the cities over to tyrannies and democracies.
Very true.
Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honor — the
greatest honor from tyrants, and the next greatest from democ-
racies j but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the
more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness
of breath to proceed further.
True.
But we are digressing. Let us therefore return and inquire
how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and vari-
ous and ever-changing army of his.
If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will
spend them as far as they go ; that is obvious. And he will
then be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise
have to impose.
And when these fail ?
Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions,
whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's
estate.
I see your meaning, I said. You mean that the people who
begat him will maintain him and his companions ?
372 PLATO THE TEACHER
Yes, he said ; he cannot get on without that.
But what if the people go into a passion, and aver that a
grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but that
6 the father should be supported by the son ? He did not
bring his son into the world and establish him in or-
der that when he was grown up he himself might serve his
own servants, and maintain him and his rabble of slaves and
companions ; but that, having such a protector, he might be
emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic,
as they are termed. And now, here is this son of his, bidding
him and his companions pack, just as a father might drive out
of his house a riotous son and his party of revelers.
In the end, he said, the parent will be certain to discover
what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom ; and when
he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and
his son strong.
Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use vio-
lence ? What ! beat his father if he resists ?
Yes, he will ; and he will begin by taking away his arms.
Then he is a parricide, and a cruel unnatural son to an
aged parent whom he ought to cherish ; and this is real tyr-
anny, about which there is no mistake : as the saying is, the
people who would avoid the slavery of freemen, which is
smoke and appearance, has fallen under the tyranny of slaves,
which is fire. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and rea-
son, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.
Yes, he said, that is true.
Very well, I said ; and may we not say that we have dis-
cussed enough the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the
transition from democracy to tyranny ?
Yes, quite enough, he said.
THE REPUBLIC 375
BOOK IX
Last of all comes the tyrannical man ; about whom we
have once more to ask how is he formed out of the
democratical ? and how does he live, in happiness or in
misery ?
Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining.
There is, however, I said, a previous question which I should
like to consider.
What is that ?
I do not think that we have adequately determined the nat-
ure and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished
the inquiry will always be perplexed.
Well, but you may supply the omission.
Very true, I said ; and observe the point which I want to
understand. Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appe-
tites are deemed to be unlawful ; every man appears to have
them, only in some persons they are controlled by the laws and
by reason, and the better desires prevail over them, and either
they are wholly banished or are few and weak : while in the
case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them.
Which appetites do you mean ?
I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and tam-
ing and ruling power is asleep ; the wild beast in our nature,
gorged with meat or drink, starts up and walks about naked,
and surfeits after his manner, and there is no conceivable folly
or crime, however shameless or unnatural — not excepting in-
cest or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food — of which
such a nature may not be guilty.
That is most true, he said.
But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and he
goes to sleep cool and rational, after having supped on a feast
of reason and speculation, and come to a knowledge of himself,
having indulged appetites neither too much nor too little, but
just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their
enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher
principle — leaving that in the solitude of pure abstrac-
tion, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the
unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when, again,
,-X) THE TEACHER
372
fy /he has allayed the passionate element, if
°^ yftnst any one — I say, when, after pacifying
>rinciples, he rouses up the third or rational
takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains
V, and is least likely to be the sport of fanciful
fions.
fnion I entirely agree.
this I have been running into a digression ; but
the po- y^hich I desire to note is that in all of us, even in
good men, there is such a latent wild-beast nature, which peers
out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you
agree with me in this view.
Yes, I agree.
Remember then the character which we assigned to the dem-
ocratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to
have been trained under a miserly parent, and to have encour-
aged the saving appetites, and discountenanced the lighter and
more ornamental ones ?
True.
And then he got into the company of a more refined, licen-
tious sort of people, and he took to wantonness, and began to
have a dislike of his father's narrow ways. At last, being a
better man than his corruptors, he came to a mean, and led a
life, not of lawless and slavish passion, but of regular and suc-
cessive indulgence. That was our view of the way in which
the democrat was generated out of the oligarch ?
