Recalling the Argument: Four Defective Constitutions

Well then — these things have been agreed, Glaucon: that the city which is to be governed at its very best will have the women in common, the children in common, and all their education in common, and likewise the pursuits common in both war and peace, and that its kings will be those who have proved best in philosophy and in warfare.

It has been agreed, he said.

And moreover we agreed to this too — that when the rulers are established, they will lead the soldiers and settle them in dwellings such as we described earlier, dwellings with nothing private belonging to anyone, but common to all; and besides such dwellings, we also agreed, if you remember, what sort of possessions they would have.

I do remember, he said, that we thought none of them should possess anything that the others now possess, but rather, as athletes of war and guardians, receiving from the others their keep for the year as wages for their guarding, they must care for themselves and for the rest of the city.

You are right, I said. But come, since we have finished this, let us recall from where we turned aside to arrive here, so that we may go back the same way.

Not difficult, he said. For much as now, you were speaking as one who had finished the account of the city, saying that you set down as good the sort of city you had then described, and the man resembling it, and this despite having, as it seems, still finer things yet to say of city and man. But at any rate you went on to say that the other constitutions were mistaken, if this one is right. And of the remaining constitutions, you said, as I recall, there are four kinds, about which it would be worth both giving an account and seeing their faults, and the men who resemble them in turn, so that, having seen them all and agreed on the best and worst man, we might examine whether the best is happiest and the worst most wretched, or whether it stands otherwise — and when I asked which four constitutions you meant, at that point Polemarchus and Adeimantus broke in, and so you, taking up the argument, have arrived here.

You have remembered it exactly right, I said.

Well then, offer the same hold again, like a wrestler, and when I ask the same question, try to say what you were then about to say.

If I can, I said.

And indeed, he said, I myself am eager to hear which four constitutions you meant.

You will hear it without difficulty, I said. For those I mean, the ones that actually have names, are: the one praised by the many, this Cretan-and-Laconian one; and second, and praised second, the one called oligarchy, a constitution full of many evils; and the one differing from this and coming next in order, democracy; and then, of course, that noble thing tyranny, differing from all of these, the fourth and last disease of a city. Or do you have some other form of constitution, one that lies in some distinct kind? For dynasties, and purchased kingships, and certain other constitutions of that sort, lie somewhere between these, and one could find them no fewer among barbarians than among Greeks.

Many odd ones do get talked of, at any rate, he said.

Do you know, then, I said, that there must also be as many kinds of human character as there are of constitutions? Or do you think that constitutions come from some oak or rock, rather than from the characters found in the cities, which, tipping the scale as it were, draw everything else along with them?

Not I, certainly, he said — from nowhere else but there.

Then if the constitutions of cities are five, the soul's arrangements in private individuals would also be five.

What else could it be?

The man resembling aristocracy, then, we have already discussed — the one we rightly call good and just.

We have.

Must we, then, after this, go through the worse men — the contentious and honor-loving man corresponding to the Laconian constitution, and again the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical — so that, having seen the most unjust and set him against the most just, our inquiry may be complete as to how unmixed justice stands against unmixed injustice with respect to the happiness or wretchedness of the one who has it, so that we may either, persuaded by Thrasymachus, pursue injustice, or, by the argument now coming to light, pursue justice?

By all means, he said, that is what we must do.

Shall we, then, just as we began by examining the characters in the constitutions before examining them in private individuals, since that is clearer, so now too first examine the honor-loving constitution — for I have no other name commonly given to it; it must be called either timocracy or timarchy — and in relation to it examine the corresponding man, then oligarchy and the oligarchic man, and again, turning our gaze to democracy, observe the democratic man, and fourth, having come to a city under tyranny and seen it, and looking in turn at the tyrannical soul, try to become adequate judges of what we set out to determine?

Timocracy: How It Arises

That, at least, he said, is how the viewing and the judging would reasonably come about.

Come then, I said, let us try to say in what way a timocracy might arise out of an aristocracy. Or is this much straightforward — that every constitution changes from within the very body that holds power, whenever faction arises within that same body; but while it is of one mind, even if very small, it is impossible for it to be moved?

Yes, that is how it is.

How then, I said, Glaucon, will our city be set in motion, and in what way will the auxiliaries and the rulers fall into strife with one another and with themselves? Or would you like us, like Homer, to pray the Muses to tell us how strife first broke out, and shall we say that they, treating us as children to be played with and teased, and pretending to be in earnest, address us in a lofty, tragic style?

How?

Something like this. It is difficult, indeed, for a city so composed to be moved; but since everything that has come into being is subject to decay, not even a structure of this kind will remain for all time, but will be dissolved. And the dissolution is this: not only for plants that grow in the earth, but also for creatures that live upon it, there come to be fruitfulness and unfruitfulness of soul and of body alike, whenever the revolutions bring round for each the circuits of their cycles — short circuits for the short-lived, and opposite ones for the opposite kind. But as for the good breeding and the barrenness of your race — though those you have trained as leaders of the city are wise — they will be no better at hitting the mark by reasoning joined with observation, but these will slip past them, and they will at some time beget children when they ought not. For the divine begotten kind there is a period which a perfect number encompasses, but for the human kind there is one in which, first, increases capable of exercising power and subject to it — taking three intervals and four terms of things that make like and unlike, and that increase and decrease — rendered all things speakable and rational in relation to one another; of which the base in the ratio of four to three, yoked with the five, when increased three times, yields two harmonies: the one equal an equal number of times, taken a hundred times as many; the other of equal length one way but oblong — a hundred of the numbers from the rational diagonals of the five, each falling short by one, and of the irrational diagonals, two, and a hundred cubes of the three. And this whole number is geometrical, and has authority over things of this kind — better and worse births — and when your guardians, in ignorance of it, join brides to bridegrooms out of due season, the children born will be neither well-natured nor fortunate; of these the elder rulers will appoint the best, but nonetheless, being unworthy, once they in turn have come into their fathers' power, they, though guardians, will first begin to neglect us, holding the things of music in less honor than they ought, and second the things of gymnastic, so that your young will become more unmusical. And from these there will be established rulers not at all fit to guard, when it comes to testing Hesiod's races and those among you — the golden, the silver, the bronze, and the iron; and when iron is mixed together with silver, and bronze with gold, there will arise unlikeness and inharmonious inequality, which, wherever they arise, always breed war and enmity. It is of this stock, one must say, that strife always is, wherever it may arise.

And we shall say that they answer rightly, he said.

Yes indeed, I said, it must be so, since they are Muses.

What then, he said, do the Muses say next?

When strife arose, I said, the two kinds then pulled each its own way: the iron and the bronze toward money-making and the acquisition of land and houses and gold and silver, while the other two, the golden and the silver — being not poor but naturally rich — led their souls toward virtue and the ancient order; but as they used force on one another and pulled against each other, they agreed on a middle course: having divided up the land and the houses, to make them private property, and those whom before they had guarded as free friends and providers, they now enslaved and held as dependents and servants, while they themselves took charge of war and of guarding them.

It seems to me, he said, that this is how the transition comes about.

Then, I said, would this constitution not be somewhere between an aristocracy and an oligarchy?

Certainly.

It will change, then, in this way; but once it has changed, how will it be governed? Or is it clear that, being in between, it will in some ways imitate the former constitution, in others oligarchy, and will also have something peculiar to itself?

So it is, he said.

Then in honoring its rulers, in its fighting part's abstaining from farming and from handicrafts and the rest of money-making, in having common meals established, and in attending to gymnastic and the contests of war — in all such things will it not imitate the former constitution?

Yes.

But in fearing to bring the wise into office, since such men as it now has are no longer simple and unswerving but mixed, and in inclining instead toward the spirited and simpler sort, those naturally suited more to war than to peace, and in holding in honor the tricks and contrivances of war, and in spending its whole time at war — in these ways it will in turn have much that is peculiar to itself alone?

Yes.

And men of this sort, I said, will be desirers of money, like those in oligarchies, fiercely honoring gold and silver in secret, since they possess treasure-chambers and private hoards where they can store and hide them, and, again, walled dwellings — simply private nests — in which, spending on women and on whomever else they chose, they would lay out a great deal.

Very true, he said.

And so they will also be miserly with money, since they honor it and do not acquire it openly, yet eager to spend the wealth of others to satisfy desire, secretly reaping their pleasures like children running away from their father, the law, educated not by persuasion but by force, because they have neglected the true Muse, the one that goes with reason and philosophy, and have honored gymnastic above music as the elder of the two.

Altogether, he said, you are describing a constitution mixed of bad and good.

For it is mixed, I said; but one thing alone stands out most clearly in it, since the spirited part rules — love of victory and love of honor.

Very much so, he said.

Well then, I said, this constitution, having thus come about, would be of such a kind that, sketching the outline of a constitution in words, one would not work it out with precision, since it is enough to see even from the sketch both the most just man and the most unjust, while it would be an impossibly long task to go through all constitutions and all characters, leaving nothing out.

The Timocratic Man

And rightly, he said.

Who then is the man who answers to this constitution? How does he come to be, and what sort of man is he?

I think, said Adeimantus, that as far as love of victory goes he comes close to our Glaucon here.

Perhaps that much is so, I said; but it seems to me that these traits are not natural to him.

What traits?

