Plato, Republic

[553a] “Then,” I said, “let us regard as disposed of the constitution called oligarchy, whose rulers are determined by a property qualification.¹ And next we are to consider the man who resembles it—how he arises and what after that his character is.” “Quite so,” he said.

“Is not the transition from that timocratic youth to the oligarchical type mostly on this wise?” “How?” “When a son born to the timocratic man at first emulates his father, and follows in his footsteps² and then sees him [553b] suddenly dashed,³ as a ship on a reef,⁴ against the state, and making complete wreckage⁵ of both his possessions and himself perhaps he has been a general, or has held some other important office, and has then been dragged into court by mischievous sycophants and put to death or banished⁶ or outlawed and has lost all his property—” “It is likely,” he said. “And the son, my friend, after seeing and suffering these things, and losing his property, grows timid, I fancy, and forthwith thrusts headlong⁷ from his bosom's throne⁸ [553c] that principle of love of honor and that high spirit, and being humbled by poverty turns to the getting of money, and greedily⁹ and stingily and little by little by thrift and hard work collects property. Do you not suppose that such a one will then establish on that throne the principle of appetite and avarice, and set it up as the great king in his soul, adorned with tiaras and collars of gold, and girt with the Persian sword?” “I do,” he said. “And under this domination he will force the rational [553d] and high-spirited principles to crouch lowly to right and left¹⁰ as slaves, and will allow the one to calculate and consider nothing but the ways of making more money from a little,¹¹ and the other to admire and honor nothing but riches and rich men, and to take pride in nothing but the possession of wealth and whatever contributes to that?” “There is no other transformation so swift and sure of the ambitious youth into the avaricious type.” [553e] “Is this, then, our oligarchical man?” said I. “He is developed, at any rate, out of a man resembling the constitution from which the oligarchy sprang.”