Yes, he said ; and that is still our view.
And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must
imagine this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought
up in his father's principles ; and then further imagine the
same thing to happen to the son which has already happened
to the father — he is seduced into a perfectly lawless life, which
is termed perfect liberty ; and his father and friends take part
with his moderate desires, while others assist the opposite ones.
At length, these dire magicians and tyrant-makers begin to
fear that they will be unable to hold the youth, and then they
contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over
his idle and spendthrift desires — like a monster drone
having wings. That is the only image which will de-
pict him and his lusts.
Yes, he said, that is the best, the only image of him.
THE REPUBLIC 375
And while the other lusts amid clouds of incense and per-
fumes and garlands and wines, and all the dissoluteness of so-
cial life are buzzing around him and flattering him to the
utmost, there is implanted in him the sting of desire, and
then this lord of the soul is in a frenzy — madness is the cap-
tain of the guard — and if he discerns in his soul any opin-
ions or appetites which may be regarded as good, and which
have any sense of shame remaining, he puts an end to them,
and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance
and brought in madness to the full.
Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is
generated.
And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a
tyrant ?
Yes, perhaps.
Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a
tyrant ?
True.
And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in
his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only overmen,
but also over the gods ?
True.
And the tyrannical man comes into being just at that point
when either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both,
he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate ?
Exactly.
Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how
does he live ?
That, as people facetiously say, you may as well tell me.
I imagine, I said, as the next step in his progress, that there
will be feasts and carousals and revellings, and courtesans, and
all that sort of thing ; love is the lord of the house within him,
who orders all the concerns of the soul.
That is certain.
Yes ; and every day and every night desires grow up many
and formidable, and their demands are many.
They are indeed, he said.
His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent.
True.
Then he borrows money, and his estate is taken from him.
Of course.
376 PLATO THE TEACHER
When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding
in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food ; he,
goaded on by them, and especially by love himself on
574 whom they dance attendance, is at his wits' end to dis-
cover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order
that he may gratify them ?
Yes, that is sure to be the case.
He must have money, and no matter how, if he is to escape
horrid pangs and pains.
He must.
And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and
the new got the better of the old and took away their rights,
so he being younger will claim to have more than his father
and his mother, and if he has spent his own property, he will
take a slice out of theirs.
No doubt of that.
And if his parents will not suffer this, then he will try to
cheat and deceive them.
Very true.
And if he cannot, then he will plunder and force them.
Yes, probably.
And if the old man and the old woman hold out against
him, will he be very careful of doing anything which is tyran-
nical ?
Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his
parents.
But, O heavens ! Adeimantus, on account of some new-
fangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary con-
nection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who
is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and
would place her under the authority of the other, when she is
brought under the same roof with her ; or that, under like cir-
cumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father,
first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some
blooming love of a youth who is the reverse of indispensable ?
Yes, indeed, he said ; I believe that he would.
Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his
father and mother.
Yes, indeed, he replied.
He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleas-
ures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he
THE REPUBLIC 377
breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly way-
farer, and the next thing is that he lifts a temple ; and while all
this is going on, the old opinions about good and evil which he
had when a child, and which were thought by him to be right,
are overthrown by those others which have just been emanci-
pated, and are now the guard and associates of love, being those
which in former days, when he was a partisan of democracy and
subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the
dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the tyranny of love,
he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then
very rarely and in a dream only ; he will commit the foulest
murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid
act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him, and being
himself a king emancipated from all control, he leads him 57
on — like man like State — into the performance of reckless
deeds in order to maintain himself and his rabble, which evil
communications have brought in from without, or which he
himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a
similar character in himself. Is not this a picture of his way
of life?
Yes, indeed, he said.
And if there are only a few of them, and the rest of the peo-
ple are well disposed, they go away and become the body-
guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may
probably want the'ii for a war ; and if there is no war, they
stay at home and do mischief in the city.
