In Laws XI Plato says: ‘If the one who has been freed, or one of the other aliens, acquires property in excess of the limit allowed the third property-class, then within thirty days of this event he shall take his own property and depart, without any right to ask the authorities to extend his stay. For anyone disobeying these regulations, if he is taken to court and found guilty, the penalty shall be death, and his estate shall become public property.’ (915b5-c4)
In Laws
V, at 744c4-6 Plato says: ‘we should create four classes based on amount of
property – first, second, third and fourth’.
E.B. England
comments: ‘The third class was the lowest but one. This restriction of the
property of aliens (xenoi) and freedmen seems to have been Plato’s own.
He apparently disapproved of the generous treatment accorded to resident aliens
(metoikoi) by the Athenians. In this his relatives Critias and Charmides
would have agreed with him.’
In Against
Eratosthenes Lysias narrates: ‘When the Thirty were established in the
government, they declared that the city must be purged of unjust men and the rest
of the citizens inclined to virtue and justice, despite these professions they
had the effrontery to discard them in practice, as I shall endeavour to remind
you. Theognis and Peison stated before the Thirty that among the resident
aliens there were some who were embittered against their administration, and
that therefore they had an excellent pretext for appearing to punish why in
reality to make money; in any case, the State was impoverished, and the
government needed funds. They had no difficulty in persuading their hearers,
for those men thought nothing of putting people to death, but a great deal of
getting money. So they resolved to seize ten, of whom two should be poor men,
that they might face the rest with the excuse that the thing had not been done
for the sake of the money, but had been brought about in the interest of the State,
just as if they had taken some ordinary reasonable action. They apportioned the
houses amongst them, and began their visits: they found me entertaining guests,
and after driving these out they handed me over to Peison. The others went into
the factory – where Lysias and Polemarchus carried on the manufacture of arms –
and proceeded to make a list of the slaves. I asked Peison if he would save me
for a price: he assented on condition that it was a high one (5-9) … I took to
flight … I reached the house of Archeneos the ship-captain, and sent him into
town to inquire after my brother: on his return he told me that Eratosthenes
had arrested him in the street and taken him to prison. Thus apprised of his
fate, I sailed across on the following night to Megara. (16-17)
Polemarchus
received from the Thirty their accustomed order to drink hemlock, with no
statement made as to the reason for his execution: so far did he come short of
being tried and defending himself. And when he was being brought away dead from
the prison, although we had three houses amongst us, they did not permit his
funeral to be conducted from any of them, but they hired a small hut in which
to lay him out. We had plenty of cloaks, yet they refused our request for one
for the funeral; but our friends gave either a cloak, or a pillow, or whatever
each had to spare, for his internment. They had seven hundred shields of ours,
they had all that silver and gold, with copper, jewellery, furniture and
women’s apparel beyond what they had ever expected to get; also a hundred and
twenty slaves, of whom they took the ablest, delivering the rest to the
Treasury; and yet to what extremes of insatiable greed for gain did they go, in
this revelation that they made of their personal character! For some twisted
gold earrings, which Polemarchus’ wife chanced to have, were taken out of her
ears by Melobius as soon as he ever entered the house … our wealth impelled
them to act as injuriously towards us as others might from anger aroused by
grievous wrongs. This was not the treatment that we deserved in the city’s
hands, when we had produced all the dramas for the festivals’ – Referring to
the expensive equipping of choruses for dramatic performances – ‘and
contributed to many special levies; when we showed ourselves men of orderly
life, and performed every duty laid upon us; when we had made not a single
enemy, but had ransomed many Athenians from the foe.’ (17-20, translation
W.R.M. Lamb)
***
In ‘The Phaedrus
and Laws X – revised’ (18 August) I wrote:
‘… many of those, who read the Phaedrus, believed that they could see
the Forms, although they could not do so. But what was worse, Plato himself
mistakenly believed that they could do so. This is not a mere conjecture, for
we know from the Phaedrus, that this is what happened to Lysias’ brother
Polemarchus, and to Plato concerning Polemarchus. We can know it with
certainty, for only on that basis could Plato end the Palinode with the prayer
to Eros, in which Socrates prays that Eros may turn Lysias ‘to philosophy (epi
philosophian) as his brother Polemarchus has been turned to it’ (hȏsper
h’adelphos autou Polemarchos tetraptai)’, so that Phaedrus and his beloved
Lysias can direct their life ‘simply towards love (haplȏs pros Erȏta)
accompanied by philosophic discussions’ (meta philosophȏn logȏn) … Socrates
thus prays that Eros enables Lysias to see the Forms, for only on that basis
the lover’s soul and the soul of his beloved can live together in love free of
sex, to which the Palinode is devoted.’