He must, I said, be somewhat more self-willed and somewhat less musical, yet a lover of music, and fond of listening, though by no means eloquent. Such a man would be harsh toward slaves — not out of contempt for slaves, as the properly educated man is — yet gentle toward the free, thoroughly obedient to rulers, fond of rule and fond of honor, thinking himself fit to rule not on the strength of speech, nor of anything of that kind, but of deeds of war and of the business of war, and being something of a lover of exercise and of hunting.

Yes, he said, that is the character of that constitution.

And would not such a man, I said, while young despise money, but the older he becomes, always embrace it more, because he shares in the money-loving nature, and is not pure toward virtue, since he has been deprived of the best guardian?

Of what? Adeimantus asked.

Of reason, I said, blended with music; this alone, once it has come to be in a man, lives on in him as the savior of virtue throughout his life.

Well said, he replied.

And such, I said, is the timocratic young man, resembling the city of that kind.

Quite so.

He comes to be, I said, in some such way as this: sometimes he is the young son of a good father who lives in a city not well governed, a father who avoids honors and offices and lawsuits and all such meddling, and who is willing to be at a disadvantage in order to avoid trouble—

In what way does this happen? he asked.

Whenever, I said, he first hears his mother complaining that her husband is not among the rulers, and that on this account she is worse off among the other women, and then, when she sees that his father is not much concerned about money and does not quarrel and hurl abuse in private lawsuits or in public but bears all such things with easy unconcern, and when he himself perceives that his father always keeps his mind on his own affairs and neither greatly honors nor slights her, hears her vexed at all of this and saying that his father is unmanly and far too slack, and harping on all the other things, and the sort of things, that women love to go on about in such cases.

Very much so, said Adeimantus, many things, and all typical of women.

You know, I said, that the household servants of such people sometimes say things of this sort privately to the sons — servants who are thought to be well-disposed — and that if they see someone owing money whom the father does not prosecute, or doing some other wrong, they urge the boy on, so that once he becomes a man he will punish all such people and be more of a man than his father. And when he goes out, he hears and sees other such things: those who mind their own business in the city being called simpletons and counted for little, while those who do not mind their own business are honored and praised. Then indeed the young man, hearing and seeing all such things, and again hearing his father's words and seeing, close up, his practices as against those of others, drawn by both of these — his own father watering and increasing the rational part in his soul, while the others do the same to the appetitive and the spirited, because he is not by nature a bad man, but has kept the bad company of others — drawn, as I say, by both of them, he came to the middle, and handed over the rule within himself to the part that is middling, victory-loving, and spirited, and became a high-minded, honor-loving man.

You seem to me, he said, to have given a full account of his origin.

Oligarchy: How It Arises

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

We have, he said.

Then after this shall we speak, in Aeschylus's phrase, of a different man ranged against a different city — or rather, following our plan, of the city first?

Certainly, he said.

And the one that comes after such a constitution would be, I think, oligarchy.

And what arrangement do you mean by oligarchy? he said.

The constitution based on a property assessment, I said, in which the rich rule and the poor have no share in office.

I understand, he said.

Then must we not first tell how it changes from timocracy into oligarchy?

Yes.

And indeed, I said, even a blind man can see how it changes.

How so?

It is that storehouse, I said, each man's, filling up with gold, that destroys such a constitution. For first they find ways to spend on themselves, and twist the laws to this end, disobeying them, they and their wives alike.

Likely, he said.

Then, I suppose, one man seeing another and falling into rivalry with him, they made the mass of themselves like that.

Likely.

From there, then, I said, they press on further into money-making, and the more they hold this in honor, the less honor they give virtue. Or is not virtue set apart from wealth in this way — as if each lay in the pan of a balance, always tipping to opposite sides?

Very much so, he said.

When wealth is honored in a city, then, and the rich along with it, virtue and good men are held in less honor.

Clear.

What is always honored is practiced, then, while what is dishonored is neglected.

So it is.

So instead of men who love victory and honor, they end up becoming money-makers and lovers of money, and they praise and admire the rich man and bring him into office, while they dishonor the poor man.

Very much so.

Then at that point they establish a law setting the boundary of an oligarchic constitution, fixing a sum of money as the requirement — more where the oligarchy is stronger, less where it is weaker — and declaring in advance that whoever does not have property reaching the assessment set shall have no share in office; and they carry this out either by force of arms, or else, even before resorting to that, by frightening people into establishing such a constitution. Or is it not so?

Just so.

This, then, so to speak, is the arrangement.

Yes, he said; but what then is the character of the constitution? And what are the faults we said it has?

First, I said, this very point — what sort of boundary it has. For consider: if someone were to appoint ships' pilots in this way, based on property assessments, and refuse the post to a poor man even if he were the more skilled pilot—

A wretched voyage, he said, they would sail.

Then is it not likewise so with any other office whatsoever [or any]?

I think so, at least.

Except the city? I said — or is it also so with the city?

Most of all, he said, by far, seeing that this office is the hardest and the greatest.

That, then, would be one fault of oligarchy, and of such a size.

So it appears.

What next? Is this one any less than that?

What is it?

That such a city must necessarily be not one but two — one of the poor, one of the rich — dwelling in the same place, always plotting against each other.

No less at all, by Zeus, he said.

And moreover, this too is not good — that they are unable, perhaps, to wage any war, since they are forced either, if they make use of the armed populace, to fear that mass more than the enemy, or, if they do not make use of it, to show themselves, in the actual fighting, as truly oligarchic — that is, few — and at the same time to be unwilling to contribute money, since they love money.

Not good.

What next? The thing we found fault with long ago — the same men farming, making money, and fighting all at once in such a constitution — does that seem to be right?

Not in any way at all.

Consider then whether, of all these evils, this constitution is the first to admit the greatest one.

What is it?

That it is permitted to sell off all one's property, and for another to acquire it, and, having sold it, to go on living in the city as none of the city's parts — neither money-maker nor craftsman nor horseman nor hoplite — but called poor and without resources.

The first, he said.

Well, this sort of thing is certainly not prevented in cities ruled by oligarchy; for otherwise some would not be excessively rich while others were altogether poor.

Rightly.

But consider this: when such a man, being rich, was spending, was he then any more of use to the city for the things we were just now speaking of? Or did he only seem to be one of the rulers, while in truth he was neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but a spender of what lay ready to hand?

So it was, he said; he seemed to be one, but was nothing else than a spender.

Do you want us, then, I said, to say of him that, just as a drone arises in a honeycomb, a disease of the hive, so such a man arises in a household as a drone, a disease of the city?

Certainly, he said, Socrates.

Then, Adeimantus, has god made all the winged drones stingless, while of these that go on foot, some are stingless and some have terrible stings? And from the stingless come those who end up beggars in old age, while from those with stings come all who are called wrongdoers?

Most true, he said.

Then it is clear, I said, that in a city where you see beggars, there are, somewhere hidden in that same place, thieves and cutpurses and temple-robbers and craftsmen of all such evils.

Clear, he said.

What then? Do you not see beggars present in cities ruled by oligarchy?

Nearly everyone, he said, except those who rule.

Then must we not suppose, I said, that there are also many wrongdoers among them who have stings, whom the rulers hold in check by force and vigilance?

We must indeed, he said.

Shall we not say, then, that such men arise there because of lack of education, bad upbringing, and the arrangement of the constitution?

We shall say so.

Well then, such, at any rate, would be the city ruled by oligarchy, having so many evils — and perhaps even more.

Pretty much so, he said.

The Oligarchic Man

Let this constitution too, then, be taken as completed, I said — the one they call oligarchy, which has its rulers chosen by property assessment; and let us next examine the man who resembles it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is once he has come to be.

Certainly, he said.

Is it not chiefly in this way, then, that he changes from that timocratic man into an oligarchic one?

How so?

It is when a son is born to him, and at first he emulates his father and follows his footsteps, but then sees him suddenly strike against the city as against a hidden reef, and spill out both his property and himself, after serving as general or holding some other great office, and then falling into court, [harmed] by false accusers, and being put to death or exiled or stripped of his rights, losing his whole estate.

That's likely, he said.

Having seen this, my friend, and suffered it, and lost what he had, in fear, I think, he at once thrusts headlong down from the throne in his own soul both the love of honor and that spirited part, and humbled by poverty he turns to money-making, and little by little, living meanly and scraping and toiling, he gathers up wealth. Don't you think that such a man then enthrones on that throne the appetitive part, the money-loving part, and makes it the great king within himself, girding it about with tiara and collar and scimitar?

I do, he said.

And the rational part, I think, and the spirited part he seats on the ground, this side and that, beneath it, and enslaves them: the one he allows to reckon and consider nothing else but how a little money may become more, and the other, in turn, to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to be ambitious for nothing but the acquisition of money and whatever else contributes to that.

There is no other change, he said, so swift and so forceful, from an honor-loving young man into a money-loving one.

Is this man, then, I said, oligarchic?

At least his transformation is from a man resembling the constitution out of which oligarchy arose.

Let us examine, then, whether he would be like it.

Let us do so.

Then first, would he not be like it in valuing money above everything?

How could he not?

And surely too in being frugal and industrious, satisfying only his necessary desires, refusing to spend on anything else, and enslaving his other desires as futile.

Certainly.

A squalid sort of man, I said, who makes a surplus out of everything, a hoarder — the very sort the crowd praises — or would this not be the man who resembles such a constitution?

