Timaeus — Plato

they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I beheve that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change. And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed?

Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said.

In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and mihtary training — in all these respects this State will resemble the former. True.

But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements ; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace ; and in the value set by 548 them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars — this State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes.

Yes, I said ; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who hve in oligarchies ; they will have a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them ; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please.

That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize ; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of 3their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father : they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil.

Why, there is a mixture, I said ; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen, — the spirit of contention and ambition ; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said.

Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outHne only ; the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust ; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied.

Now what man answers to this form of government — how did he come into being, and what is he like? I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. Perhaps, I said, he may be hke him in that one point ; but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects?

He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture ; and he should be a good 549 listener, but no speaker.

Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that ; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority ; he is a lover- of power and a lover of honour ; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms ; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young ;