Socrates “Then we shall rightly use the word “necessary” of them?” “Rightly.” “And what of the desires from which a man could free himself by discipline from youth up, and whose presence in the soul does no good and in some cases harm? Should we not fairly call all such unnecessary?” “Fairly indeed.” “Let us select an example of either kind, so that we may apprehend the type.¹” “Let us do so.” “Would not the desire of eating to keep in health and condition and the appetite 559b for mere bread and relishes² be necessary?” “I think so.” “The appetite for bread is necessary in both respects, in that it is beneficial and in that if it fails we die.” “Yes.” “And the desire for relishes, so far as it conduces to fitness?” “By all means.” “And should we not rightly pronounce unnecessary the appetite that exceeds these and seeks other varieties of food, and that by correction³ and training from youth up can be got rid of in most cases and is harmful to the body and a hindrance to the soul’s attainment of 559c intelligence and sobriety?” “Nay, most rightly.” “And may we not call the one group the spendthrift desires and the other the profitable,⁴ because they help production?” “Surely.” “And we shall say the same of sexual and other appetites?” “The same.” “And were we not saying that the man whom we nicknamed the drone is the man who teems⁵ with such pleasures and appetites, and who is governed by his unnecessary desires, while the one who is ruled 559d by his necessary appetites is the thrifty oligarchical man?” “Why, surely.”

“To return, then,” said I, “we have to tell how the democratic man develops from the oligarchical type. I think it is usually in this way.” “How?” “When a youth, bred in the illiberal and niggardly fashion that we were describing, gets a taste of the honey of the drones and associates with fierce⁶ and cunning creatures who know how to purvey pleasures of every kind and variety⁷ and condition, there you must doubtless conceive is the beginning 559e of the transformation of the oligarchy in his soul into democracy.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “May we not say that just as the revolution in the city was brought about by the aid of an alliance from outside, coming to the support of the similar and corresponding party in the state, so the youth is revolutionized when a like and kindred⁸ group of appetites from outside comes to the aid of one of the parties in his soul?” “By all means,” he said.

“And if, I take it, a counter-alliance⁹ comes to the rescue of the oligarchical part of his soul, either it may be from his father 560a or from his other kin, who admonish and reproach him, then there arises faction¹⁰ and counter-faction and internal strife in the man with himself.” “Surely.” “And sometimes, I suppose, the democratic element retires before the oligarchical, some of its appetites having been destroyed and others¹¹ expelled, and a sense of awe and reverence grows up in the young man’s soul and order is restored.” “That sometimes happens,” he said. “And sometimes, again, another brood of desires akin to those expelled 560b are stealthily nurtured to take their place, owing to the father’s ignorance of true education, and wax numerous and strong.” “Yes, that is wont to be the way of it.” “And they tug and pull back to the same associations and in secret intercourse engender a multitude.” “Yes indeed.” “And in the end, I suppose, they seize the citadel¹² of the young man’s soul, finding it empty and unoccupied by studies and honorable pursuits and true discourses, which are the best watchmen 560c and guardians¹³ in the minds of men who are dear to the gods.” “Much the best,” he said. “And then false and braggart words¹⁴ and opinions charge up the height and take their place and occupy that part of such a youth.” “They do indeed.” “And then he returns, does he not, to those Lotus-eaters¹⁵ and without disguise lives openly with them. And if any support¹⁶ comes from his kin to the thrifty element in his soul, those braggart discourses close the gates of the royal fortress within him 560d and refuse admission to the auxiliary force itself, and will not grant audience as to envoys to the words of older friends in private life. And they themselves prevail in the conflict, and naming reverence and awe “folly”¹⁷ thrust it forth, a dishonored fugitive. And temperance they call “want of manhood” and banish it with contumely, and they teach that moderation and orderly expenditure are “rusticity” and “illiberality,” and they combine with a gang of unprofitable and harmful appetites to drive them over the border.¹⁸” “They do indeed.” “And when they have emptied 560e and purged¹⁹ of all these the soul of the youth that they have thus possessed²⁰ and occupied, and whom they are initiating with these magnificent and costly rites,²¹ they proceed to lead home from exile insolence and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness, resplendent²² in a great attendant choir and crowned with garlands, and in celebration of their praises they euphemistically denominate insolence “good breeding,” licence “liberty,” prodigality “magnificence,” 561a and shamelessness “manly spirit.””

