction and a battle within him against himself.”

“Of course.”

“And sometimes, I think, the democratic part gives way to the oligarchic. Some of his desires are destroyed, others are driven out, as a sense of shame arises in the young man’s soul, and order is restored.”

“That does happen sometimes,” he said.

“But then, I think, other desires akin to the exiled ones are secretly nursed along, 560b and because the father doesn’t know how to bring him up, they become many and strong.”

“That’s usually how it goes,” he said.

“So they drag him back to the same company, and through secret intercourse they breed a multitude.”

“Of course.”

“And in the end, I think, they seize the acropolis of the young man’s soul, finding it empty of learning, of fine pursuits and of true words—which are the best sentinels and guardians in the minds of men the gods love.” 560c

“By far,” he said.

“And false, boastful words and opinions, I think, rush up in their place and occupy that same position in a man like this.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“So doesn’t he go back to those Lotus-eaters and live among them openly? And if some help comes from his relatives to the stingy part of his soul, those boastful words shut the gates of the royal wall within him. They won’t let the allied force itself through, and they won’t receive the embassy of words from older 560d private individuals either. They win the battle themselves. They call shame ‘simple-mindedness’ and push it out, a dishonored exile; they call moderation ‘unmanliness,’ abuse it and throw it out; and they persuade him that measure and orderly spending are boorish and mean, and drive them over the border with the help of many useless desires.”

“Very much so.”note

“And once they’ve emptied and purified of all these the soul of the man 560e they’ve taken possession of and are initiating into their great mysteries, they next bring insolence, anarchy, extravagance and shamelessness back from exile, resplendent and crowned, with a great chorus, singing their praises and giving them pet names: insolence they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, extravagance 561a magnificence, and shamelessness courage.”

“Isn’t it something like this,” I said, “that while still young he changes from a man raised among necessary desires to one who sets free and lets loose the unnecessary and useless pleasures?”

“Yes,” he said, “very vividly.”

“After this, I think, such a man lives spending money, effort and time no more on necessary pleasures than on unnecessary ones. But if he’s lucky and his frenzy doesn’t go too far—if, as he gets older and the great 561b tumult has passed, he readmits some of the exiles and doesn’t give himself over entirely to the invaders—then he sets his pleasures on an equal footing and lives that way, handing over the rule of himself to whichever pleasure comes along, as if it had won the office by lot, until it’s satisfied, and then to another, dishonoring none but feeding them all equally.”

“Certainly.”

“And he doesn’t accept true reasoning,” I said, “or let it into the fortress, if someone tells him that some pleasures belong to 561c fine and good desires and others to bad ones, and that the first should be cultivated and honored and the second disciplined and enslaved. To all this he shakes his head and says they’re all alike and must be honored equally.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what a man in that condition does.”

“So he lives from day to day,” I said, “indulging whatever desire comes along. Now he’s drinking heavily to the music of pipes, then drinking only water and slimming down; 561d now he’s exercising, sometimes lazing about and neglecting everything, and now spending his time on what he takes to be philosophy. Often he takes part in politics, jumping up to say and do whatever occurs to him. If he ever envies military men, off he goes in that direction; if moneymakers, off in that one. There’s no order or necessity in his life. He calls this life pleasant, free and blessed, and he follows it to the end.” 561e

“You’ve perfectly described,” he said, “the life of a man devoted to equal rights.”

“Yes, and I think,” I said, “that this man is varied and full of the greatest number of characters, the beautiful, many-colored man, just like that city. Many men and women would envy his life, since he holds within himself the most models of constitutions and ways of life.”

“That’s him,” he said.

“Well then? Shall we set this man beside democracy, as one who’d rightly be called democratic?”

“Let’s,” he said.

“Then what’s left for us to describe,” I said, “would be the finest constitution and the finest man: tyranny and the tyrant.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Come then, my dear friend, how does tyranny arise? That it comes from democracy is pretty clear.”

“Clear.”

“Then does democracy come from oligarchy 562b and tyranny from democracy in much the same way?”

“How?”

“The good they set before themselves,” I said, “the one oligarchy was established for—that was great wealth, wasn’t it?—”

“Yes.”

“Then, as I was just about to say,” I said, “doesn’t the insatiable appetite for this, and the neglect of everything else, change this constitution too, and prepare it to need a tyranny?”

“How?” he said.

“When a democratic city, thirsting for freedom, 562d happens to have bad wine-pourers presiding over it, and gets drunk on freedom unmixed, far past what’s proper, then it punishes its rulers, unless they’re very lenient and provide plenty of freedom, accusing them of being villains and oligarchs.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s what they do.”