So it seems to me, at least, he said — for money, at any rate, is held in the highest honor both by the city and by such a man.

That is because, I suppose, I said, such a man has paid no attention to education.

I don't think so, he said — for he would not have set up a blind man as leader of the chorus and ⟨honored⟩ him most of all.

Good, I said. But consider this: shall we not say that drone-like desires spring up in him on account of his lack of education — some of them beggarly, some villainous — held down by force by his carefulness in other things?

Very much so, he said.

Do you know, then, I said, where you should look to observe their villainy?

Where? He asked.

To their guardianships over orphans, and to any similar situation that comes their way, giving them ample opportunity to act unjustly.

True.

So isn't it clear from this that in his other dealings, where he enjoys a good reputation for seeming just, he restrains, by force, with some decent part of himself, other bad desires that are present in him — not persuading them that wrongdoing is not better, nor taming them by argument, but by necessity and fear, trembling for the rest of his property?

Yes, quite so, he said.

And by Zeus, my friend, I said, you will find in most of them, whenever they need to spend what belongs to others, desires akin to the drone's present within them.

Very much so indeed, he said.

Such a man, then, would not be free of faction within himself, nor single but somehow double, though for the most part he would have his better desires holding down his worse ones.

That is so.

For this reason, I think, such a man would be more decent-seeming than many others; yet true virtue, belonging to a soul that is unified and in harmony with itself, would escape him by a long way.

So it seems to me.

And what's more, as a private competitor in the city, the thrifty man is a poor competitor for a victory or any other of the fine things men are ambitious for, unwilling to spend money for the sake of reputation and such contests, afraid to rouse his spendthrift desires and call on them as allies in the struggle for victory; fighting oligarchically with just a few of his own resources, he is mostly defeated, and grows rich.

Very much so, he said.

Do we still doubt, then, I said, that the thrifty, money-making man is to be ranked, by resemblance, with the oligarchically governed city?

Democracy: How It Arises

Not at all, he said.

Democracy, then, it seems, we must consider next — in what way it comes about, and what character it has once it has come about, so that once we know the character of such a man too, we may bring him forward for judgment.

At any rate, he said, we would be going on consistently with ourselves.

Then, I said, does it not change from oligarchy into democracy in some such way as this, through insatiable desire for the good set before it — the need to become as rich as possible?

How so?

Since the rulers in it, I suppose, rule because they possess much, they are unwilling to restrain by law those of the young who turn unruly, so as to bar them from spending and squandering what is theirs, in order that by buying up such men's property and lending money against it they may grow still richer and more honored.

More than anything.

Then is this not already evident in a city — that to honor wealth and at the same time adequately cultivate moderation among the citizens is impossible, but one must neglect the one or the other?

Reasonably clear, he said.

By being negligent in oligarchies, then, and allowing licentiousness, they have sometimes forced men not ignoble by birth to become poor.

Very much so.

These men, I suppose, sit in the city fitted with stings and fully armed, some owing debts, some stripped of civic rights, some both, hating and plotting against those who have acquired their property, and against everyone else, longing for revolution.

That is so.

But the moneymakers, going about with their heads down and seeming not even to see these men, wound whoever among the rest gives way, injecting their money into him, and by collecting manifold interest — offspring, as it were, of the parent sum — they breed a great swarm of drones and beggars in the city.

How, he said, could it not be great?

And they are unwilling, I said, to quench this evil as it blazes up, either in that way — by restraining a man from turning his own property wherever he pleases — or in this way, by which such troubles are resolved under a different law.

Under what law, then?

The one that ranks second after that other law, and that compels the citizens to care for virtue. For if one were to require that most voluntary contracts be entered into at one's own risk, people would do business less shamelessly in the city, and fewer of the evils we just now mentioned would spring up in it.

Yes, and by far, he said.

But now, I said, because of all this, the rulers treat those they rule in the city in that way; but as for themselves and their own children — do they not make the young extravagant and averse to toil, both in body and in soul, too soft to hold out against pleasures and pains, and idle?

Of course.

And do they not, apart from money-making, neglect everything else themselves, and take no more care for virtue than the poor do?

No, they do not.

So disposed, then, whenever the rulers and the ruled come together with one another — whether on journeys along the roads, or in some other joint undertaking, or at festivals or on campaigns, or as shipmates or fellow soldiers, or even watching one another in the midst of dangers themselves — the poor are in that setting by no means despised by the rich; but often a lean, sunburnt poor man, standing in battle next to a rich man reared in the shade, carrying much flesh that is not his own, sees him full of gasping breath and helplessness — do you not think he concludes that such men are rich thanks to the cowardice of his own sort, and passes the word to another, whenever they meet in private, that these men are ours — for they are nothing?

I for one know well, he said, that they do that.

Then, just as a sickly body needs only a slight push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes even without any outside cause is at war with itself, does not a city disposed in the same way also, from some slight pretext, fall sick and fight against itself when one party brings in an alliance from an oligarchically governed city, or the other from a democratically governed one, and sometimes even without any outside cause falls into civil strife?

Very much so indeed.

Democracy, I suppose, comes about when the poor, having won, kill some of the other party, banish others, and give the rest an equal share in the constitution and in the offices — and for the most part the offices in it are assigned by lot.

Yes, he said, that is the establishment of democracy, whether it comes about by arms, or whether the other party withdraws through fear.

In what manner, then, I said, do these people live? And what sort of constitution is this one, in turn? For it is clear that such a man will turn out to be some sort of democratic man.

Clearly, he said.

Then, first of all, are they not free, and does not the city become full of freedom and free speech, and is there not license in it to do whatever one wants?

So it is said, he said.

And where there is license, clearly each man would arrange his own private way of life within it, whatever pleased him.

Clearly.

It is in this constitution above all, I suppose, that people of every sort would spring up.

How could it not be so?

It looks, I said, as though this is the most beautiful of the constitutions; just as a many-colored cloak is spangled with every flower, so this one, spangled with characters of every sort, would appear the most beautiful. And perhaps, I said, many people, just as children and women do when looking at colorful things, would judge this one too to be the most beautiful.

Very much so, he said.

And it is indeed, my dear fellow, I said, the right place to look for a constitution.

Why so?

Because it holds every kind of constitution on account of its license; and it seems that anyone wishing to found a city — which is exactly what we were just doing — must, on coming to a democratically governed city, pick out whichever pattern suits him, as if he had arrived at a general store of constitutions, and, having picked it out, settle his city on that model.

At any rate, he said, he would probably not be at a loss for models.

And the fact, I said, that there is no compulsion to rule in this city, even if you are competent to rule, nor again to be ruled, if you do not wish to be, nor to make war when the others are making war, nor to keep the peace when the others are keeping it, if you have no desire for peace, and again, even if some law bars you from ruling or judging, that there is nothing to stop you all the same from ruling and judging, should the fancy take you — is not such a way of life divinely pleasant, for the moment at least?

Perhaps, he said, at least for that moment.

And what of this? Is not the mild manner of some who have been sentenced charming? Or have you not yet seen how, in such a constitution, when [men] have been condemned to death or exile, they none the less remain and move about in the midst of things, [and] with no one caring or even noticing, each of them struts about like a hero?

Yes, and many of them, he said.

And then its forgivingness, and its utter want of pettiness, and its contempt for what we said so solemnly when we were founding our city — that unless a man had a surpassing nature he would never become good, not unless from boyhood he played amid fine things and practiced all such pursuits — how magnificently it tramples all of that underfoot, caring nothing for what pursuits a man comes from when he enters politics, but honoring him so long as he merely says he is well disposed toward the multitude?

The Democratic Man

Quite so, he said — noble indeed.

These things, then, I said, democracy would have, along with other traits akin to them, and it would be, it seems, a pleasant constitution, anarchic and many-colored, distributing a kind of equality alike to equals and unequals.

Yes indeed, he said, that is all familiar enough.

Consider then, I said, who such a man is privately. Or must we first examine, just as we examined the constitution, in what way he comes to be?

Yes, he said.

Is it not, then, like this? A son might be born to that thrifty and oligarchic man, raised, I suppose, under his father in his father's ways?

Why not?

This one too, by force, ruling over the pleasures within himself — as many as are wasteful but not money-making, which indeed are called unnecessary—

Clearly, he said.

Do you want, then, I said, so that we may not talk obscurely, that we first define the necessary desires and the unnecessary ones?

I do, he said.

Would not, then, those desires that we could not turn aside be rightly called necessary, and also those which, when fulfilled, benefit us? For our nature necessarily desires both of these. Or not?

Very much so.

Rightly, then, we shall apply the term necessary to them.

Rightly.

But what of these? Those that a man could rid himself of if he practiced from youth, and that do no good when present — and some indeed the opposite: if we said that all of them are unnecessary, would we not be speaking correctly?

Quite correctly, indeed.

Shall we then choose some example of each kind, so that we may grasp them in outline?

Yes, we should.

Is not, then, the desire to eat up to the point of health and good condition, and the desire for bread and relish themselves, a necessary one?

I think so.

The desire for bread, at any rate, is necessary in both respects — both in that it is beneficial and in that it is capable of ⟨not⟩ putting an end to life.

Yes.

But the desire for relish, if it provides some benefit toward good condition,

Quite so.

But what of the desire for things beyond these and for different foods or the like — a desire that, if disciplined and trained from youth, is capable of being got rid of by most people, and is harmful to the body, and harmful to the soul in respect of practical wisdom and moderation? Would it not, then, rightly be called unnecessary?