“And is it not in some such way as this,” said I, “that in his youth the transformation takes place from the restriction to necessary desires in his education to the liberation and release of his unnecessary and harmful desires?” “Yes, your description is most vivid,” said he. “Then, in his subsequent life, I take it, such a one expends money and toil and time no more on his necessary than on his unnecessary pleasures. But if it is his good fortune that the period of storm and stress does not last too long, and as he grows older 561b the fiercest tumult within him passes, and he receives back a part of the banished elements and does not abandon himself altogether to the invasion of the others, then he establishes and maintains all his pleasures on a footing of equality, forsooth,²³ and so lives turning over the guard-house²⁴ of his soul to each as it happens along until it is sated, as if it had drawn the lot for that office, and then in turn to another, disdaining none but fostering them all equally.²⁵” “Quite so.” “And he does not accept or admit into the guard-house the words of truth when anyone tells him 561c that some pleasures arise from honorable and good desires, and others from those that are base,²⁶ and that we ought to practise and esteem the one and control and subdue the others; but he shakes his head²⁷ at all such admonitions and avers that they are all alike and to be equally esteemed.” “Such is indeed his state of mind and his conduct.” “And does he not,” said I, “also live out his life in this fashion, day by day indulging the appetite of the day, now wine-bibbing and abandoning himself to the lascivious pleasing of the flute²⁸ and again drinking only water and dieting; 561d and at one time exercising his body, and sometimes idling and neglecting all things, and at another time seeming to occupy himself with philosophy. And frequently he goes in for politics and bounces up²⁹ and says and does whatever enters his head.³⁰ And if military men excite his emulation, thither he rushes, and if moneyed men, to that he turns, and there is no order or compulsion in his existence, but he calls this life of his the life of pleasure and freedom and happiness and 561e cleaves to it to the end.” “That is a perfect description,” he said, “of a devotee of equality.” “I certainly think,” said I, “that he is a manifold³¹ man stuffed with most excellent differences, and that like that city³² he is the fair and many-colored one whom many a man and woman would count fortunate in his life, as containing within himself the greatest number of patterns of constitutions and qualities.” “Yes, that is so,” he said.

562a “Shall we definitely assert, then, that such a man is to be ranged with democracy and would properly be designated as democratic?” “Let that be his place,” he said.

“And now,” said I, “the fairest³³ polity and the fairest man remain for us to describe, the tyranny and the tyrant.” “Certainly,” he said. “Come then, tell me, dear friend, how tyranny arises.³⁴ That it is an outgrowth of democracy is fairly plain.” “Yes, plain.” “Is it, then, in a sense, in the same way in which democracy arises out of oligarchy that tyranny arises from democracy?” 562b “How is that?” “The good that they proposed to themselves³⁵ and that was the cause of the establishment of oligarchy—it was wealth,³⁶ was it not?” “Yes.” “Well, then, the insatiate lust for wealth and the neglect of everything else for the sake of money-making was the cause of its undoing.” “True,” he said. “And is not the avidity of democracy for that which is its definition and criterion of good the thing which dissolves it³⁷ too?” “What do you say its criterion to be?” “Liberty,³⁸” I replied; “for you may hear it said that this is best managed in a democratic city, 562c and for this reason that is the only city in which a man of free spirit will care to live.³⁹” “Why, yes,” he replied, “you hear that saying everywhere.” “Then, as I was about to observe,⁴⁰ is it not the excess and greed of this and the neglect of all other things that revolutionizes this constitution too and prepares the way for the necessity of a dictatorship?” “How?” he said. “Why, when a democratic city athirst for liberty gets bad cupbearers 562d for its leaders⁴¹ and is intoxicated by drinking too deep of that unmixed wine,⁴² and then, if its so-called governors are not extremely mild and gentle with it and do not dispense the liberty unstintedly,it chastises them and accuses them of being accursed⁴³ oligarchs.⁴⁴” “Yes, that is what they do,” he replied. “But those who obey the rulers,” I said, “it reviles as willing slaves⁴⁵ and men of naught,⁴⁶ but it commends and honors in public and private rulers who resemble subjects and subjects who are like rulers. 562e Is it not inevitable that in such a state the spirit of liberty should go to all lengths⁴⁷?” “Of course.” “And this anarchical temper,” said I, “my friend, must penetrate into private homes and finally enter into the very animals.⁴⁸” “Just what do we mean by that?” he said.