But can Socrates’ prayer to Eros justify
my claim that many of those, who read the Phaedrus, believed that they
could see the Forms, and that Plato himself mistakenly believed that they could
do so? To answer this question, I refer to the following passages in the Phaedrus,
which elucidate Socrates’ ‘turn Lysias to philosophy, as his brother Polemarchus
has been turned to it’:
‘Just as at the beginning of this tale
we divided each soul into three forms, two like horses and the third with the
role of a charioteer, so now let this still stand. Of the horses, one, we say,
is good, the other not; but we did not describe what the excellence of the good
horse was, or the badness of the bad horse, and that is what we must now say.
Well
then, the first of the two, which is on the nobler side, is erect in form and
clean-limbed, high-necked, nose somewhat hooked, white in colour, with black
eyes, a lover of honour when joint with restraint and a sense of shame, and a
companion of true glory, needing no whip, responding to the spoken command
alone; the other is crooked in shape, gross, a random collection of parts, with
a short powerful neck, flat-nosed, black-skinned, grey-eyed, bloodshot,
companion of excess and boastfulness, shaggy around the ears, deaf, hardly yielding
to whip and goad together. So when the charioteer first catches sight of the
light of his love, warming the whole soul through the medium of perception, and
begins to be filled with tickling and pricks of longing, the horse which is
obedient to the charioteer, constrained as always by shame, holds itself back
from leaping on the loved one; while the other no longer takes notice of
goading or the whip from the charioteer, but springs powerfully forward, and
causing all kinds of trouble to his companion and the charioteer forces them to
move towards the beloved and mention to him the delights of sex. At the start
the two of them resist, indignant at being forced to do terrible and improper
things; but finally, when there is no limit to their plight, they follow its
lead, giving in and agreeing to do what it tells them. Now they come close to
the beloved and see the flashing of his face. As the charioteer sees it, his
memory is carried back to the nature of beauty, and again sees it standing
together with self-control on a holy pedestal; at the sight he becomes
frightened, and in sudden reverence falls on his back, and is forced at the
same time to pull back the reins so violently as to bring both horses down on
their haunches, the one willingly, because of its lack of resistance to him,
but the unruly horse much against his will’ (253c7-254c2, translation C.J. Rowe)
… Well then, if the better elements of their minds get the upper hand by
drawing them to a well-ordered life, and to philosophy, they pass their life here
in blessedness and harmony, masters of themselves and orderly in their
behaviour, having enslaved that part through which evil attempted to enter the
soul, and freed that part through which goodness enters it.’ (256a7-b3,
translation C.J. Rowe).
It is the lover’s transcendental memory, which, at the sight
of the beloved’s face ‘is carried back
to the nature of beauty, and again sees it standing together with self-control
on a holy pedestal’, is mediated to the soul of the beloved by his lover, that enables
them to pass their life in blessedness and harmony.
But
what does Socrates mean when he ads the words concerning Phaedrus, Lysias’
lover: ‘so that his lover here may no longer waver as he does now between the
two choices’? I believe that these words refer to the following passage: ‘But
if they turn to a life more ignoble and unphilosophic (aphilosophȏi),
yet covetous of honour, then mayhap in a careless hour, or when the wine is
flowing, the wanton horses in their two souls will catch them off their guard,
bring the pair together, and choosing that part which the multitude account
blissful achieve their full desire. And this once done, they continue therein, albeit
but rarely, seeing that their minds are not wholly set thereupon.’ (256b7-c7,
translation R, Hackforth).
***
In ‘The Phaedrus and Laws X – revised’ I wrote that from the end section of the Phaedrus
we may learn that before finishing it, Plato realised that concerning
Polemarchus he was badly mistaken. On second thought, I am not sure about it. True,
Polemarchus was the richest man in Athens, and the prayer with which Socrates closes
the dialogue, the words ‘And may I count the wise man as rich; and may my pile
of gold be of a size which only a man of moderate desires could bear or carry’,
are far from Polemarchus’ actual state. But what if instead of thus condemning
Polemarchus as a non-philosopher, Plato invites him to affirm his standing as a
philosopher? He can choose to join Socrates in his prayer, as Phaedrus has done
– ‘philosophers share their things with their friends’ (koina ta tȏn philȏn).
He may choose to share his property with friends, with the new aristocratic
elite, who ‘declared
that the city must be purged of unjust men and the rest of the citizens
inclined to virtue and justice’. This is
the choice he would make, if he saw the Forms, as he made Plato believe he did.
***
In
the first book of the Republic, Plato made it abundantly clear that Polemarchus
was no philosopher.
