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[551a]
in a state, and the wealthy, virtue and the good are less
honored.” “Obviously.” “And that
which men at any time honor they practise,1 and what is not honored is neglected.” “It is
so.” “Thus, finally, from being lovers of victory and
lovers of honor they become lovers of gain-getting and of money, and they
commend and admire the rich man and put him in office but despise the man
who is poor.” “Quite so.” “And is it
not then that they pass a law
[551b]
defining
the limits2 of an oligarchical polity,
prescribing3 a
sum of money, a larger sum where it is more4 of an oligarchy, where it
is less a smaller, and proclaiming that no man shall hold office whose
property does not come up to the required valuation? And this law they
either put through by force of arms, or without resorting to that they
establish their government by terrorization.5 Is not that the way of it?” “It
is.” “The establishment then, one may say, is in this
wise.” “Yes,” he said, “but what is
the character of this constitution, and what are the defects that we said
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it had?”“To begin with,” said I,
“consider the nature of its constitutive and defining principle.
Suppose men should appoint the pilots6 of ships in this way,
by property qualification, and not allow7 a poor man to
navigate, even if he were a better pilot.” “A sorry
voyage they would make of it,” he said. “And is not the
same true of any other form of rule?” “I think
so.” “Except of a city,” said I, “or
does it hold for a city too?” “Most of all,”
he said, “by as much as that is the greatest and most
difficult8 rule of
all.”
[551d]
“Here, then,
is one very great defect in oligarchy.” “So it
appears.” “Well, and is this a smaller one?”
“What?” “That such a city should of necessity
be not one,9 but two, a city of the
rich and a city of the poor, dwelling together, and always plotting10 against one
another.” “No, by Zeus,” said he,
“it is not a bit smaller.” “Nor, further, can
we approve of this—the likelihood that they will not be able to
wage war, because of the necessity of either arming and employing the
multitude,11
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and fearing them more than the enemy, or
else, if they do not make use of them, of finding themselves on the field of
battle, oligarchs indeed,12 and rulers over a few.
And to this must be added their reluctance to contribute money, because they
are lovers of money.” “No, indeed, that is not
admirable.” “And what of the trait we found fault with
long ago13—the fact that in such
a state the citizens are busy-bodies and jacks-of-all-trades, farmers,
1 This sentence has been much quoted. Cf. Cic.Tusc. i. 2 “honos alit artes . . . iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque inprobantur.” Themistius and Libanius worked it into almost every oration. Cf. Mrs. W. C. Wright, The Emperor Julian, p. 70, n. 3. Cf. also Stallbaum ad loc. For ἀσκεῖται cf. Pindar, Ol. viii. 22.
2 ὅρον: cf. 551 C, Laws 714 C, 962 D, 739 D, 626 B, Menex. 238 D, Polit. 293 E, 296 E, 292 C, Lysis 209 C, Aristot.Pol. 1280 a 7, 1271 a 35, and Newman i. p. 220, Eth. Nic. 1138 b 23. Cf. also τέλοςRhet. 1366 a 3. For the true criterion of office-holding see Laws 715 C-D and Isoc. xii. 131. For wealth as the criterion cf. Aristot.Pol. 1273 a 37.
3 For ταξάμενοι cf. Vol. I. p. 310, note c, on 416 E.
4 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1301 b 13-14.
5 Cf. 557 A.
6 Cf. 488, and Polit. 299 B-C, What Plato Said, p. 521, on Euthydem. 291 D.
7 Stallbaum says that ἐπιτρέποι is used absolutely as in 575 D, Symp. 213 E, Lysis 210 B, etc. Similarly Latin permitto. Cf. Shorey on Jowett's translation of Meno 92 A-B, A. J. P. xiii. p. 367. See too Diog. L. i. 65.
8 Men are the hardest creatures to govern. Cf. Polit. 292 D, and What Plato Said, p. 635, on Laws 766 A.
9 For the idea that a city should be a unity Cf. Laws 739 D and on 423 A-B. Cf. also 422 E with 417 A-B, Livy ii. 24 “adeo duas ex una civitate discordia fecerat.” Aristot.Pol. 1316 b 7 comments ἄτοπον δὲ καὶ τὸ φάναι δύο πόλεις εἶναι τὴν ὀλιγαρχικήν, πλουσίων καὶ πενήτων . . . and tries to prove the point by his topical method.
10 Cf. 417 B.
11 For the idea that the rulers fear to arm the people cf. Thuc. iii. 27, Livy iii. 15 “consules et armare pIebem et inermem pati timebant.”
12 He plays on the word. In 565 Cὡς ἀληθῶς ὀλιγαρχικούς is used in a different sense. Cf. Symp. 181 Aὡς ἀληθῶς πάνδημος, Phaedo 80 Dεἰς Ἅιδου ὡς ἀληθῶς.
13 Cf. 374 B, 434 A, 443 D-E. For the specialty of function Cf. What Plato Said, p. 480, on Charm. 161 E.
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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