Socrates “And also that being impoverished by war-taxes they may have to devote themselves to their daily business and be less likely to plot against him?” “Obviously.” “And if, I presume, he suspects that there are free spirits who will not suffer his domination, his further object is to find pretexts for destroying them by exposing them to the enemy? From all these motives a tyrant is compelled to be always provoking wars?” “Yes, he is compelled to do so.” “And by such conduct

Socrates will he not the more readily incur the hostility of the citizens?” “Of course.” “And is it not likely that some of those who helped to establish and now share in his power, voicing their disapproval of the course of events, will speak out frankly to him and to one another—such of them as happen to be the bravest?” “Yes, it is likely.” “Then the tyrant must do away with all such if he is to maintain his rule, until he has left no one of any worth, friend or foe.” “Obviously.” “He must look sharp to see, then,

Socrates who is brave, who is great-souled, who is wise, who is rich and such is his good fortune that, whether he wishes it or not, he must be their enemy and plot against them all until he purge the city.” “A fine purgation,” he said. “Yes,” said I, “just the opposite of that which physicians practise on our bodies. For while they remove the worst and leave the best, he does the reverse.” “Yes, for apparently he must,” he said, “if he is to keep his power.”

“Blessed, then, is the necessity that binds him,”

said I, “which bids him dwell for the most part with base companions who hate him, or else forfeit his life.” “Such it is,” he said. “And would he not, the more he offends the citizens by such conduct, have the greater need of more and more trustworthy bodyguards?” “Of course.” “Whom, then, may he trust, and whence shall he fetch them?” “Unbidden,” he said, “they will wing their way to him in great numbers if he furnish their wage.” “Drones, by the dog,” I said, “I think you are talking of again,

an alien and motley crew.” “You think rightly,” he said. “But what of the home supply, would he not choose to employ that?” “How?” “By taking their slaves from the citizens, emancipating them and enlisting them in his bodyguard.” “Assuredly,” he said, “since these are those whom he can most trust.”

Socrates “Truly,” said I, “this tyrant business is a blessed thing on your showing, if such are the friends and “trusties”

Socrates he must employ after destroying his former associates.” “But such are indeed those he does make use of,” he said. “And these companions admire him,” I said, “and these new citizens are his associates, while the better sort hate and avoid him.” “Why should they not?” “Not for nothing,” said I, “is tragedy in general esteemed wise, and Euripides beyond other tragedians.” “Why, pray?” “Because among other utterances of pregnant thought he said,

Socrates Tyrants are wise by converse with the wise.Cf. Theages 125 B f. The line is also attributed to Sophocles. Cf. Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der griechischen Literatur, p. 9; Gellius xiii. 18, F. Dümmler, Akademika, p. 16. Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 119 thinks this an allusion to Euripides and Agathon at the court of Archelaus of Macedon. Isocrates ix. 40, like the poets, praises the tyrants, but ii. 3-5 contrasts their education unfavorably with that of the ordinary citizen. Throughout the passage he is plainly thinking of Plato. He meant evidently that these associates of the tyrant are the wise.” “Yes, he and the other poets,” he said, “call the tyrant’s power “likest God’s” and praise it in many other ways.” “Wherefore,” said I, “being wise as they are, the poets of tragedy will pardon us and those whose politics resemble ours for not admitting them into our polity, since they hymn the praises of tyranny.” “I think,” he said, “that the subtle minds

Socrates among them will pardon us.” “But going about to other cities, I fancy, collecting crowds and hiring fine, loud, persuasive voices, they draw the polities towards tyrannies or democracies.” “Yes, indeed.” “And, further, they are paid and honored for this, chiefly, as is to be expected, by tyrants, and secondly by democracy. But the higher they go, breasting constitution hill, the more their honor fails,

Socrates as it were from lack of breath unable to proceed.” “Quite so.”

“But this,” said I, “is a digression. Let us return to that fair, multitudinous, diversified and ever-changing bodyguard of the tyrant and tell how it will be supported.” “Obviously,” he said, “if there are sacred treasures in the city he will spend these as long as they last and the property of those he has destroyed, thus requiring smaller contributions from the populace.”

“But what when these resources fail?” “Clearly,” he said, “his father’s estate will have to support him and his wassailers, his fellows and his she-fellows.” “I understand,” I said, “that the people which begot the tyrant will have to feed him and his companions.” “It cannot escape from that,” he said.

Socrates “And what have you to say,” I said, “in case the people protests and says that it is not right that a grown-up son should be supported by his father, but the reverse,

Socrates and that it did not beget and establish him in order that, when he had grown great, it, in servitude to its own slaves, should feed him and the slaves together with a nondescript rabble of aliens, but in order that, with him for protector, it might be liberated from the rule of the rich and the so-called “better classes,” and that it now bids him and his crew depart from the city as a father expels from his house a son together with troublesome revellers?” “The demos, by Zeus,” he said, “will then learn to its cost

Socrates what it is and what a creature it begot and cherished and bred to greatness, and that in its weakness it tries to expel the stronger.” “What do you mean?” said I; “will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and, if he does not yield, to strike him?” “Yes,” he said, “after he has once taken from him his arms.” “A very parricide,” said I, “you make the tyrant out to be, and a cruel nurse of old age, and, as it seems, this is at last tyranny open and avowed, and, as the saying goes, the demos trying to escape the smoke of submission to the free would have plunged

Socrates into the fire of enslavement to slaves, and in exchange for that excessive and unseasonable liberty has clothed itself in the garb of the most cruel and bitter servile servitude.” “Yes indeed,” he said, “that is just what happens.” “Well, then,” said I, “shall we not be fairly justified in saying that we have sufficiently described the transformation of a democracy into a tyranny and the nature of the tyranny itself?” “Quite sufficiently,” he said.