Most rightly, indeed.

Shall we not, then, say that these are wasteful, and those others money-making, because they are useful for one's work?

Why not?

Shall we say the same, then, about the pleasures of love and the rest?

Just so.

Was it not, then, the man we just now called a drone whom we meant — the one full of such pleasures and desires and ruled by the unnecessary ones — while the man ruled by the necessary ones we called thrifty and oligarchic?

Well, of course.

Let us say again, then, I said, how the democratic man comes to be from the oligarchic. It seems to me that, for the most part, it happens like this.

How?

Whenever a young man, raised as we just said, without education and thriftily, tastes the honey of the drones, and keeps company with fierce and clever creatures who can concoct pleasures of every kind, varied and diversely composed, there, you may suppose, is the beginning of his change … from the oligarchic element in himself to the democratic.

Quite necessarily, he said.

Is it not, then, just as the city changed when an alliance from outside came to the aid of one part — like helping like — that the young man too changes, when in turn a kind of desire from outside comes to the aid of the other part within him, one akin and alike to it?

Absolutely, indeed.

And if, I suppose, some counter-aid comes in alliance to the oligarchic element within him — from his father perhaps, or from his other relatives, admonishing and reproaching him — then faction and counter-faction and battle arise in him against himself.

Of course.

And sometimes, I suppose, the democratic element yields to the oligarchic, and some of the desires are destroyed while others are driven out, with a kind of shame arising in the young man's soul, and order is restored again.

Yes, that happens sometimes, he said.

But then, I suppose, other desires akin to those that had been driven out are secretly nourished, and through the father's ignorance of how to rear them, they become many and strong.

That is indeed apt to happen so, he said.

So they draw him toward the same company, and, meeting with him in secret, breed a multitude.

Of course.

At last, I suppose, they seize the citadel of the young man's soul, perceiving it empty of learning and fine pursuits and true arguments — which indeed are the best sentinels and guardians in the minds of men beloved by the gods.

Quite so, he said.

Then, I suppose, false and boastful arguments and opinions rush up in their place and seize that same region in such a man's soul.

Very much so, he said.

Does he not, then, come back again to those Lotus-eaters and openly dwell among them, and if some aid from his relatives comes to the thrifty part of his soul, those boastful arguments, having shut the gates of the royal wall within him, neither let the alliance itself pass, nor admit as ambassadors the words of older private persons, but themselves prevail in the fight, and, naming shame folly, they thrust it out disgraced, as an exile, and calling moderation cowardice and abusing it, they cast it out, and, persuading him that measure and orderly spending are boorishness and meanness, they drive them beyond the border, in the company of many useless desires?

Very much so.

And having thus emptied and purified the soul of the young man possessed and initiated by them with great rites, after this they now lead back insolence and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness, resplendent, crowned, with a great chorus in attendance — praising and giving them pet names, calling insolence good breeding, anarchy freedom, prodigality magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Is it not in some such way, I said, that a young man, once reared among necessary desires, changes over to the liberation and release of unnecessary and useless pleasures?

Very much so, indeed, he said — quite plainly.

After this, I suppose, such a man lives spending money and toil and time no more on necessary pleasures than on unnecessary ones; but if he is fortunate and not carried too far into frenzy, and, becoming somewhat older, once the great tumult has passed, he admits back some part of what was driven out and does not give himself over wholly to the newcomers, he then lives establishing his pleasures on some kind of equal footing, always handing over his own rule to whichever one happens along, as if it had won it by lot, until it is satisfied, and then again to another, dishonoring none but nurturing all alike.

Quite so, indeed.

And, I said, not admitting a true account nor letting it into the fortress, if someone says that some pleasures belong to fine and good desires, and others to bad ones, and that the former should be cultivated and honored, the latter disciplined and enslaved; but in all these cases he shakes his head and says they are all alike and equally to be honored.

Yes indeed, he said — being so disposed, he does this.

And thus, I said, he also spends his daily life gratifying whatever desire comes along — now drinking and reveling to the flute, now drinking only water and reducing his flesh; now exercising, and sometimes idle and neglectful of everything, and now as if occupied with philosophy. Often, too, he engages in politics, and leaping up he says and does whatever comes into his head; and if ever he admires some men of war, he is carried in that direction, or if money-makers, then again toward that. And there is neither order nor necessity present in his life, but calling this life sweet and free and blessed, he lives by it throughout.

You have described completely, he said, the life of some egalitarian sort of man.

And I think too, I said, that this man is of every sort and full of the greatest number of characters, and — like that city — both fine and richly varied; many men and many women might well emulate his life, since it contains within it the greatest number of patterns of constitutions and ways of life.

For that indeed is what he is, he said.

Freedom Turning Into Slavery

What then? Is this man to be ranked by us under democracy, as one who would rightly be called democratic?

Let him be so ranked, he said.

Then, I said, it remains for us to discuss the finest constitution and the finest man of all — tyranny and the tyrant.

Quite so, he said.

Come then, my dear friend, in what way does tyranny come about? That it changes over from democracy is fairly clear.

Clear.

Is it not, then, in some sense the same way that democracy comes from oligarchy, and tyranny from democracy?

How so?

The good they set before themselves, I said, and because of which oligarchy was established — this was [excessive] wealth; was it not? —

Yes.

Then insatiable desire for wealth, and neglect of everything else for the sake of money-making, destroyed it.

True, he said.

Is it not then also the insatiable desire for that which democracy defines as good that destroys it in turn?

And what do you say it defines as good?

Freedom, I said. For that, I suppose, is what you would hear said in a city under democracy — that it possesses this as its finest thing, and that for this reason it alone is worth living in for anyone who is free by nature.

That saying is certainly repeated often, he said.

Is it not then, I said, just as I was about to say a moment ago, that the insatiable desire for this and neglect of everything else changes this constitution too, and prepares it to need a tyranny?

In what way? He asked.

Whenever, I suppose, a city under democracy, thirsting for freedom, happens to have bad cupbearers presiding over it, and becomes drunk on unmixed wine beyond what is fitting, then, if its rulers are not very gentle and do not give it freedom in abundance, it punishes them, accusing them of being vile and oligarchic.

They certainly do that, he said.

And it heaps abuse, I said, on those who are obedient to the rulers, as willing slaves and nothing at all, while it praises and honors, both privately and publicly, rulers who are like the ruled and ruled who are like the rulers. Is it not necessary that in such a city freedom go to every extreme?

How could it not?

And that this anarchy, my friend, I said, sinks down into private households, and ends by working its way into the very animals.

What do we mean, he asked, by a thing like that?

For example, I said, a father grows accustomed to becoming like his child, and fears his sons, while a son becomes like his father, and feels neither shame nor fear before his parents, so that he may be free; a resident alien becomes equal to the citizen, and the citizen to the resident alien, and likewise the foreigner.

Yes, that is indeed how it happens, he said.

These things happen, I said, and other small things like them as well; a teacher in such a place fears his pupils and fawns on them, while pupils make light of their teachers, and likewise of their attendants; and in general the young set themselves up as equal to their elders and compete with them, in word and in deed, while the old come down to the level of the young and fill themselves with wit and playfulness, imitating the young, so that they may not seem disagreeable or overbearing.

Very much so, he said.

But the extreme of the people's freedom, my friend, I said, as much of it as occurs in such a city, is when the bought men and the bought women are no less free than those who bought them. And how great the equality and freedom is that arises between women toward men and men toward women — we very nearly forgot to mention it.

Then shall we not say, he said, in the words of Aeschylus, whatever has now come to our lips?

Quite so, I said — and that is indeed what I mean too; for no one without experience of it would believe how much freer the animals kept by men are here than elsewhere. For quite literally, according to the proverb, the dogs become just like their mistresses, and so too do the horses and donkeys, accustomed to walking about in a thoroughly free and dignified manner, barging into anyone they meet in the streets who does not get out of the way, and everything else likewise becomes full of freedom.

You are telling my own dream back to me, he said; for I myself, when walking out to the country, often experience just that.

And the sum of all these things gathered together, I said, do you notice how tender it makes the soul of the citizens, so that if anyone brings any form of slavery near them at all, they grow indignant and cannot bear it? For in the end, I suppose you know, they pay no heed even to the laws, written or unwritten, so that in no way at all may anyone be their master.

I know it very well, he said.

This, then, my friend, I said, is the beginning, so fine and full of youthful vigor, from which tyranny grows, as it seems to me.

Full of youthful vigor indeed, he said; but what comes after this?

The same thing, I said, as the disease that arose in oligarchy and destroyed it — this same disease, arising in this constitution too, greater and stronger because of its license, enslaves democracy. And in truth, doing anything to excess tends to produce a great change into its opposite, in seasons and in plants and in bodies, and indeed, not least of all, in constitutions.

That is likely, he said.

For excessive freedom seems to change into nothing other than excessive slavery, both for the private man and for the city.

That is indeed likely.

It is reasonable, then, I said, that tyranny is established from no other constitution than democracy — from the most extreme freedom, I suppose, comes the greatest and most savage slavery.

Yes, that stands to reason, he said.

But I do not think, I said, that is what you were asking, but rather what the disease is that grows in oligarchy and, arising the same in democracy, enslaves it.

True, he said.

