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[548a]
than
for peace, and in honoring the stratagems and contrivances of war and
occupying itself with war most of the time—in these respects for
the most part its qualities will be peculiar to itself?”
“Yes.” “Such men,” said I,
“will be avid of wealth, like those in an oligarchy, and will
cherish a fierce secret lust for gold1 and silver, owning storehouses2 and private treasuries where they may hide
them away, and also the enclosures3 of
their homes, literal private love-nests4 in which they can lavish their
wealth on their women5
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and any others they please with great
expenditure.” “Most true,” he said.
“And will they not be stingy about money, since they prize it and
are not allowed to possess it openly, prodigal of others' wealth6
because of their appetites, enjoying7 their pleasures stealthily, and
running away from the law as boys from a father,8 since they have not been educated by
persuasion9 but by force
because of their neglect of the true Muse, the companion of discussion and
philosophy,
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and because of their
preference of gymnastics to music?” “You perfectly
describe,” he said, “a polity that is a mixture10 of good and
evil.” “Why, yes, the elements have been
mixed,” I said, “but the most conspicuous11 feature in it is one thing
only, due to the predominance of the high-spirited element, namely
contentiousness and covetousness of honor.12” “Very much
so,” said he. “Such, then, would be the origin and
nature of this polity if we may merely outline the figure
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of a constitution in words and not elaborate it
precisely, since even the sketch will suffice to show us the most just and
the most unjust type of man, and it would be an impracticable task to set
forth all forms13 of government without omitting any, and all customs and
qualities of men.” “Quite right,” he
said.“What, then, is the man
that corresponds to this constitution? What is his origin and what his
nature?” “I fancy,” Adeimantus said,
“that he comes rather close14 to Glaucon here
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in point of contentiousness.”
“Perhaps,” said I, “in that, but I do not
think their natures are alike in the following respects.”
“In what?” “He will have to be somewhat
self-willed15 and lacking in culture,16 yet a lover of music
and fond of listening17 to talk and speeches, though by
no means himself a rhetorician;
1 This was said to be characteristic of Sparta. Cf. Newman on Aristot.Pol. 1270 a 13, Xen.Rep. Lac. 14, 203 and 7. 6, and the Chicago Dissertation of P. H. Epps, The Place of Sparta in Greek History and Civilization, pp. 180-184.
2 Cf. 416 D.
3 Cf. Laws 681 A, Theaet. 174 E.
4 νεοττιάς suggests Horace's ‘tu nidum servas” (Epist. i. 10.6). Cf also Laws 776 A.
5 Cf. Laws 806 A-C, 637 B-C, Aristot.Pol. 1269 b 3, and Newman ii. p. 318 on the Spartan women. Cf. Epps, op. cit. pp. 322-346.
6 φιλαναλωταί, though different, suggests Sallust's “alieni appetens sui profusus” (Cat. 5). Cf. Cat. 52 “publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam.”
7 Cf. 587 A, Laws 636 D, Symp. 187 E, Phaedr. 251 E.
8 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1270 b 34 with Newman's note; and Euthyphro 2 C “tell his mother the state.”
9 Cf. Laws 720 D-E. This is not inconsistent with Polit. 293 A, where the context and the point of view are different.
10 This is of course not the mixed government which Plato approves Laws 691-692, 712 D-E, 759 B. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 629.
11 For διαφανέστατον cf. 544 D. The expression διαφανέστατον . . . ἕν τι μόνον, misunderstood and emended by ApeIt, is colored by an idea of Anaxagoras expressed by Lucretius i. 877-878: “illud Apparere unum cuius sint plurima mixta. Anaxag. Fr. 12. Diels 1.3, p. 405ἀλλ᾽ ὅτων πλεῖστα ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἓν ἕκαστον ἐστι καὶ ἦν. Cf. Phaedr. 238 A, Cratyl. 393 misunderstood by Dümmler and emended (ἐναργής for ἐγκρατής)with the approval of Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 350.
12 There is no contradiction between this and Laws 870 C if the passage is read carefully.
13 Cf. on 544 D, p. 240, note a.
14 Cf. Phaedo 65 A, Porphyry, De abst. i. 27, Teubner, p. 59ἐγγὺς τείνειν ἀποσιτίας.
15 αὐθαδέστερον. The fault of Prometheus (Aesch.P. V. 1034, 1937) and Medea must not be imputed to Glaucon.
16 Cf. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, who imitates or parodies Plato throughout, e.g. p. 83 “A little inaccessible to ideas and light,” and pp. 54-55 “The peculiar serenity of aristocracies of Teutonic origin appears to come from their never having had any ideas to trouble them.”
17 Cf. 475 D, 535 D, Lysis 206 C.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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