In
the opening scene Polemarchus exhibits somewhat dictatorial tendency. Socrates narrates
that he and Glaucon – Plato’s younger brother – were starting to town from
Piraeus, when Polemarchus sent his slave (ton paida) to run after them:
‘the boy caught hold of my himation from behind and said “Polemarchus wants you
to wait.” … And shortly after Polemarchus came up, and Adeimantus, the brother
of Glaucon, and Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and a few others … Whereupon
Polemarchus said, “Socrates, you appear to have turned your faces townward and
appear to be going to leave us.” “Not a bad guess,” said I. “But you see how
many we are?” he said. “You must either then prove yourselves to be better men
or stay here”.’
Paul
Shorey, the translator, remarks: ‘Cf. the playful threat in Phaedrus
236c.’ In the Phaedrus, Socrates is reluctant to produce a rival speech to
Lysias’ Eroticus, with which his breast is full (235c5), and at 236c6-d3 Phaedrus
threatens him: ‘We are by ourselves in a lonely place, and I am stronger and
younger than you: for all which reasons “mistake not thou my bidding” and
please don’t make me use force to open your lips.’ (“mistake not thou my
bidding” is a quotation from Pindar, fragment 94, as Bowra noticed. Socrates quoted
Pindar in the opening scene of the Phaedrus. When Phaedrus tells him
that he will hear how he and Lysias entertained themselves ‘if you can spare
time to come along with me and listen’, Socrates replies: ‘Don’t you realise
that I should account it, in Pindar’s words, “above all business” to hear how you
and Lysias passed your time?’)
When
Adeimantus – Plato’s older brother – interposes to tell them about the torchlight
race that takes place in the evening, Socrates and Glaucon accept Polemarchus’
invitation for dinner.
Socrates
narrates (the Republic in its totality is narrated by Socrates): ‘So we
went with them to Polemarchus’ house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus,
the brothers of Polemarchus, yes, and Thrasymachus, too, of Chalcedon, and Charmantides
of the deme of Paeania, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. And the father
of Polemarchus, was also at home. And I thought him much aged, for it was a
long time since I had seen him.’
With
Cephalus we must begin. ‘As soon as he saw me Cephalus greeted me and said,
“You are not a frequent visitor, Socrates … That is not right. For if I were
still able to make the journey up to town easily there would be no need of your
resorting hither, but we would go to visit you … For I would you know that, for
my part, as the satisfactions of the body decay, in the same measure my desire
for the pleasures of good talk and my delight in them increase.’ Socrates
replied that he enjoys talking with the very aged, and that he would like to hear
from him, whether he considers the old age ‘a hard part of life’. Cephalus
gives a long answer (329a1-d6), which he summarises at the end of his speech:
‘If men are temperate and cheerful even old age is moderately burdensome (329d4-5).’
Socrates:
‘I fancy, Cephalus, that most people, when they hear you talk in this way, are
not convinced but think that you bear old age lightly not because of your
character but because of your wealth.’ (329e1-4)
Cephalus
agrees: ‘You are right. They don’t accept my view and there is something in
their objection, though not so much as they suppose (329e6-7).’
Socrates
asks: ‘What do you regard as the greatest benefit you have enjoyed from the
possession of property?’ Cephalus replies: ‘When a man begins to realize that
he is going to die, he is filled with apprehensions and concern about matters
that before did not occur to him (330d5-7).’ After elaborating more on this
theme, Cephalus comes to the point: ‘On him who is conscious of no wrong that
he has done a sweet hope ever attends and a goodly, to be nurse of his old age,
as Pindar too says (331a1-3) … Not to cheat any man even unintentionally or
play him false, not remaining in debt to a god for some sacrifice or to a man
for money, so to depart in fear to the other world – to this result the
possession of property contributes not a little (331b1-5)’
Socrates:
‘An admirable sentiment. But speaking of this very sentiment, justice … is
truth-telling and paying back what anyone has received from anyone simply just,
or sometimes just, sometimes unjust? … for example, if one took over weapons
from a friend who was in his right mind and then the lender should go mad and
demand them back, we ought not return them and he who did so return them would
not be acting justly – nor yet would he who chose to speak nothing but the truth
to one who was in that state.’ Cephalus: ‘You are right.’