What sort of mischief?
For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cutpurses, foot-
pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community, and
if they are able to speak they play the part of informers, and
bear false witness, and take bribes.
And these, he replied, are not very small evils, even if the
perpetrators of them are a few in number.
Yes, I said ; but small and great are comparative terms, and
all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon
a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant :
the people are fools, and this class and their followers grow nu-
merous and are aware of their numbers, and they take him who
has most of the tyrant in his soul, and make him their leader.
Yes, he said, that is natural ; for he will be the most tyran-
nically disposed.
378 PLATO THE TEACHER
If the people yield, well and good ; but if they resist him,
as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if
he has the power, he beats his dear old fatherland and mother-
land, as the Cretans say, and brings in his young retainers to
be their rulers and masters. And this is the end of his passions
and desires.
Exactly.
Even in early days and before they get power, this is the
way of them ; they associate only with their own flatterers or
ready tools ; or, if they want anything from anybody, they
, themselves are equally ready to fall down before them ;
there is no attitude into which they will not throw them-
selves, but when they have gained their point they know them
no more.
Yes, truly.
They are always either the masters or servants and never
the friends of anybody ; the tyrant never tastes of true free-
dom or true friendship.
Certainly not.
And may we not call such men treacherous ?
No question.
Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion
of justice?
Yes, he said, and in that we were perfectly right.
Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the
worst man : he is the waking reality of what we dreamed.
Most true.
And this is he who being most of a tyrant by nature bears
rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes.
That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer.
And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest,
be also the most miserable? and he most of all and longest
of all who has tyrannized longest and most, and is most of a
tyrant — although this may not be the opinion of men in general?
Yes, he said, that is inevitable.
And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical
State, and the democratical man like the democratical State ;
and the same of the others ?
Certainly
And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, man is to
man?
THE REPUBLIC 379
To be sure.
Then comparing the former city which was under a king and
the city which was under a tyrant, how do they stand as to
virtue?
They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very
best and the other is the very worst.
There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and
therefore I will at once inquire whether you would arrive at a
similar decision about their relative happiness and misery.
And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at
the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may per-
haps have a few retainers about him ; but let us go as we
ought and view the whole city and look all around, and then
we will give our opinion.
A fair invitation, he replied ; and I see, as every one must,
that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and
monarchy the happiest.
And may I not fairly ask in like manner to have a judge of
the men whose mind can enter into and see through human
nature ; he must not be a child who looks at the outside and
is dazzled at the pompous aspect which tyranny assumes
to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear in- 77
sight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hear-
ing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the
same place with him, and been present at his daily life and
known him in his family, in which he is seen stripped of his
tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger; he
shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when
compared with other men ?
That again, he said, is a very fair proposal.
Let us now assume this able and experienced judge to be
ourselves, and then we shall have some one who will answer
our inquiries.
By all means.
Let us ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual
and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn
from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective
conditions ?
In what points ? he asked.
Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a
city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved ?
380 PLATO THE TEACHER
Nothing, he said, can be more completely enslaved.
And yet, as you see, there are masters and there are free-
men in such a State ?
Yes, he said, I see that there are, — a few ; but the people
as a whole (speaking generally) and the best of them are dis-
gracefully and miserably enslaved.
Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same
hold of the man ? his soul is full of meanness and serfdom, —
the best elements in him are enslaved ; and there is a small
ruling part which is also the worst and maddest.
That is inevitable.
And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul
of a freeman or of a slave ?
He has the soul of a slave, in my judgment.
And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is very far
from acting voluntarily ?
Very far, indeed.
And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking
of the soul taken as a whole) is very far from doing as she
desires ; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of
trouble and remorse?
Certainly.
And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor ?
Poor.
And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable ?
- 78 True.
And must not such a State and such a man be always
full of fear ?
Yes, indeed.
Is there any State in which you will find more of lamenta-
tion and sorrow and groaning and pain ?
