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[521a] for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are really rich,1 not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness—a good and wise life. But if, being beggars and starvelings2 from lack of goods of their own, they turn to affairs of state thinking that it is thence that they should grasp their own good, then it is impossible. For when office and rule become the prizes of contention,3 such a civil and internecine strife4 destroys the office-seekers themselves and the city as well.” [521b] “Most true,” he said. “Can you name any other type or ideal of life that looks with scorn on political office except the life of true philosophers5?” I asked. “No, by Zeus,” he said. “But what we require,” I said, “is that those who take office6 should not be lovers of rule. Otherwise there will be a contest with rival lovers.” “Surely.” “What others, then, will you compel to undertake the guardianship of the city than those who have most intelligence of the principles that are the means of good government and who possess distinctions of another kind and a life that is preferable to the political life?” “No others,” he said. [521c]

“Would you, then, have us proceed to consider how such men may be produced in a state and how they may be led upward7 to the light even as some8 are fabled to have ascended from Hades to the gods?” “Of course I would.” “So this, it seems, would not be the whirling of the shell9 in the children's game, but a conversion and turning about of the soul from a day whose light is darkness to the veritable day—that ascension10 to reality of our parable which we will affirm to be true philosophy.” “By all means.” “Must we not, then, consider what studies have [521d] the power to effect this?” “Of course.” “What, then, Glaucon, would be the study that would draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being? A thought strikes me while I speak11: Did we not say that these men in youth must be athletes of war12” “We did.” “Then the study for which we are seeking must have this additional13 qualification.” “What one?” “That it be not useless to soldiers.14” “Why, yes, it must,” he said, “if that is possible.” [521e] “But in our previous account they were educated in gymnastics and music.15” “They were, he said. “And gymnastics, I take it, is devoted16 to that which grows and perishes; for it presides over the growth and decay of the body.17” “Obviously.” “Then this cannot be the study

1 Cf. Phaedrus in fine, supra 416 E-417 A, 547 B.

2 Stallbaum refers to Xen.Cyr. viii. 3. 39οἴομαί σε καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἥδιον πλουτεῖν, ὅτι πεινήσας χρημάτων πεπλούτηκας, “for you must enjoy tour riches much more, I think, for the very reason that it was only after being hungry for wealth that you became rich.” (Loeb tr.) Cf. also 577 E-578 A, and Adam ad loc.

3 Cf. 347 D, Laws 715 A, also 586 C and What Plato Said, p. 627, on Laws 678 E, Isoc.Areop. 24, Pan. 145 and 146.

4 Cf. Eurip.Heracleidae 415οἰκεῖος ἤδη πόλεμος ἐξαρτεύεται.

5 Cf. 580 d ff., pp. 370 ff.

6 ἰέναι ἐπί in erotic language means “to woo.” Cf. on 489 C, p. 26, note b, also 347 C, 588 B, 475 C.

7 Cf. on 515 E, p. 124, note b.

8 This has been much debated. Cf. Adam ad loc.Professor Linforth argues from Pausanias i. 34 that Amphiaraus is meant.

9 Cf. Phaedr. 241 B; also the description of the game in Plato Comicus, Fr. 153 apud Norwood, Greek Comedy, p. 167. The players were divided into two groups. A shell or potsherd, black on one side and white on the other, was thrown, and according to the face on which it fell one group fled and the other pursued. Cf. also commentators on Aristoph.Knights 855.

10 Much quoted by Neoplatonists and Christian Fathers. Cf. Stallbaum ad loc. Again we need to remember that Plato's main and explicitly reiterated purpose is to describe a course of study that will develop the power of consecutive consistent abstract thinking. All metaphysical and mystical suggestions of the imagery which conveys this idea are secondary and subordinate. So, e.g. Urwick, The Message of Plato, pp. 66-67, is mistaken when he says “ . . . Plato expressly tells us that his education is designed simply and solely to awaken the spiritual faculty which every soul contains, by ‘wheeling the soul round and turning it away from the world of change and decay.’ He is not concerned with any of those ‘excellences of mind’ which may be produced by training and discipline, his only aim is to open the eye of the soul . . . “ The general meaning of the sentence is plain but the text is disputed. See crit. note.

11 A frequent pretence in Plato. Cf. 370 A, 525 C, Euthyphro 9 C, Laws 686 C, 702 B, Phaedr. 262 C with Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 498, Laws 888 D with Tayler Lewis, Plato against the Atheists, pp. 118-119. Cf. also Vol. I. on 394 D-E, and Isoc.Antid. 159ἐνθυμοῦμαι δὲ μεταξὺ λέγων, Panath. 127.

12 Cf. 416 D, 422 B, 404 A, and Vol. I. p. 266, note a, on 403 E.

13 προσέχειν is here used in its etymological sense. Cf. pp. 66-67 on 500 A.

14 This further prerequisite of the higher education follows naturally from the plan of the Republic; but it does not interest Plato much and is, after one or two repetitions, dropped.

15 Cf. 376 E ff.

16 For τετεύτακε Cf. Tim. 90 Bτετευτακότι

17 Cf. 376 E. This is of course no contradiction of 410 C.

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