Well, I said, I meant that class of idle and extravagant men — the boldest of them leading, the less bold following — whom indeed we compare to drones, some equipped with stings, others without.

And rightly so, he said.

These two, then, I said, disturb every constitution when they arise in it, just as phlegm and bile disturb the body; against which indeed the good physician and lawgiver of a city must guard well in advance, no less than a wise beekeeper — above all so that they may not arise at all, but if they do arise, so that they may be cut out, comb and all, as quickly as possible.

Yes, by Zeus, he said, absolutely.

Let us then take it up this way, I said, so that we may see more clearly what we want.

How?

Let us divide a city under democracy, in our discussion, into three parts, just as indeed it actually is. For one such class, I suppose, grows up in it because of its license, no less than in the city under oligarchy.

So it is.

But it is much sharper here than there.

How so?

There, because it has no honor but is driven away from office, it becomes untrained and lacking in vigor; but in democracy this class is, I suppose, for the most part what stands at its head, apart from a few, and the sharpest part of it speaks and acts, while the rest, settling around the speakers' platforms, buzzes and will not tolerate anyone saying otherwise, so that in such a constitution everything is managed by this class, apart from a few exceptions.

Very much so, he said.

Then another such class is always separated off from the multitude.

What sort?

When everyone, I suppose, is engaged in money-making, those who are most orderly by nature generally become the wealthiest.

Likely.

It is from these, I suppose, that the most honey for the drones is taken, and the most easily got.

How indeed, he said, could anyone extract honey from those who have little?

Such rich men, I suppose, are called the pasture of the drones.

Just about, he said.

The Protector Becomes a Tyrant

The people would be a third class — all who work with their own hands and keep out of public affairs, not possessing a great deal — and this, whenever it is gathered together, is the largest and most dominant group in a democracy.

It is so, he said; but it is not often willing to do this, unless it gets some share of the honey.

And it does always get a share, I said, so far as its protectors are able, by taking the property away from those who have it, distributing it to the people, and keeping the greatest part for themselves.

It does get a share that way, he said.

Then those it is taken from are compelled, I suppose, to defend themselves, speaking before the people and doing whatever they can.

How could they not?

Then they are accused by the others, even if they have no wish to overturn anything, of plotting against the people and being oligarchic.

What else?

And then in the end, whenever they see the people, not willingly but through ignorance and being deceived by slanderers, attempting to do them wrong, then at last, whether they wish it or not, they truly become oligarchic — not willingly, but because that drone breeds this evil in them too by stinging them.

Quite so.

Then impeachments, trials, and contests against one another follow.

Very much so.

And is it not always the people's habit to set some one man above itself especially, and to nourish him and make him great?

It is indeed their habit.

This, then, I said, is clear — that whenever a tyrant springs up, he sprouts from the root of a protector and from nowhere else.

Very clear indeed.

What, then, is the beginning of the change from protector to tyrant? Or is it clear that it happens once the protector begins to do the same thing as the man in the story told about the shrine of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia?

What story? He asked.

That the one who tastes the human entrail — one piece cut up and mixed in among the entrails of the other sacrificial victims — must inevitably become a wolf. Or have you not heard the story?

I have.

Is it not the same, then, with one who, standing as protector of the people and getting hold of a mob entirely obedient to him, does not hold back from the blood of his own kin, but, bringing unjust charges, as such men are apt to do, and hauling a man before the courts, commits murder, blotting out a man's life, tasting kindred blood with unholy tongue and mouth, and drives men into exile and kills them, and hints at the cancellation of debts and the redistribution of land — is it not necessary, then, and fated for such a man, after this, either to be destroyed by his enemies or to become a tyrant and turn from a man into a wolf?

The Tyrant Secures His Power

Quite necessarily, he said.

This man, then, I said, becomes the one who stirs up strife against those who own property.

This man.

So then, if he is driven out and returns in spite of his enemies, does he come back a finished tyrant?

Clearly.

But if they are unable to expel him or kill him by denouncing him to the city, they plot in secret to kill him by a violent death.

That is, at any rate, he said, how it tends to happen.

At this point, then, all who have advanced this far discover the notorious request typical of tyrants: to ask the people for some guards for his person, so that the people's helper may be kept safe for them.

Very much so, he said.

And I suppose they grant it, fearing for him but feeling confident about themselves.

Quite so.

Now, whenever a man who has property sees this, and along with his property gets a reputation for hating the people, then, my friend, this man, in accordance with the oracle given to Croesus— …by the many-pebbled Hermus flees, and does not stay, nor is ashamed to be a coward.

No, he said, for he would not be put to shame a second time.

But whoever is caught, I said, is, I suppose, given over to death.

Necessarily.

But that protector himself, it is clear, does not lie fallen, great and mighty; instead, having cast down many others, he stands in the chariot of the city, made into a tyrant instead of a protector.

Why should he not? He said.

Shall we, then, go through the happiness, I said, of the man and of the city in which such a mortal comes to be?

By all means, he said, let us go through it.

So then, I said, is it not the case that in the first days and for some time he smiles at and greets everyone he happens to meet, and says he is not a tyrant, and promises many things both privately and publicly, and frees people from debts and distributes land to the people and to those around him, and pretends to be gracious and gentle to everyone?

Necessarily, he said.

But when, I suppose, he is reconciled with some of his enemies abroad and destroys others, and there is peace from them, then first he is always stirring up some wars, so that the people may be in need of a leader.

That is likely.

Is it not also so that, by paying taxes, they become poor and are forced to be occupied with their daily needs, and so plot against him less?

Clearly.

And if he suspects, I suppose, that some men of free spirit will not allow him to rule, does he not contrive to destroy them under some pretext, by handing them over to the enemy? For all these reasons, is it always necessary for a tyrant to stir up war?

Necessarily.

And by doing these things, is he not all the more certain to be hated by the citizens?

How could it be otherwise?

Is it not also the case that some of those who helped set him in power, and who hold power themselves, speak freely both to him and to one another, criticizing what is going on — whichever of them happen to be the boldest?

That is likely.

The tyrant, then, must quietly do away with all of these, if he is to rule, until he leaves no one, whether friend or enemy, who is of any use.

Clearly.

He must, then, look sharply to see who is brave, who is large-minded, who is wise, who is rich; and so happy is he that, whether he wishes it or not, he is compelled to be an enemy to all these and to plot against them, until he has purged the city.

A beautiful purge indeed, he said.

Yes, I said, the opposite of what physicians do to bodies; for they remove the worst and leave the best, but he does the opposite.

So it seems, he said, for it is a necessity for him, if he is indeed to rule.

He is bound, then, I said, by a blessed necessity, which commands him either to live among the base majority and be hated by them, or not to live at all.

By such a necessity, he said.

So then, is it not the case that the more he is hated by the citizens for doing these things, the more numerous and more trustworthy the bodyguards he will need?

How could it be otherwise?

Who, then, are the trustworthy ones? And from where will he send for them?

Many will come flying to him of their own accord, he said, if he offers pay.

Drones, I said — by the dog — you seem to me, again, to be talking about some sort of foreign and motley men.

Your impression of me, he said, is a true one.

But who from here at home? Would he not be willing—

How so?

To take the citizens' slaves away, free them, and make them part of his own bodyguard.

Certainly, he said; since these are indeed the most trustworthy to him.

Truly, I said, you speak of a blessed sort of tyrant, if he makes use of such friends and trustworthy men, after destroying those earlier ones.

The People's Slavery

But indeed, he said, he does make use of such men.

And do these companions admire him, I said, and do the young citizens keep his company, while the decent ones hate him and avoid him?

Why would they not?

It is no wonder, I said, that tragedy in general is thought to be wise, and Euripides outstanding in it.

Why is that?

Because he too uttered a saying that holds close-packed thought, that tyrants are wise through the company of the wise. And he plainly meant that the wise are those whose company the tyrant keeps.

And how he praises tyranny as something godlike, he said, and many other things besides — both he and the other poets.

Accordingly, I said, the poets of tragedy, being wise, forgive both us and those who govern themselves in ways close to our own, because we will not admit them into our constitution, as singers of tyranny's praises.

I for my part think, he said, that those of them who are refined do forgive us.

But going around to the other cities, I think, gathering the crowds, hiring beautiful, loud, and persuasive voices, they drag constitutions toward tyrannies and democracies.

Very much so.

So they also receive pay for this and are honored — most of all, as is likely, by tyrants, and second by democracies; but the higher up they go toward the steep ascent of constitutions, the more their honor gives out, as if it were unable to go on for want of breath.

Certainly.

But indeed, I said, here we have wandered off the point; let us return again to that army of the tyrant — the fine, numerous, varied army, never the same — and ask from where it will be fed.

Clearly, he said, if there are sacred funds in the city, he will spend these, for as long as the proceeds of what has been sold off keep sufficing, compelling the people to pay in smaller contributions.

But what, when these run short?

Clearly, he said, he himself, and his drinking companions, and his male and female friends, will be fed from his father's estate.

I understand, I said — that the people who bred the tyrant will feed him and his companions.

He has no choice in it, he said.

What [then] do you mean? I said — suppose the people grow indignant and say that it is not just for a grown son to be supported by his father, but the reverse, for a father to be supported by his son, and that it was not for this reason that they bred him and set him up, so that, once he had grown great, they, enslaved to their own slaves, should then support him and the slaves together with a rabble of others, but rather so that, with him as their protector, they might be freed from the rich and from those called fine and good in the city, and now they bid him and his companions leave the city, just as a father drives a son out of the house along with troublesome drinking companions?

