Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 8.554

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[554] 554a
σκοπῶμεν.
οὐκοῦν πρῶτον μὲν τῷ χρήματα περὶ πλείστου ποιεῖσθαι ὅμοιος ἂν εἴη;
πῶς δʼ οὔ;
καὶ μὴν τῷ γε φειδωλὸς εἶναι καὶ ἐργάτης, τὰς ἀναγκαίους ἐπιθυμίας μόνον τῶν παρʼ αὑτῷ ἀποπιμπλάς, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἀναλώματα μὴ παρεχόμενος, ἀλλὰ δουλούμενος τὰς ἄλλας ἐπιθυμίας ὡς ματαίους.
πάνυ μὲν οὖν.
αὐχμηρός γέ τις, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὢν καὶ ἀπὸ παντὸς περιουσίαν ποιούμενος, θησαυροποιὸς ἀνήρ—οὓς δὴ καὶ ἐπαινεῖ τὸ πλῆθος 554b —ἢ οὐχ οὗτος ἂν εἴη ὁ τῇ τοιαύτῃ πολιτείᾳ ὅμοιος;
ἐμοὶ γοῦν, ἔφη, δοκεῖ· χρήματα γοῦν μάλιστα ἔντιμα τῇ τε πόλει καὶ παρὰ τῷ τοιούτῳ.
οὐ γὰρ οἶμαι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, παιδείᾳ ὁ τοιοῦτος προσέσχηκεν.
οὐ δοκῶ, ἔφη· οὐ γὰρ ἂν τυφλὸν ἡγεμόνα τοῦ χοροῦ ἐστήσατο καὶ ἐτί μα μάλιστα.
εὖ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ. τόδε δὲ σκόπει· κηφηνώδεις ἐπιθυμίας ἐν αὐτῷ διὰ τὴν ἀπαιδευσίαν μὴ φῶμεν ἐγγίγνεσθαι, τὰς μὲν 554c πτωχικάς, τὰς δὲ κακούργους, κατεχομένας βίᾳ ὑπὸ τῆς ἄλλης ἐπιμελείας;
καὶ μάλʼ, ἔφη.
οἶσθʼ οὖν, εἶπον, οἷ ἀποβλέψας κατόψει αὐτῶν τὰς κακουργίας;
ποῖ; ἔφη.
εἰς τὰς τῶν ὀρφανῶν ἐπιτροπεύσεις, καὶ εἴ πού τι αὐτοῖς τοιοῦτον συμβαίνει, ὥστε πολλῆς ἐξουσίας λαβέσθαι τοῦ ἀδικεῖν.
ἀληθῆ.
ἆρʼ οὖν οὐ τούτῳ δῆλον ὅτι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις συμβολαίοις ὁ τοιοῦτος, ἐν οἷς εὐδοκιμεῖ δοκῶν δίκαιος εἶναι, ἐπιεικεῖ 554d τινὶ ἑαυτοῦ βίᾳ κατέχει ἄλλας κακὰς ἐπιθυμίας ἐνούσας, οὐ πείθων ὅτι οὐκ ἄμεινον, οὐδʼ ἡμερῶν λόγῳ, ἀλλʼ ἀνάγκῃ καὶ φόβῳ, περὶ τῆς ἄλλης οὐσίας τρέμων;
καὶ πάνυ γʼ, ἔφη.
καὶ νὴ Δία, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὦ φίλε, τοῖς πολλοῖς γε αὐτῶν ἐνευρήσεις, ὅταν δέῃ τἀλλότρια ἀναλίσκειν, τὰς τοῦ κηφῆνος συγγενεῖς ἐνούσας ἐπιθυμίας.
καὶ μάλα, ἦ δʼ ὅς, σφόδρα.
οὐκ ἄρʼ ἂν εἴη ἀστασίαστος ὁ τοιοῦτος ἐν ἑαυτῷ, οὐδὲ εἷς ἀλλὰ διπλοῦς τις, ἐπιθυμίας δὲ ἐπιθυμιῶν ὡς τὸ πολὺ 554e κρατούσας ἂν ἔχοι βελτίους χειρόνων.
ἔστιν οὕτω.
διὰ ταῦτα δὴ οἶμαι εὐσχημονέστερος ἂν πολλῶν ὁ τοιοῦτος εἴη· ὁμονοητικῆς δὲ καὶ ἡρμοσμένης τῆς ψυχῆς ἀληθὴς ἀρετὴ πόρρω ποι ἐκφεύγοι ἂν αὐτόν.
δοκεῖ μοι.