Certainly not.
And is there any man in whom you will find more misery
of the same kind than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury
of passions and desires ?
Impossible.
Reflecting then upon these and similar evils, you held the
tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States?
And I was right, he said.
Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the
tyrannical man, what do you say of him?
THE REPUBLIC 38 1
I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men.
There, I said, I think that you are wrong.
How is that ? he said.
I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme
of misery.
Then who is more miserable?
One of whom I am about to speak.
Who is that ?
He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a
private life is cursed with the further misfortune of being a pub-
lic tyrant.
I should conjecture from the previous remarks that you are
right,
Yes, I said ; but in this high argument of good and evil you
should not conjecture only — you should have a certainty.
That is very true, he said.
Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think,
have an application to this subject.
What is your illustration ?
The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many
slaves : from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's State,
for they both have slaves j the only difference is that he has
more slaves.
Yes, that is the difference.
You know that they live securely and have no fear of their
servants ?
What should they fear ?
Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this ?
Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for
the protection of each individual.
That is quite true, I said. But imagine that one of these
owners is carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there
are no freemen to help him — he and his household, and he is
the master say of about fifty slaves — will he not be in an agony
of apprehension lest he and his wife and children should be put
to death by his slaves ?
Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost alarm.
Will he not be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves,
and make many promises to them of freedom and other things
much against his will? — he will become the servant of his
servants.
382 PLATO THE TEACHER
Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving his life.
And suppose that the same god who carries him off puts him
down among neighbors who will not allow a man to be the
master of another, and, if they catch him, are ready to inflict
capital punishment upon him ?
Then his case will be even worse, he said, when he is sur-
rounded and watched by enemies.
And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be
bound? — he being by nature such as we have described, is full
of all sorts of fears and lusts. His soul is dainty and greedy,
and yet he only, of all men, is never allowed to go on a jour-
ney, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but
he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is
jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and
sees anything of interest.
Very true, he said.
Such being his evil condition, am I not right in saying that
the tyrannical man, ill-governed in his own person, whom you
just now described as the most miserable of all, will be yet
more miserable in a public station, when, instead of leading a
private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a tyrant ? He
has to be master of others when he is not master of himself :
he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass
his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with
other men.
Yes, he said, that is very true, and the similitude is most
exact.
Is not his case utterly miserable ? and does not the actual
tyrant lead a worse life than him whom you determined to be
worst ?
Certainly.
He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the
real slave, and is obliged to practice the greatest adulation and
servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He
has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more
wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to in-
spect the whole soul of him : all his life long he is beset with
~ fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as
the State which he resembles; and surely the resem-
blance holds ?
True, he said.
THE REPUBLIC 383
Moreover, as we were saying, he grows worse from having
power : he becomes of necessity more jealous, more faithless,
more unjust, more friendless, more impious ; he entertains and
nurtures every evil sentiment, and the consequence is that he is
supremely miserable, and thus he makes everybody else equally
miserable.
No man of any sense will dispute that.
Come then, I said, and as the umpire gives sentence in the
games, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the
scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the
others follow : there are five of them in all — they are the royal,
timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.
The judgment will be easily given, he replied ; they shall
be choruses entering on the stage, and I will decide the place
of each of them by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness
and misery.
Need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result — that
the son of the best (Ariston) 1 is of opinion that the best and
justest man is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the
most royal master of himself; and that the worst and most un-
just man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who is
the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State ?
Make the proclamation, he said.
And shall I proclaim further, < < whether seen or unseen by
gods and men ? ' '
Yes, he said, you had better add that.
Then this, I said, will be the first proof; and there is an-
other, which may also have some weight.
What is that ?
The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul,
seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided
by us into three principles, 2 the division may furnish a new
demonstration.
Of what nature ?
There are three pleasures which correspond to the three
principles, and also three desires and governing powers.
How do you mean ? he said.
There is one principle with which a man learns, another