He will find out then, by Zeus, he said, what sort of creature it was that the people bred, embracing and rearing it, and that, being weaker, they are driving out one who is stronger.

How, I said, do you mean that? Will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and even to strike him, if he will not obey?

Yes, he said, once he has taken his weapons away.

You are calling the tyrant, I said, a father-beater and a harsh keeper of his father's old age, and it seems that this, now, would be tyranny fully avowed, and, as the saying goes, the people, fleeing the smoke of slavery to free men, would have fallen into the fire of the mastery of slaves, having put on, in place of that great and unseasonable freedom, the harshest and bitterest slavery to slaves.

Yes indeed, he said, that is how it happens.

What then? I said — will it not be a fitting thing for us to say, if we claim to have gone through adequately how tyranny arises out of democracy, and, once it has come to be, what sort of thing it is?

Quite adequately, he said.

Book IX

Lawless Desires, and Dreams

It remains, then, I said, to consider the tyrannical man himself — how he changes over from the democratic man, and once he has come to be, what sort of man he is and how he lives, wretched or happy.

Yes, he is the one still left, he said.

Do you know, then, I said, what I still find myself missing?

What is it?

It seems to me that we have not adequately distinguished the desires — what kinds there are and how many. And while this is left wanting, the inquiry we are conducting will be less clear.

Well then, he said, are we not still in good time?

Very much so — and do consider what I want us to see in them. It is this. Among the unnecessary pleasures and desires, some seem to me to be lawless — desires that are liable to arise in everyone, but which, checked by the laws and by the better desires with the help of reason, are in some men done away with altogether, or left few and weak, while in others they are stronger and more numerous.

Which ones do you mean, he asked?

The ones that wake in sleep, I said — whenever the rest of the soul is asleep, all that is rational and gentle and rules over the other part, but the beastly and wild part, gorged with food or drink, rears up and, having thrown off sleep, seeks to go and satisfy its own dispositions; you know that in such a state it dares to do everything, as though released and freed from all shame and practical wisdom. For it does not shrink from attempting, as it supposes, to have intercourse with its mother, or with anyone else at all — man, god, or beast — from committing any bloody murder, or from touching any food whatsoever; and in a word, it stops short at no folly and no shamelessness.

Most true, he said.

But when, I think, a man is in a healthy and moderate state with himself, and goes to sleep having roused the rational part of himself and feasted it on fine arguments and reflections, having arrived at communion with himself, and having given the appetitive part neither want nor excess, so that it may settle and not trouble the best part with either joy or pain, but leave it alone by itself, pure, to look about and reach out to perceive something it does not know — whether of the past, the present, or even the future — and likewise having calmed the spirited part, and not going to sleep with his temper stirred from having fallen into anger with someone, but having quieted those two parts and stirred up the third, in which practical wisdom arises, and so takes his rest — you know that in such a state he grasps truth most of all, and then the visions appearing in his dreams are least lawless.

How the Tyrannical Man Comes to Be

Entirely so, I think, he said.

So then, we have been led on to say more about this than we needed; but what we want to know is this — that a terrible, wild, and lawless kind of desire is present in each of us, even in some of us who seem entirely moderate, and this becomes evident in dreams. So if you think there is something in what I say, and you agree, then consider this.

Well, I agree.

So recall what sort of man we said the democratic man was. He was, I suppose, one who had been raised from youth by a thrifty father, who honored only the money-making desires, and dishonored those that are not necessary but arise for the sake of play and adornment. Isn't that so?

Yes.

But having associated with more refined men, full of the desires we just went through, and having rushed into every kind of wanton excess and into their kind of life, out of hatred for his father's thriftiness, yet having a nature better than those who corrupt him, and being drawn in both directions, he settled into a middle between the two ways, and enjoying each in a moderate way, as he supposed, he lives neither an illiberal nor a lawless life, having become democratic instead of oligarchic.

For that was, and still is, he said, the opinion held about such a man.

Now suppose again, I said, that this man, now grown older, has a young son raised in turn in his ways.

I suppose so.

Now suppose also that the same things happen to him as happened to his father, that he is led into every lawlessness, which those who lead him into it call complete freedom, that his father and the rest of his household come to the defense of these desires in between, while others in turn bring aid on the other side — and that, when these terrible enchanters and tyrant-makers despair of holding the young man by any other means, they contrive to implant in him a certain erotic love as champion of the idle desires and of those that divide up what lies ready at hand, a great winged drone — or what else do you suppose the erotic love of such men to be?

Nothing else, he said, but this.

So then, when the other desires, buzzing around him, full of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and of the pleasures set loose in such gatherings, swell and feed him to the utmost and implant in the drone the sting of longing, then this champion of the soul is given a bodyguard of madness and is driven into a frenzy, and if it finds within him any opinions or desires that are still decent and still feel shame, it kills them and thrusts them away from itself, until it has purged him of moderation and filled him with an imported madness.

You are describing, he said, exactly how a tyrannical man comes to be.

Is it not for this reason, then, I said, that erotic love has long been called a tyrant?

It seems so, he said.

And does not a drunken man too, my friend, I said, have a somewhat tyrannical cast of mind?

A Life Ruled by Eros

For it does.

And indeed, the man who is mad and deranged both attempts to rule not only men but gods as well, and expects that he can.

Very much so, he said.

And a man becomes tyrannical in the strict sense, I said, my good sir, whenever, whether by nature or by habits or by both, he becomes given to drink, to erotic love, and to melancholy.

Yes, absolutely.

So it seems that such a man comes to be in this way — but how does he live?

That is what children say at their games, he said — you will tell me that yourself.

I will tell you, I said. I think that after this, festivals and revels and banquets and courtesans and everything of that kind arise among them — the sort of men in whom erotic love, dwelling within as a tyrant, steers everything in the soul.

It must be so, he said.

So then, do not many terrible desires sprout up beside them, every day and every night, and need a great deal?

Many indeed.

So whatever income there may be is quickly used up.

How could it not be?

And after this come borrowings, and inroads on his estate.

What else?

So whenever everything runs out, is it not inevitable that his desires — crowded together, violent, nesting within him — cry out, and that he, driven as though by goads, by his other desires and above all by erotic love itself, which leads all the rest like a bodyguard, is goaded into frenzy and looks about for whoever has anything that can be taken from him, either by deceit or by force?

Very much so, he said.

He must carry off plunder from every quarter, or be gripped by great throes and pains.

He must.

So then, just as the pleasures that arise later within him get the better of the older ones and take away what belongs to them, will he not likewise, being younger, think it right to have more than his father and mother, and to take from them, once he has spent his own share, allotted to him out of the family property?

But what else? So he said.

And if they do not allow it, will he not first attempt to steal from his parents and deceive them?

Certainly.

And when he is unable to, would he then snatch and use force?

I think so, he said.

So if the old man and the old woman hold their ground and fight, my good sir, will he be careful and hold back from doing anything a tyrant would do?

I am not at all confident, he said, about the parents of such a man.

But, Adeimantus, in the name of Zeus, do you think that such a man — for the sake of a mistress newly become dear to him, who is no kin of his — would strike his mother, long dear to him and his own by blood, or — for the sake of a boy in his bloom newly become dear to him, who is no kin of his — would strike his father, past his bloom yet still his own by blood and the oldest of his friends, and would enslave them both to his new favorites, if he brought them into the same house?

Yes, by Zeus, he said.

It seems, I said, a supremely blessed thing to have begotten a tyrannical son.

Very much so, he said.

The Tyrannical Man in Private and in Public

And what happens, then, when the resources of his father and mother fail such a man, and the swarm of pleasures gathered within him has already grown great — will he not first breach the wall of some house, or strip the cloak from someone walking late at night, and after that plunder some temple? And amid all this, the desires newly freed from slavery, waiting on erotic love like a bodyguard, will overpower — together with him — the opinions he had held from childhood about what is noble and shameful, the ones once counted as just, desires that before were released, as if in a dream , only during sleep, when he himself was still ruled within himself democratically by law and by his father; but tyrannized now by erotic love, becoming while awake always what he rarely became in a dream, he will hold back from no dreadful bloodshed, no food, no deed, but erotic love, living within him tyrannically in utter anarchy and lawlessness, since it is itself sole monarch, will drive the man who has it, as though he were a city, to every kind of recklessness, so as to feed both itself and the tumult gathered around it — part of it come in from outside through bad company, part of it from within, set loose and freed by the same habits and by the man himself; or is this not the life of such a man?

That is indeed his life, he said.

And if such men are few in a city , I said, and the rest of the multitude is moderate, they go off and serve as bodyguard to some other tyrant, or hire themselves out as mercenaries, if a war happens to be on somewhere; but if they find themselves in peace and quiet, they do many small evils right there in the city.

What sort of things do you mean?

Such things as stealing, breaking into houses, cutting purses, stripping clothes off people, robbing temples, kidnapping people into slavery; and sometimes, if they are capable speakers, they bring false accusations, bear false witness, and take bribes.

You call these small evils, he said, if such men are few.

Small things, I said, are small in comparison with great ones, and all these together, set beside a tyrant for wickedness and the misery of a city, as the saying goes, don't even come close. For whenever many such men arise in a city, along with others who follow their lead, and they become aware of their own numbers, then it is they who, together with the folly of the people, breed the tyrant — that one among them who, more than the rest, has the greatest and fullest tyrant established in his own soul.