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

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Current edition Perseus

Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 8.554 focus

[554] Let us see.
Would he not, in the first place, resemble it in prizing wealth above everything? Inevitably. And also by being thrifty and laborious, satisfying only his own necessary¹ appetites and desires and not providing for expenditure on other things, but subduing his other appetites as vain and unprofitable? By all means. He would be a squalid² fellow, said I, looking for a surplus of profit³ in everything, 554b and a hoarder, the type the multitude approves.⁴ Would not this be the character of the man who corresponds to such a polity? I certainly think so, he said. Property, at any rate, is the thing most esteemed by that state and that kind of man. That, I take it, said I, is because he has never turned his thoughts to true culture. I think not, he said, else he would not have made the blind⁵ one leader of his choir and first in honor.⁶ Well said, I replied. But consider this. Shall we not say that owing to this lack of culture the appetites of the drone spring up in him, 554c some the beggarly, others the rascally, but that they are forcibly restrained by his general self-surveillance and self- control⁷? We shall indeed, he said. Do you know, then, said I, to what you must look to discern the rascalities of such men? To what? he said. To guardianships of orphans,⁸ and any such opportunities of doing injustice with impunity. True. And is it not apparent by this that in other dealings, where he enjoys the repute of a seeming just man, he by some better⁹ element in himself 554d forcibly keeps down other evil desires dwelling within,¹⁰ not persuading them that it is better not¹¹ nor taming them by reason, but by compulsion and fear, trembling for his possessions generally. Quite so, he said. Yes, by Zeus, said I, my friend. In most of them, when there is occasion to spend the money of others, you will discover the existence of drone-like appetites. Most emphatically. Such a man, then, would not be free from internal dissension.¹² He would not be really one, but in some sort a double¹³ man. Yet for the most part, 554e his better desires would have the upper hand over the worse. It is so. And for this reason, I presume, such a man would be more seemly, more respectable, than many others; but the true virtue of a soul in unison and harmony¹⁴ with itself would escape him and dwell afar. I think so.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

ἐργάτης : not simply ‘hardworking’ (D. and V.), but with reference to illiberalis labor.

ἀναγκαίους . This form of the feminine recurs in IV 425 D, supra 558 D, 559 A, 561 A (ter) and IX 572 C; but in 558 D we have ἀναγκαῖαι, and ἀναγκαία in 559 B, C. See Schneider on IV 425 D. There is no justification for making ἀναγκαῖος consistently an adjective of either two or three terminations (as suggested by Richards). The full meaning of ἀναγκαῖοι ἐπιθυμίαι is explained in 558 D ff.

τὰ ἄλλα ἀναλώματα “sunt pecuniae in cetera impendendae, quas hic negatur παρέχεσθαι, de suis praebere” (Schneider). With ἄλλα cf. ἄλλης 554 C, and with παρεχόμενος IV 421 D note The translation ‘not affording or allowing himself’ (J. and C.) is inaccurate. παραδεχόμενος, which was read, with slight MS authority, before Bekker, has been rightly discarded by later editors.

οὓς δή . For the plural cf. (with Stallbaum) Laws 908 D and Eur. Hel. 440 <*>λλην πεφυκώς, οἷσιν οὐκ ἐπιστροφαί. See also on I 347 A.