Socrates:
‘Then this is not the definition of justice: to tell the truth and return what
one has received. “Nay, but it is, Socrates,” said Polemarchus breaking in, “if
indeed we are to put any faith in Simonides.” “Very well,” said Cephalus,
“indeed I make over the whole argument to you. For it is time for me to attend
the sacrifices.” Well,” said I, “is not Polemarchus the heir of everything that
is yours?” “Certainly,” said he with a laugh, and at the same time went out to
the sacred rights.’ (331c1-d9)
[As
it appears, Shorey in his translation gives the words “is not Polemarchus the
heir of everything that is yours?” into the mouth of Socrates, thus accepting,
without any explanation, the version of the text indicated in the textual
apparatus of the Burnet’s Oxford edition as scr. Ven. 184, explained in
SIGLA: = lectiones codicis a Ioanne Rhoso in Bessarionis usum exarati “readings
excerpt from the codex [Venetus] by Ioannus Rhosus for Bessarion”. I
went to Jowett, presuming that he in his translation would give me the version preserved
by the codices. I was wrong. Shorey appears to have elaborated on Jowett’s ‘“Is
not Polemarchus your heir?” I said.’ Since I have no other translation, let me translate
the text as it stands in the codices ADM: Oukoun, ephȇ, egȏ, ho Polemarchos,
tȏn ge sȏn klȇronomos; “Well,” said Polemarchus, “am I not the heir of
everything that is yours?”]
In
either case, Polemarchus as the heir of Cephalus should be seen in the light of
Cephalus’ claim that he is only a moderate moneymaker, which in its turn should
be seen against the background of Lysias’ information concerning the Thirty: ‘They had seven hundred shields of
ours, they had all that silver and gold, with copper, jewellery, furniture and
women’s apparel beyond what they had ever expected to get’.
***
Socrates’
discussion with Cephalus ended with Socrates’ remark that telling the truth and
returning what one has received is not the definition of justice. “Nay, but it
is, Socrates,” said Polemarchus breaking in, “if indeed we are to put any faith
in Simonides.”
Polemarchus:
‘That it is just to render each his due.’
Socrates:
‘I must admit that it is not easy to disbelief Simonides. For he is a wise and
inspired man. But just what he may mean by this you, Polemarchus, doubtless
know, but I do not. Obviously he does not mean what we were just speaking of,
this return of a deposit to anyone whatsoever even if he asks it back when not
in his right mind.’ (331e1-8)
Shorey
notes: ‘Owing to the rarity of banks reddere depositum “to return a
deposit” was throughout antiquity the typical instance of just conduct.’
Polemarchus
says that, according to Simonides, ‘friends owe it to friends to do them some
good and no evil.’ This means, Socrates suggests, that a friend would not “render
his due” to a friend, if he returned to him a deposit of gold, if it were to
harm him. Polemarchus agrees. Socrates: ‘Should one not render to enemies what
is their due?’ Polemarchus: ‘By all means, what is due and owing and proper to
them, some evil.’
At
this point Socrates directs his next question to Simonides: ‘Tell me,
Simonides, the art that renders what that is due and befitting to what is
called the art of medicine (technȇ iatrikȇ?’ Then he asks Polemarchus: ‘What
do you think would be his answer?’
Polemarchus:
‘Obviously, the art that renders to bodies drugs, food and drinks.’ (332a9-c10)
Socrates
asks a similar question concerning the culinary art, gets Polemarchus’ appropriate
answer, and then he asks: ‘The art that renders what to whom would be called
justice?
Polemarchus:
‘If we are to follow the previous examples, it is that which renders benefits
and harms to friends and enemies.’
Socrates:
‘To do good to friends and evil to enemies, then, is justice in his meaning?’
Polemarchus: ‘I think so.’ Socrates: ‘Who then is the most able when they are
ill to benefit friends and harm enemies in respect to disease and health?’
Polemarchus: ‘The physician.’ (332d2-12)
With
his merciless questioning, Socrates leads Polemarchus to the point at which he
won’t accept the argument.
Socrates:
‘So justice, according to you and Homer and Simonides, seems to be a kind of
steeling, with the qualification that it is for the benefit of friends and the
harm of enemies. Isn’t that what you meant?’ Polemarchus: ‘No, by Zeus, I no
longer know what I did mean.’
With
the words ‘Isn’t that what you meant?’ Shorey translates Socrates’: ouch
houtȏs eleges; which simply say ‘haven’t you said it thus?’, and with the
words ‘I no longer know what I did mean’ he translates Polemarchus’ words ouketi
oida egȏge hoti elegon which simply say ‘I do not know what I said’. In a
different context these words are correctly translated as Shorey translates
them, but not here, for Polemarchus goes on to say: ‘Yet this I still believe,
that justice benefit friends and harms enemies’. This is what Polemarchus meant
and kept meaning throughout Socrates’ questioning.