Naturally, he said — for he would be the most tyrannical of all.

So then, if they yield willingly — well and good; but if the city does not give way, then, just as he once punished his mother and father, so again he will punish his fatherland, if he is able, by bringing in new companions, and he will keep and nourish his long-beloved motherland — as the Cretans say — and fatherland, enslaved now under them. And this indeed would be the end point of such a man's desire.

That, he said, absolutely.

So then, I said, in private life, even before they rule, such men become like this: first, in dealing with whomever they are with, either they consort with their own flatterers, men ready to serve them in anything, or, if they need something from someone, they grovel themselves, daring to strike every pose as though they were intimates, only to be strangers once they have got what they wanted?

Very much so indeed.

So in their whole life they are never a friend to anyone, but always either mastering someone or a slave to another, and a tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or true friendship.

Certainly.

So would we not be right to call such men faithless?

How could we not?

And indeed as unjust as it is possible to be, if we were right in what we agreed earlier about justice, what sort of thing it is.

First Proof: The City and the Soul Compared

Yes indeed, he said — quite rightly.

Let us sum up, then, I said, the worst man. And he is, I take it, the man we described as in a dream — whoever proves to be such a man in waking reality.

Certainly.

So this is what he becomes — whoever, being most tyrannical by nature, gains sole rule, and the longer he lives as a tyrant, the more he becomes such a man.

Necessarily, said Glaucon, taking up the argument.

So, I said, will he who appears most wicked also appear most wretched? And will he who has been a tyrant for the longest time and most completely — having in truth become such most fully and for the longest time — also appear most wretched? But then, the many think many things.

Necessarily, he said — at any rate that much is so.

Then is it not the case, I said, that the tyrannical man would resemble the city ruled by a tyrant, and the democratic man the city ruled democratically, and so with the rest?

What else?

Then as one city is to another in virtue and happiness, so too is one man to another?

How could it not be so?

Then how does the tyrannized city compare in virtue to the one ruled by a king, such as we described at the outset?

Quite the opposite, he said — for the one is best and the other worst.

I will not ask, I said, which one you mean — it is clear. But do you judge happiness and wretchedness in the same way, or differently? And let us not be struck with astonishment, looking at the tyrant as one man on his own, nor at the few who stand around him, but, as we ought, let us go in and view the whole city, sinking down into every part of it and seeing it, and only then declare our opinion.

But you challenge us rightly, he said; and it is clear to everyone that there is no city more wretched than the one ruled by a tyrant, and none happier than the one ruled by a king.

So, I said, would I be right, in issuing this same challenge about the men as well, to demand that the judge of them be that man who is able, in his mind, to enter into a man's character and see through it, and who is not, like a child looking from outside, struck with amazement by the tyrannical display they put on for those outside, but sees through it clearly? So if I should think that we all ought to listen to that man — the one able to judge, who has lived under the same roof with him and has been present at his dealings within the household, seeing how he behaves toward each of his intimates, occasions on which he would most be seen stripped of his tragic costume, and again in the dangers of public life — and, having seen all this, we should bid him report how the tyrant stands, in happiness and wretchedness, compared to other men?

You would be quite right, he said, to make this challenge too.

Do you want us, then, I said, to pretend that we ourselves are among those capable of judging, and that we have already met such men, so that we may have someone to answer what we ask?

Certainly.

Come now, I said, consider it this way. Recalling the likeness between the city and the man, and so examining each point by point in turn, tell me the condition of each.

What sort of things? He asked.

First, I said, to speak of the city, will you call the tyrannized city free or enslaved?

As enslaved as a city can possibly be, he said.

And yet you do see in it masters and free men.

I do see them, he said — though that is a small thing; but as a whole, so to speak, even the most decent part of it is enslaved, dishonored and wretched.

If, then, I said, the man is like the city, must not the same order be present in him too, and his soul be full of much slavery and unfreedom, with the parts of it that were most decent enslaved, while a small part — the most base and maddest — rules as master?

Necessarily, he said.

What then? Will you say that such a soul is enslaved or free?

Enslaved, I should think, at any rate.

Then again, does not the city which is enslaved and tyrannized do least of all what it wishes?

Very much so.

Then the tyrannized soul too, to speak of the soul as a whole, will do least of all what it wishes; but, always dragged along by force under the gadfly's goad, it will be full of turmoil and regret.

How could it not be so?

And must the tyrannized city be rich or poor?

Poor.

Then the tyrannical soul too must always be needy and insatiable.

So it is, he said.

What then? Must not such a city, and such a man, be full of fear?

Very much so.

Do you think you will find more lamentations, groans, wailings and pains in any other city?

By no means.

And do you think that among men such things are found more in anyone else than in this tyrannical man, maddened by desires and erotic love?

How could they be? He replied.

The Tyrant's Slavery and Misery

It is with an eye to all this, I think, and to other things of the same kind, that you judged that city the most wretched of cities—

Is that not right? He said.

Very much so, I said. But about the tyrannical man now, in turn — what do you say, looking to these same things?

By far the most wretched of all the rest, he said.

There, I said, you are no longer right.

How so? He said.

This, I said, is not yet the man who is such in the highest degree.

But who then?

This one will perhaps still seem to you more wretched than he.

Which one?

Whoever, I said, being tyrannical in nature does not live out his life as a private citizen, but is unlucky enough that some misfortune furnishes him with the means of becoming an actual tyrant.

I gather, he said, from what has already been said, that you are speaking the truth.

Yes, I said, but we should not merely suppose such things, but examine them very carefully by just such reasoning; for our inquiry concerns the greatest matter of all, the good life and the bad.

Quite rightly, he said.

Consider, then, whether I am saying anything to the purpose. For it seems to me we must reflect on him by examining the following.

From what?

From each one of the private men — all those who are rich in their cities and own many slaves. For these men have at least this much in common with tyrants, ruling over many; but the tyrant's numbers are different.

Yes, they are different.

Do you know, then, that these men live free of fear and are not afraid of their household slaves?

For what would they be afraid of?

Nothing, I said; but do you see the reason?

Yes, because the whole city comes to the aid of each private citizen.

You put it well, I said. But what then? If some god should lift a single man — one who owns fifty slaves or even more — out of the city, together with his wife and children, and set him down in a desolate place with the rest of his property and his household slaves, where none of the free would be there to help him, in what sort of fear, and how much of it, do you suppose he would come to be, on account of himself and his children and his wife, lest they be destroyed by the slaves?

In every kind of fear, he said, for my part.

Would he not then be forced already to flatter some of his own slaves and to promise them a great deal, and to free them though nothing required it, and would he not be revealed as a flatterer of his own servants?

He would be under every compulsion, he said, or else be destroyed.

But what, I said, if the god should also settle around him in a circle many other neighbors, who would not tolerate it if anyone claimed the right to be master over another, but if they caught anyone doing such a thing anywhere, would punish him with the most extreme penalties?

He would, he said, I think, be even more completely beset by every trouble, guarded all around by nothing but enemies.

Is the tyrant, then, not bound in just such a prison, being by nature such as we have described, full of every sort of fear and erotic love; and though his soul is ravenous, he alone of those in the city may not travel abroad anywhere, nor see the sights the other free men long to see, but lives shut away in his house for the most part like a woman, envying even the other citizens if one of them travels abroad and sees something good?

Quite so indeed, he said.

Does not the man reap even more of such troubles who governs himself badly — the one you just now judged most wretched, the tyrannical man — in that he does not live out his life as a private citizen, but is forced by some turn of fortune to become an actual tyrant and, unable to rule himself, undertakes to rule others as well, just as if a man with a sick body, one that has no mastery of itself, were forced to live not in private but contending against other bodies and fighting?

What you say, he said, is altogether most apt and most true, Socrates.

Is not this condition, then, my dear Glaucon, I said, wretched through and through, and does the man who plays the tyrant live a life still harder than the man you judged to have the hardest life of all?

Quite so, he said.

So it is in truth, even if it does not seem so to some, that the man who is really a tyrant is really a slave, reduced to the greatest fawning and servility and a flatterer of the basest men, and that, since he satisfies his desires not in the least, he appears, to anyone able to view the whole of his soul, most in want of very many things and truly poor, and full of fear throughout the whole of his life, full of convulsions and pains, if indeed he resembles the condition of the city he rules. And he does resemble it; is that not so?

Very much so, he said.

Shall we not, then, in addition to this, further assign to the man what we said before, that of necessity he is — and on account of his rule becomes even more than before — envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, a host and nurse of every vice, and that as a result of all this he is above all unlucky himself, and moreover makes those near him such as well?

No one, he said, who has any sense will contradict you.

Come now, tell me, I said — just as a judge who weighs everything renders his verdict, so you too declare who is first in happiness in your opinion and who second, and judge the rest, five in number, in order: kingly, timocratic, oligarchic, democratic, tyrannical.

But the judgment is easy, he said. For just as they came on, so I judge them, as though they were choruses, by virtue and vice and by happiness and its opposite.

Shall we hire a herald, then, I said, or shall I myself proclaim that the son of Ariston judged the best and most just man to be happiest , and that this man is the most kingly and reigns as king over himself, while the worst and most unjust man is the most wretched, and that this in turn happens to be whoever, being most tyrannical, plays the tyrant most of all over himself and over the city?