“And those who obey the rulers,” I said, “it abuses as willing slaves and nobodies, while in private and in public it praises and honors rulers who are like the ruled and ruled who are like the rulers. In such a city, isn’t it inevitable 562e that freedom goes to every extreme?”

“Of course.”

“And that the anarchy seeps down, my friend,” I said, “into private households, and in the end takes root even among the animals?”

“What do we mean by that?” he said.

“For instance,” I said, “the father gets used to being like his child and fearing his sons, and the son to being like his father, feeling neither shame nor fear before his parents, so that he can be free. Resident alien 563a and citizen are put on an equal footing, and the foreigner likewise.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s what happens.”note

“That, and other little things like it,” I said. “In such a city the teacher fears and flatters his pupils, and the pupils think little of their teachers, and of their attendants too. In general the young imitate their elders and compete with them in word and deed, while the old men lower themselves to the young’s level and are full of wit and 563b pleasantry, imitating the young so as not to seem disagreeable or authoritarian.”

“Certainly,” he said.note

“But the height of the people’s freedom, my friend,” I said, “in a city like this, is reached when purchased slaves, male and female, are no less free than those who bought them. And we almost forgot to mention how much equality and freedom there is in the relations of women with men and men with women.” 563c

“So shall we, in Aeschylus’s words,” he said, “‘say what just now came to our lips’?”note

“Certainly,” I said. “That’s just what I’m doing. How much freer the animals owned by people are here than anywhere else, no one who hasn’t seen it would believe. Just as the proverb says, the dogs become exactly like their mistresses. And the horses and donkeys too get used to walking the roads with great freedom and dignity, bumping into anyone they meet who doesn’t step aside. Everything else becomes just as 563d full of freedom.”

“You’re telling me my own dream,” he said. “It happens to me all the time on my way out to the country.”

“And the sum of it all,” I said, “taken together—do you see how touchy it makes the citizens’ souls, so that if anyone imposes the slightest bit of slavery, they get angry and can’t bear it? And in the end, you know, they pay no attention even to the laws, written or unwritten, so that no one 563e will be their master in any way at all.”

“I know it very well,” he said.

“This, then, my friend,” I said, “is the beginning, so fine and so headstrong, from which tyranny grows, it seems to me.”

“Headstrong it certainly is,” he said. “But what comes next?”

“The same disease,” I said, “that arose in oligarchy and destroyed it arises in this one too, more widespread and stronger because of the license, and enslaves democracy. In fact, doing anything to excess tends to bring about a great change in the opposite direction—in seasons, in 564a plants, in bodies, and not least in constitutions.”

“That’s likely,” he said.

“Yes, for too much freedom seems to change into nothing other than too much slavery, for a private individual and a city alike.”

“That’s likely.”

“Then it’s likely,” I said, “that tyranny is established from no other constitution than democracy: out of the most extreme freedom, I think, comes the greatest and most savage slavery.”

“That makes sense,” he said.

“But that wasn’t what you were asking, I think,” I said. “You were asking what disease 564b arises in oligarchy and in democracy alike and enslaves democracy.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“Well, what I meant,” I said, “was that breed of idle, spendthrift men, the bravest of them leading and the more cowardly following. We compared them to drones—the leaders to drones with stings, the followers to stingless ones.”

“And rightly,” he said.

“Well, these two,” I said, “cause trouble in every constitution they arise in, like phlegm and bile in the body. And the good doctor and lawgiver of a city 564c must guard against them well in advance, no less than a wise beekeeper does—above all so that they don’t arise, but if they do, so that they’re cut out as quickly as possible, honeycombs and all.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” he said, “absolutely.”

“Then let’s take it like this,” I said, “so that we can see what we want more distinctly.”

“How?”

“Let’s divide a democratic city into three in our account, 564d which is in fact how it’s divided. One part, I suppose, is this breed, which grows up in it because of the license no less than in the oligarchic city.”

“That’s so.”

“But it’s much fiercer in this one than in that.”

“How so?”

“There, because it isn’t held in honor but is kept out of office, it goes unexercised and doesn’t grow strong. But in a democracy this breed is pretty much the ruling element, with a few exceptions. Its fiercest part does the speaking and acting, while the rest settles around the speakers’ platforms, buzzing and refusing to put up with anyone 564e who says otherwise. So in a constitution like this, everything is run by this breed, apart from a few things.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Now, there’s another group that’s always being separated off from the majority.”

“What’s that?”

“When everyone is out to make money, those who are most orderly by nature generally become the richest.”

“Likely.”

“And that’s where, I think, the drones find the most honey and the easiest to squeeze.”

“Well, how could anyone squeeze honey,” he said, “out of those who have little?”

“And so rich people like these, I think, are called drone-fodder.”

“Pretty much,” he said.

“The people would be the third group: those who work with their own hands and stay out of public affairs, and don’t own very much. Whenever it assembles, this is the largest and most powerful group in a democracy.”

