Timaeus — Plato

Republic V. and gymnastic. And the education which wc give them will Analysis. bc the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this. Therefore let them strip, clothed in their 45/ chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the defence of their country ; he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains.

The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is rolling in — community of wives and children ; is this either expedient or possible ? The expediency I do not doubt ; I am not so sure of the possibility. ' Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.

I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his 45^ walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be. In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey.

You, as legislator, have already selected the men ; and now you shall select the women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent.

For the avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion 45( to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating ? ^ Certainly. And there is no reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human beings.

But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed ; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed 46c with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will

Analysis 460-462. Ixxiii meet at them ; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will Republic v. contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those Analysis. of inferior breed are paired with inferiors — the latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers.

And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses ; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children ; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring ; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired.

The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. 'Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children. And quite right too, I said, that they should.

The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years — from twenty- five, when he 461 has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fifty- five ; and at twenty years for a woman — from twenty to forty.

Any one above or below those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety ; also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers.

This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. ' But how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common ?

' The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as arc born seven or nine months after the espousals, and their parents those 462 ^vho are then espoused, and every one will have many children and every child many parents. Socrates proceeds : I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity ; the greatest evil, discord and distraction.

And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests — where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive ; and the least hurt to the httle finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true

Ixxiv Analysis 462-466. Republic V. Statc, like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part Analysis. IS affcctcd.

Evcry State has subjects and rulers, who in a 463 democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters : but in our State they are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers.

And whereas in other States members of the sam.e government regard one of their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another ; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding eality — brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in e ears of children, will not be mere words.

Then again the 464 cidzens will have all things in common, and having common property they will have common pleasures and pains. Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they call their own ; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend himself?

The permission to strike when insulted will be an ' antidote ' to 465 the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder ; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life ; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying.

Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater still — they and their children having a better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable burial. Nor has the happiness of the individual ^(^d been sacrificed to the happiness of the State (cp. iv. 419 E); our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler.

At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that ' half is better than the whole.' * I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life. But is such a community possible? — as among the animals, so