Let it be proclaimed by you, he said.

Shall I add to the proclamation, then, I said — whether or not they escape the notice of all men and gods in being such?

Proclaim it, he said.

Very well then, I said; this then would be one proof for us, but look now at this second one, to see whether there seems to be anything in it.

Second Proof: Three Parts, Three Pleasures, Three Lives

What is this?

Since, I said, just as a city is divided into three kinds, so too the soul of each individual is threefold — [the rational part] — and, as it seems to me, will also admit of another proof.

Which proof do you mean?

This one. Since there are three parts, three pleasures too appear to me to exist, one peculiar to each; and likewise desires and ruling principles.

How do you mean? He said.

The one, we say, was that by which a person learns, the other that by which he feels anger, and the third — because of its many forms — we had no single name of its own to call it by, but named it after what was greatest and strongest in it; for we have called it appetitive, because of the intensity of its desires for food and drink and sex and whatever else follows on these, and indeed money-loving too, since it is chiefly by means of money that such desires are fulfilled.

And rightly so, he said.

So then, if we should say that its pleasure and its love too are for gain, would we best fix it under one heading in our account, so as to make something clear to ourselves whenever we speak of this part of the soul, and would we be right to call it money-loving and gain-loving?

So it seems to me at least, he said.

What next? Do we not say that the spirited part is wholly and always set upon mastering and conquering and winning good repute ?

Very much so.

If then we were to call it victory-loving and honor-loving, would that be fitting?

Most fitting indeed.

But surely, as for the part by which we learn, it is clear to everyone that it is always wholly bent on knowing the truth, whatever its nature, and that of money and reputation this part cares least of all.

Very much indeed.

Then we would be naming it aptly if we called it learning-loving and philosophic?

How could we not?

Then, I said, in the souls of some this part rules, and in the souls of others one or the other of the remaining two, whichever it happens to be?

So it is, he said.

Is it for this reason then that we say there are three primary kinds of people: philosophic, victory-loving, and gain-loving?

Quite so.

And three forms of pleasure too, one underlying each of these?

Certainly.

Do you know then, I said, that if you were willing to ask each of three such people in turn which of these lives is pleasantest, each would praise his own most highly? And the money-maker will say that, set beside the pleasure of gain, the pleasure of being honored or that of learning is worth nothing, unless either of them actually brings in money?

True, he said.

But what of the honor-lover? I said — does he not think the pleasure from money something vulgar, and in turn the pleasure from learning, unless the study brings honor, mere smoke and nonsense?

That is how it is, he said.

But the philosopher, I said, what do we think he reckons the other pleasures worth, compared with that of knowing the truth however it stands, and of always being engaged in learning something of that kind? Very far from [pleasure], would he not say? And does he not truly call them necessary, since he would have no need of the rest, were there no necessity?

Yes, he said, one must know that well, must one not?

Since, then, I said, the pleasures of each kind and life itself are disputed — not merely with regard to living more nobly or basely, nor more badly or better, but as to which is actually the more pleasant and the less painful — how could we know which of them speaks most truly?

I myself am not at all able to say, he said.

But look at it this way: by what must things be judged, if they are to be judged well? Is it not by experience and practical wisdom and argument? Or could one find a better criterion than these?

And how could there be one? He said.

Consider, then: of the three men, which is most experienced in all the pleasures we have mentioned? Does the gain-lover, in learning what the truth itself is like, seem to you more experienced in the pleasure that comes from knowing, than the philosopher is in the pleasure that comes from gaining?

There is a great difference, he said. For the one, starting from childhood, has necessarily tasted the other pleasures; but the gain-lover, though he learns the nature of the things that are, is under no necessity to taste this pleasure and know how sweet it is, or to become experienced in it — rather, even if he were eager, it would not be easy.

The philosopher, then, I said, differs greatly from the gain-lover in experience of both pleasures .

Very much so indeed.

And what of the honor-lover? Is the philosopher any more inexperienced in the pleasure that comes from being honored than that man is in the pleasure that comes from exercising practical wisdom?

But honor, he said, follows all of them alike, provided each accomplishes what he has set out to do — for the rich man too is honored by many, and so is the courageous man, and the wise man — so that, from being honored at least, all of them are experienced in what that pleasure is like; but of the vision of what truly is, and what pleasure it holds, none but the philosopher can possibly have tasted .

So, as far as experience goes, I said, he is the best judge among these men.

By far.

And moreover, he alone will have come to be experienced together with practical wisdom.

Why would it not be so?

Moreover, the instrument by which judgment must be made is not the instrument of the gain-lover nor of the honor-lover, but of the philosopher.

Which one?

We said, I think, that judgment must be made through argument. Did we not?

Yes.

And argument is above all his instrument.

How could it not be?

So then, if the matters in question were best judged by wealth and gain, whatever the gain-lover praised and blamed would necessarily be the truest.

There would be every necessity.

And if by honor and victory and courage, would it not be whatever the honor-lover and victory-lover praised?

Clearly.

But since it is by experience and practical wisdom and argument?

It is necessary, he said, that whatever the philosopher and the lover of argument praises be truest .

There being three pleasures, then, would the pleasure of that part of the soul by which we learn be the pleasantest, and would the life of the one in whom this part rules be the pleasantest life?

How could it not? So he said; the man of practical wisdom, being the authoritative judge, praises his own life.

And which life does the judge say is second, I said, and which pleasure is second?

Clearly that of the warlike man and the honor-lover; for it is closer to his own than that of the money-maker.

Last, then, it seems, comes that of the gain-lover.

Why should it not be so? He said.

Third Proof: Pleasure, Pain, and the State Between

So then, these would be two victories in a row, the just man twice victorious over the unjust; but for the third — in Olympic fashion, to the Savior and to Olympian Zeus — consider that the pleasure of everyone but the man of practical wisdom is not even wholly true, nor pure, but is a kind of shadow-painting, as I think I have heard from one of the wise. And yet this would be the greatest and most decisive of the falls.

Very much so — but what do you mean?

I will find it out this way, I said — searching it out while you answer.

Ask, then, he said.

Tell me then, I said — do we not say that pain is the opposite of pleasure?

Very much so.

And is there not also something which is neither rejoicing nor being pained?

There is indeed.

Is it not something between these two, lying in the middle — a kind of stillness of the soul in regard to these matters? Or is that not how you describe it?

Just so, he said.

Do you remember, then, I said, the talk of sick people — what they say whenever they are ill?

What things?

That nothing, after all, is more pleasant than being healthy, but it had escaped their notice, before they fell ill, that this was the most pleasant thing of all.

I remember, he said.

And do you also hear those gripped by some intense pain saying that nothing is more pleasant than the ceasing of pain?

I hear it.

And in many other such cases too, I think, you notice people falling into this condition, in which, whenever they are in pain, they praise not being in pain, and the stillness that comes with it, as the most pleasant thing — not rejoicing itself.

For that, he said, is what then becomes pleasant, perhaps, and welcome — stillness.

And so when someone ceases rejoicing, I said, the stillness that follows the pleasure will be painful.

Perhaps, he said.

So the thing we just now said was between the two — the stillness — will sometimes be both of them, both pain and pleasure.

So it seems.

But is it even possible for what is neither to become both?

It does not seem so to me.

And surely what is pleasant, arising in the soul, and what is painful, are both a kind of motion — or are they not?

Yes.

But did not what is neither painful nor pleasant just now appear to be stillness — and in the middle of these two?

It did appear so.

How then can it be correct to consider not being in pain as pleasant, or not rejoicing as distressing?

Not at all.

This, then, is not really so, I said, but at such a moment the stillness merely appears pleasant beside what is painful and painful beside what is pleasant, and none of these appearances is sound in relation to the truth of pleasure, but rather a kind of sorcery.

So the argument indicates, at any rate, he said.

Look, then, I said, at pleasures that do not arise from pains, so that you may not too readily suppose, for the moment, that this is how things naturally stand — that pleasure is simply the cessation of pain, and pain the cessation of pleasure.

Where, then, he said, and what sort do you mean?

There are many others, I said, but especially, if you care to consider them, the pleasures of smell. For these, without any prior pain, suddenly become immeasurably great, and once they cease, they leave no pain behind at all.

Most true, he said.

Let us not, then, be persuaded that release from pain is pure pleasure, or release from pleasure pure pain.

No, let us not.

But nevertheless, I said, the pleasures that pass through the body to reach the soul, the ones we call by that name — most of them, and the greatest — are of this kind: certain releases from pains.

They are, indeed.

And do not the anticipatory pleasures and pains too, which arise out of expectation before such things actually come, stand in the same way?

In the same way.

Do you know, then, I said, what sort of pleasures these are, and what they most resemble?

What? He said.

Do you think, I said, that there is something in nature that is up, something that is down, and something in the middle?

I do.

Do you think, then, that someone being carried from below toward the middle would suppose anything other than that he is being carried upward? And that, standing in the middle and looking back at the place he has been carried from, he would suppose he was anywhere else than in the upper region — never having seen the truly upper region?

By Zeus, he said, I do not think such a man could suppose otherwise.

But if he were carried back again, I said, would he not think he was being carried downward, and think truly?

How could he not?

Would he not undergo all this because he has no experience of what is truly up, and in the middle, and down?

Clearly, indeed.