τυφλὸν κτλ. τὸν Πλοῦτον, οἷμαι, φησίν says a Scholiast in the margin of A. See Blaydes on Ar. Plut. 90 . Hirmer ( Entst. u. Komp. d. Pl. Pol. p. 658 note) doubts whether the god of Wealth is represented as blind earlier than Aristophanes; but a σκόλιον of Timocreon began ὤφελέν σ’ ὦ τυφλὲ Πλοῦτε (Schol. on Ar. Ach. 532 ). With the figure in τοῦ χοροῦ cf. VI 490 C and infra 560 E.

ἐτίμα μάλιστα . See cr. n. Schneider's admirable emendation is now universally accepted: cf. μάλιστα ἔντιμα above and τιμᾶν μηδὲν ἄλλο ἢ πλοῦτον 553 D. On the corruption see Introd. § 5.

κηφηνώδεις κτλ. As oligarchy has ‘drones’ (552 C), so the oligarchical man has ‘drone desires.’ The parallel is worked out with unusual completeness, even for Plato: see on 555 A.

μὴ φῶμεν . 552 D note

κατεχομένας κτλ. Cf. 552 E. ἄλλης= περὶ τὰ ἄλλα: cf. ἄλλα in 554 A. The translation ‘his general habit of carefulness’ (J. and C.) is scarcely right: cf. περὶ τῆς ἄλλης οὐσίας τρέμων in D below.

αὐτῶν : not κηφηνωδῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, but the plural masculine, in spite of αὐτῷ above (I 347 A note).

ὥστε πολλῆς κτλ. See II 359 B ff. Socrates would say that the picture which Glauco there draws is only too true of the oligarchical man.

τούτῳ δῆλον : ‘clear by this,’ ‘clear from this,’ as in Eur. Hipp. 627 τού τῳ δὲ δῆλον and Ar. Plut. 587 ( τούτῳ δηλοῖ). Stallbaum reads τοῦτο with Ξ and a majority of the inferior MSS; but there is no reason for deserting A and II. The antecedent to τούτῳ is contained in οἶσθ’ οὖν—ἀδικεῖν. From the fact that such a person κακουργεῖ when he gets the chance, it is clear (says Socrates) that when he εὐδοκιμεῖ δοκῶν δίκαιος εἶναι, he achieves this result only by doing violence to himself.

ἐπιεικεῖ κτλ. : ‘by a sort of virtuous self-constraint’ not (as Campbell) ‘by some virtuous element in himself he forcibly restrains.’ βίᾳ is a verbal noun as in βίᾳ τῶν ἐχθρῶν (566 A) and the like. τινι qualifies ἐπιεικής: there is no real ἐπιείκεια in this sort of thing: cf. Phaed. 69 A ff.

εὑρήσεις : see cr. n. The addition of ἐν above the line by A^{2} is hardly sufficient to justify ἐνευρήσεις, especially as εὑρήσεις has much more support from the other MSS. ἐνευρίσκω has not yet been proved classical (see Jebb on Soph. Aj. 1144 ), and Schneider afterwards ( Addit. p. 65) retracted his defence of it here. The distance of τοῖς πολλοῖς from ἐνούσας ἐπιθυμίας is no real difficulty, especially after ἐπιθυμίας ἐνούσας just above.

τὰς τοῦ κηφῆνος ξυγγενεῖς κτλ. Cf. VII 519 B, C note For ἀστασίαστος see on 545 C. διπλοῦς: like the oligarchical State, which is ‘not one, but two’ (551 D).

ἡρμοσμένης τῆς ψυχῆς . Richards would omit τῆς, but the article (which is in all MSS), implies, I think, that such a soul exists and has already been described, as it has in ἕνα γενόμενον ἐκ πολλῶν, σώφρονα καὶ ἡρμοσμένον IV 443 D, E.

ἀνταγωνιστής γε κτλ. See on 551 E. Susemihl Gen. Entw. II p. 232 reminds us of the disinclination on the part of rich Athenians to undertake λειτουργίαι: see Hermann-Thumser l.c. pp. 687 ff.

Plato Republic 8.554

ed. John Burnet

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