CHARACTERS
The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus,
Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus
appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the
end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to
silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion
is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among
the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons
of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides--these
are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts,
where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears
as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of house, has been appropriately
engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old
man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself
and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to
the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of
the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him,
fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness
of a well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny
of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection,
his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting
traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing
to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making
money.
Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing
men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful
attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation,
no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads
him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should
also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of
justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression
of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus
as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic,
not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts
with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening
of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner,
yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep.
ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of
place in the discussion which follows, and which he could
neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation
of dramatic propriety.
His "son and heir" Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness
of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening
scene, and will not "let him off" on the subject of women
and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of
view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which
has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides
as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no
more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited
from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced
the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus,
nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs
to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable
of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree
that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit
that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy
of the arts. From his brother Lysias we learn that he fell
a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made
to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his
family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii
to Athens.
The "Chalcedonian giant," Thrasymachus, of whom we have already
heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists,
according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their
worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing
to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration,
and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but
a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next
"move" (to use a Platonic expression) will "shut him up."
He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and
in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus.
But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and
vainly tries to cover his confusion in banter and insolence.
Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were
really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain;
in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality
might easily grow up-- they are certainly put into the mouths
of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present
with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical
reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the
humor of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly
helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who
knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness
in him.
He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his
noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to
the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down
their throats, or put "bodily into their souls" his own words,
elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper
is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument.
Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when
he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue
the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will,
and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one
or two occasional remarks.
When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates
"as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend."
From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's Rhetoric we
learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was
a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages.
The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus,
"thou wast ever bold in battle," seems to show that the description
of him is not devoid of verisimilitude.
When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents,
Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek
tragedy, three actors are introduced. At first sight the two
sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the
two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer
examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are
seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth
who can "just never have enough of fechting" (cf. the character
of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted
with the mysteries of love; the "juvenis qui gaudet canibus,"
and who improves the breed of animals; the lover of art and
music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is
full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the
clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty;
he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and
yet does not lose faith in the just and true.
It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous
relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state
of simplicity is "a city of pigs," who is always prepared
with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and
who is ever ready to second the humor of Socrates and to appreciate
the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in
the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic behavior of
the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times
alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to
be attacked by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and,
like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara.
The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the
profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon
is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus
pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness
and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment
of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon
insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without
regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they
are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their
consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges
at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates falls in
making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness
is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim
but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State.
In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus
is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest,
and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music
and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again
who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic
method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly
over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus
who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon
in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue.
For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book,
the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception
of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Then Glaucon
resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty
in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes
some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more
Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon
whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book
he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end.
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive
stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman
of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of
that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him
succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly
come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the
sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and
desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too,
like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished
from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other
Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated.
The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly
consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates,
such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in
the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is
ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists,
ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously.
But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates;
he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than
the corrupters of the world.
He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond
the range either of the political or the speculative ideas
of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to
intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had
passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion
and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There
is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception
of a perfect State were comprehended in the Socratic teaching,
though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and
of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep
thinker like him in his thirty or forty years of public teaching,
could hardly have falled to touch on the nature of family
relations, for which there is also some positive evidence
in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51 foll.) The Socratic method
is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into
the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery
of him and Socrates.
But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the
affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method
of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by
the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from
various points of view.
The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon,
when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for
much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and
may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently
than another. Neither can we be absolutely certain that, Socrates
himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown
to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic; nor is there any
reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another
world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished
poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology.
His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made
of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by
Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element
of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic
than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of
example and illustration ('taphorhtika auto prhospherhontez'):
"Let us apply the test of common instances." "You," says Adeimantus,
ironically, in the sixth book, "are so unaccustomed to speak
in images." And this use of examples or images, though truly
Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into
the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the
concrete what has been already described, or is about to be
described, in the abstract.
Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation
of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal
in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble
captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure
of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State
which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog in
the second, third, and fourth books, or the marriage of the
portionless maiden in the sixth book, or the drones and wasps
in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connection
in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions.
Plato is most true to the character of his master when he
describes him as "not of this world." And with this representation
of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of the Republic
are quite in accordance, though they can not be shown to have
been speculations of Socrates.
To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and
religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be
the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind
has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted
it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the
multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or
love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are
therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding
of him is unavoidable: for they have never seen him as he
truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial
systems possessing no native force of truth--words which admit
of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure
with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature.
But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled
with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only
learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation
towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic
features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different
representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato,
and the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he
always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested
seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to
be Socrates. Leaving the characters we may now analyze the
contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider (1)
The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, (2)
The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read.
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