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[563a]
so that
he may be forsooth a free man.1 And the resident alien feels
himself equal to the citizen and the citizen to him, and the foreigner
likewise.” “Yes, these things do happen,” he
said. “They do,” said I, “and such other
trifles as these. The teacher in such case fears and fawns upon the pupils,
and the pupils pay no heed to the teacher or to their overseers either. And
in general the young ape their elders and vie with them in speech and
action, while the old, accommodating2 themselves to the young,
[563b]
are
full of pleasantry3 and graciousness, imitating the young
for fear they may be thought disagreeable and authoritative.”
“By all means,” he said. “And the climax of
popular liberty, my friend,” I said, “is attained in
such a city when the purchased slaves, male and female, are no less
free4
than the owners who paid for them. And I almost forgot to mention the spirit
of freedom and equal rights in the relation of men to women and women to
men.”
[563c]
“Shall we not,
then,” said he, “in Aeschylean phrase,5 say “whatever
rises to our lips’?” “Certainly,” I
said, “so I will. Without experience of it no one would believe
how much freer the very beasts6 subject to men are in such a city than
elsewhere. The dogs literally verify the adage7 and ‘like their mistresses
become.’ And likewise the horses and asses are wont to hold on
their way with the utmost freedom and dignity, bumping into everyone who
meets them and who does not step aside.8 And so all things everywhere are just bursting with the
spirit of liberty.9”
[563d]
“It is my own dream10 you are
telling me,” he said; “for it often happens to me when I
go to the country.” “And do you note that the sum total
of all these items when footed up is that they render the souls of the
citizens so sensitive11 that they chafe at the slightest
suggestion of servitude12 and will not
endure it? For you are aware that they finally pay no heed even to the
laws13 written or unwritten,14
[563e]
so that forsooth they may have no master
anywhere over them.” “I know it very well,”
said he.“This, then, my
friend,” said I, “is the fine and vigorous root from
which tyranny grows, in my opinion.” “Vigorous
indeed,” he said; “but what next?”
“The same malady,” I said, “that, arising in
oligarchy, destroyed it, this more widely diffused and more violent as a
result of this licence, enslaves democracy. And in truth, any excess is wont
to bring about a corresponding reaction15 to the
opposite in the seasons,
1 For the ironical ἵνα δή cf. on 561 B. Cf. Laws 962 Eἐλεύθερον δή, Meno 86 and Aristoph.Clouds 1414.
2 Cf. Protag. 336 A, Theaet. 174 A, 168 B.
3 For εὐτραπελίας cf. Isoc. xv. 296, vii. 49, Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1108 a 23. In Rhet. 1389 b 11 he defines it as πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις. Arnold once addressed the Eton boys on the word.
4 Cf. Xen.Rep. Ath. 1. 10.τῶν δούλων δ᾽ αὖ καὶ τῶν μετοίκων πλείστη ἐστὶν Ἀθήνησιν ἀκολασία, Aristoph.Clouds init., and on slavery Laws 777 E, p. 249, note g on 547 C and 549 A.
5 Nauck fr. 351. Cf. Plut.Amat. 763 C, Themist.Orat. iv. p. 52 B; also Otto, p. 39, and Adam ad loc.
6 Cf. 562 E, Julian, Misopogon, 355 B . . .μέχρι τῶν ὄνων ἐστὶν ἐλευθερία παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς καὶ τῶν καμήλων; ἄγουσί τοι καὶ ταύτας οἱ μισθωτοὶ διὰ τῶν στοῶν ὥσπερ τὰς νύμφας” . . . what great independence exists among the citizens, even down to the very asses and camels? The men who hire them out lead even these animals through the porticoes as though they were brides.” (Loeb tr.) Cf. Porphyry, Vit. Pythag.Teubner, p. 22, 23μέχρι καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων διικνεῖτο αὐτοῦ ἡ νουθέτησις
7 Otto, p. 119. Cf. “Like mistress, like maid.”
8 Eurip.Ion 635-637 mentions being jostled off the street by a worse person as one of the indignities of Athenian city life.
9 Cf. the reflections in Laws 698 f., 701 A-C, Epist. viii. 354 D, Gorg. 461 E; Isoc.Areop. 20, Panath. 131, Eurip.Cyclops 120ἀκούει δ᾽ οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδενός, Aristot.Pol. 1295 b 15 f. Plato, by reaction against the excesses of the ultimate democracy, always satirizes the shibboleth “liberty” in the style of Arnold, Ruskin and Carlyle. He would agree with Goethe (Eckermann i. 219, Jan. 18, 1827) “Nicht das macht frei, das vir nichts über uns erkennen wollen, sondern eben, dass wir etwas verehren, das über uns ist.” Libby, Introd. to Hist. of Science, p. 273, not understanding the irony of the passage, thinks much of it the unwilling tribute of a hostile critic. In Gorg. 484 A Callicles sneers at equality from the point of view of the superman. Cf. also on 558 C, p. 291, note f; Hobbes, Leviathan xxi. and Theopompus's account of democracy in Byzantium, fr. 65. Similar phenomena may be observed in an American city street or Pullman club car.
10 Cf Callimachus, Anth. Pal. vi. 310, and xii. 148μὴ λέγε . . . τοὐμὸν ὄνειρον ἐμοί, Cic.Att. vi. 9. 3, Lucian, Somnium seu Gallus 7ὥσπερ γὰρ τοὐμὸν ἐνύπνιον ἰδών, Tennyson, “Lucretius”: “That was mine, my dream, I knew it.”
11 This sensitiveness, on which Grote remarks with approval, is characteristic of present-day American democracy. Cf. also Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, p. 51 “And so if he is stopped from making Hyde Park a bear garden or the streets impassable he says he is being butchered by the aristocracy.”
12 Cf. Gorg. 491 Eδουλεύων ὁτῳοῦν, Laws 890 A.
13 Cf. Laws 701 Bνόμων ζητεῖν μὴ ὑπηκόοις εἶναι
14 For unwritten law Cf. What Plato Said, p. 637, on Laws 793 A.
15 Cf. Lysias xxv. 27, Isoc. viii. 108, vii. 5, Cic.De rep. i. 44 “nam ut ex nimia potentia principum oritur interitus principum, sic hunc nimis liberum . . . “ etc.
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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