“So it is,” he said. “But it isn’t often willing to do that unless it gets some share of the honey.”

“And it always does get a share,” I said, “insofar as its leaders can manage it, when they take property away from those who have it and distribute it to the people, while keeping the most for themselves.” 565b

“Yes,” he said, “that’s how it gets its share.”

“So, I think, the people whose property is being taken are forced to defend themselves, speaking before the people and taking action however they can.”

“Of course.”

“And then the others accuse them, even if they have no desire for revolution, of plotting against the people and of being oligarchs.”

“Of course.”

“And so in the end, when they see the people trying to wrong them—not willingly, but out of ignorance, deceived by the 565c slanderers—then at last, whether they want to or not, they really do become oligarchs. They don’t do it willingly: this evil too is bred in them by that drone, which stings them.”

“Exactly.”

“Then come impeachments, trials and lawsuits, each side against the other.”

“Certainly.”

“And isn’t it the people’s habit always to set up one man in particular as their champion, and to nurture him and make him great?”

“Yes, it is.” 565d

“So this much is clear,” I said: “whenever a tyrant springs up, he sprouts from this root of championship and from nowhere else.”

“Very clear.”

“Then what is the starting point of the change from champion to tyrant? Isn’t it obviously when the champion begins to do the same thing as the man in the story told about the sanctuary of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia?”

“What story?” he said.

“That whoever tastes human innards, when a single piece is chopped up in among the innards of the other victims, is bound 565e to become a wolf. Or haven’t you heard the tale?”

“I have.”note

“Well, isn’t it the same with a champion of the people? He gets hold of a mob that’s thoroughly obedient to him, and he doesn’t hold back from the blood of his own people. He brings unjust charges, the way these men like to, hauls people into court and stains himself with murder; he wipes out a man’s life, and with unholy tongue and lips he tastes the blood of his kin; he banishes and 566a kills, and hints at the cancellation of debts and the redistribution of land. Isn’t such a man bound after that, isn’t it his fate, either to be destroyed by his enemies or to become a tyrant and turn from a man into a wolf?”

“It’s absolutely inevitable,” he said.

“He’s the one, then,” I said, “who starts the faction against those who own property.”

“He is.”

“And if he’s driven out and then comes back in spite of his enemies, doesn’t he come back a finished tyrant?”

“Obviously.” 566b

“And if they can’t drive him out, or have him put to death by slandering him to the city, they plot to kill him violently, in secret.”

“That’s certainly how it usually goes,” he said.

“And at this point everyone who has got this far comes up with the famous tyrant’s request: they ask the people for a bodyguard, so that the people’s champion may be kept safe for them.”

“They certainly do,” he said.

“And the people grant it, I suppose, afraid for him and confident for themselves.” 566c

“Certainly.”

“And when a man who has money—and, along with his money, the charge of hating the people—sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle given to Croesus says, ‘by pebbly Hermus he flees, nor stays, nor is ashamed to be a coward.’”

“No,” he said, “he wouldn’t get a second chance to be ashamed.”

“And the one who’s caught,” I said, “is handed over to death, I imagine.”

“Inevitably.”

“And as for that champion himself, it’s clear he doesn’t lie there, ‘great 566d in his greatness’; he has thrown down many others and stands in the city’s chariot, transformed from champion into finished tyrant.”

“How could he not?” he said.note

“Shall we go through the happiness of the man,” I said, “and of the city in which such a mortal arises?”

“Yes, by all means,” he said, “let’s go through it.”

“Well,” I said, “in the early days, for the first while, doesn’t he smile and greet everyone he meets, and 566e deny that he’s a tyrant, and make lots of promises in private and in public? Doesn’t he free people from debts, distribute land to the people and to those around him, and put on a show of being gracious and gentle to everyone?”

“He has to,” he said.

“But once he has settled matters with his enemies abroad, coming to terms with some and destroying others, and things are quiet on that front, I imagine the first thing he does is keep stirring up wars, so that the people will need a leader.”

“That’s likely.”

“And also so that, made poor by paying war taxes, they’ll be forced to concentrate on their daily needs and be less likely to plot against him?”

“Clearly.”

“And if he suspects that some have free spirits and won’t let him rule, so that he can have a pretext for destroying them by handing them over to the enemy? For all these reasons, isn’t a tyrant always bound to stir up war?”

“He has to.”

“And by doing this he becomes all the more readily hated by the 567b citizens?”

“Of course.”

“And some of those who helped set him up and are in positions of power will speak their minds freely, both to him and to one another, criticizing what’s going on—the ones who happen to be the bravest?”

“That’s likely.”

“Then the tyrant has to get rid of all of them if he’s going to keep ruling, until he has left no one of any worth, friend or enemy.”

“Clearly.”

“So he has to keep a sharp eye out for who is courageous, who is high-minded, 567c who has understanding, who is rich. And so happy is he that he is compelled, whether he likes it or not, to be the enemy of all of these and to plot against them until he has purged the city of them.”

“A fine purge,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “the opposite of the one doctors give bodies. They remove the worst and leave the best; he does the reverse.”

“It seems he has to,” he said, “if he’s going to rule.” 567d

“Then he’s bound by a blessed necessity,” I said, “which orders him either to live with a crowd of worthless people, and be hated by them too, or not to live at all.”

“That’s the kind of necessity it is,” he said.

“And the more he makes himself hated by the citizens by doing these things, won’t he need more bodyguards, and more loyal ones?”

“Of course.”

“Who are these loyal ones, then? And where will he send for them?”

“Plenty will come flying of their own accord,” he said, “if he gives them their pay.”

“Drones, by the dog!” I said. “You seem to me to be talking 567e about drones again, foreign ones of every sort.”

“You’re right,” he said, “that’s what I mean.”

“But what about from right there at home? Wouldn’t he be willing—”

“To do what?”

“—to take the citizens’ slaves away from them, free them, and make them part of his bodyguard?”

“Very much so,” he said, “since these are in fact the most loyal to him.”

“What a blessed thing a tyrant is, on your account,” I said, “if these are the 568a friends and loyal men he makes use of, after destroying those earlier ones.”

“Well, these are the ones he does make use of,” he said.

“And these companions admire him,” I said, “and the new citizens keep him company, while decent people hate and avoid him?”

“How could they not?”

“It’s not for nothing,” I said, “that tragedy in general is thought to be wise, and Euripides outstanding at it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because among other things he uttered this saying, the product of shrewd thought: that 568b ‘tyrants are wise through the company of the wise.’ And he clearly meant that the wise are the people the tyrant keeps company with.”

“Yes,” he said, “and he praises tyranny as godlike, and much else besides—he and the other poets too.”note

“Well then,” I said, “being wise, the tragic poets will forgive us, and all those whose constitutions are close to ours, for not admitting them into our constitution, seeing that they sing the praises of tyranny.”

“I think they’ll forgive us,” he said, “at least those of them who are 568c sophisticated.”

“But they go around to the other cities, I imagine, gathering crowds and hiring fine, loud, persuasive voices, and draw the constitutions toward tyrannies and democracies.”

“They certainly do.”

“And on top of this they get paid and honored for it—most of all, as you’d expect, by tyrants, and second by democracy. But the higher they climb up 568d the slope of constitutions, the more their honor gives out, as if it were too short of breath to go on.”

“Certainly.”

“But we’ve digressed here,” I said. “Let’s go back and talk about the tyrant’s army—that fine, large, many-colored army that’s never the same—and how it will be fed.”

“Clearly,” he said, “if there are sacred treasures in the city, he’ll spend them, for as long as the proceeds of their sale hold out, and so require smaller war taxes from the people.” 568e

“And what happens when these run out?”

“Clearly,” he said, “he’ll be fed from his father’s estate, he and his drinking companions and his comrades and his mistresses.”

“I see,” I said. “You mean that the people who fathered the tyrant will feed him and his comrades.”

“They’ll have no choice,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I said. “What if the people get angry and say that it isn’t just for a grown-up son to be fed by his father—on the contrary, the father should be fed by the son—and that they didn’t father 569a and establish him so that, when he grew great, they themselves would be slaves to their own slaves and feed him and those slaves along with a rabble of others, but so that, with him as their champion, they would be freed from the rich and the so-called gentlemen in the city? And what if they now order him and his comrades to leave the city, like a father driving his son out of the house along with his rowdy drinking companions?”

“Then, by Zeus,” he said, “the people will learn what kind of 569b creature they fathered, welcomed and raised, and that they’re the weaker ones trying to drive out the stronger.”

“What are you saying?” I said. “The tyrant will dare to use force on his father, and beat him if he doesn’t obey?”

“Yes,” he said, “once he’s taken away his weapons.”

“You’re calling the tyrant a father-beater,” I said, “and a harsh nurse of old age. And this, it seems, would at last be tyranny openly acknowledged. As the saying goes, the people, trying to escape the smoke of 569c slavery to free men, would have fallen into the fire of being ruled by slaves; in exchange for that excessive and untimely freedom, they would have put on the harshest and bitterest slavery, slavery to slaves.”

“That is exactly what happens,” he said.

“Well then,” I said, “wouldn’t we be right to say that we’ve given an adequate account of how tyranny develops out of democracy, and of what it’s like once it has come about?”

“Quite adequate,” he said.