Jowett
translates correctly. Socrates: ‘And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed
that justice is an art of theft; to be practiced however “for the good of
friends and for the harm of enemies” – that was what you were saying?’
Polemarchus: ‘No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say;
but I still stand by the latter words’; Polemarchus still believes that justice
is “for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies”. This belief of
Polemarchus will Socrates put into focus.
But
before we go to this closing and most important part of their discussion, let
me bring in, in Shorey’s translation, some telling bits of the discussion that
lead to Homer’ inclusion.
Socrates:
‘In what action and for what work is the just man the most competent to benefit
friends and harm enemies?
Polemarchus:
‘In making war and as an ally.’
Socrates:
‘For those who are not at war the just man is useless?’
Polemarchus:
‘By no means.’ Socrates: ‘There is a use then even in peace for justice?’
Polemarchus: ‘Yes, it is useful.’ Socrates: ‘Tell me, for what is justice
useful in time of peace?’ Polemarchus: ‘For money dealings.’ Socrates: ‘Except
when there is occasion to buy or sell a horse. Then the best partner is the man
who knows horses, isn’t it so?’
Socrates:
‘What then is the use of money in common for which a just man is the better
partner?’ Polemarchus: ‘When it is to be deposited and kept safe.’ Socrates:
‘You mean when it is to be put to no use but is to lie idle?’ Polemarchus:
‘Quite so,’ Socrates: ‘Then it is when money is useless that justice is useful
in relation to it?’ Polemarchus: ‘It looks that way.’ Socrates: ‘And so in all
other cases, in the use of each thing, justice is useless but in its
uselessness useful?’ Polemarchus: ‘It looks that way.’
Socrates:
‘Is not the man who is most skilful to strike or inflict a blow in a fight,
whether as a boxer or elsewhere, also the most wary to guard against the blow?’
Polemarchus: ‘Assuredly.’ Socrates: ‘The very same man is a good guardian of an
army who is good at steeling a march upon the enemy in respect of their designs
and proceedings generally.’ Polemarchus: ‘Certainly.’ Socrates: ‘Of whatever,
then, anyone is a skilful guardian, of that he is also a skilful thief?’
Polemarchus: ‘It seems so.’ Socrates: ‘If then the just man is an expert in
guarding money he is an expert in stealing it.’ Polemarchus: ‘The argument
certainly points that way.’ Socrates: ‘A kind of thief then the just man it
seems has turned out to be, and it is likely that you acquired this idea from
Homer. For he regards with complacency Autolycus, the maternal uncle of
Odysseus, and says he was gifted beyond others in thievery and perjury.’
Shorey’s
‘he regards with complacency’ stands for Socrates’ agapai, which means
‘greets with affection’, ‘loves’, as distant from phileȏ, it implies
regard rather than affection, but the two are interchanged (Cf. Xenophon Memorabilia
2.7.9). (A Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott)
Socrates
continues: ‘So justice, according to you and Homer and Simonides, seems to be a
kind of steeling, with the qualification that it is for the benefit of friends
and the harm of enemies.’
At
this point Polemarchus can’t agree with the argument, doesn’t know what he
was saying, but he still believes that ‘justice benefits friends and harms
enemies.’
Socrates:
‘By friends you mean those who seem to a man to be worthy or those who really
are so, even if they do not seem, and similarly of enemies?’ Polemarchus: ‘It
is likely that men will love those whom they suppose to be good and dislike
those whom they deem bad.’ Socrates: ‘Do not men make mistakes in this matter
so that many seem good to them who are not and the reverse?’ Polemarchus: ‘They
do.’
Socrates:
‘For those, then, who thus err the good are their enemies and the bad their
friends?’ Polemarchus: ‘Certainly.’ Socrates: ‘But all the same it is then just
for them to benefit the bad and injure the good?’ Polemarchus: ‘It would seem
so.’ Socrates: ‘But again the good are just and incapable of injustice?’
Polemarchus: ‘True.’ Socrates: ‘On your reasoning then it is just to wrong
those who do no injustice.’ Polemarchus: ‘Nay, nay, Socrates, the reasoning
can’t be right.’
Socrates:
‘Then it is just to harm the unjust and benefit the just.’ Polemarchus: ‘That
seems a better conclusion than the other.’ Socrates: ‘It will work out, then,
for many, Polemarchus, who have misjudged men that it is just to harm their
friends, for they have got bad ones, and to benefit their enemies, for they are
good. Ad so we shall find ourselves saying the very opposite of what we
affirmed Simonides to mean.’ Polemarchus: ‘Most certainly, it does work out so.
But let us change our ground; for it looks as if we were wrong in the notion we
took up about the friend and enemy.’
Socrates:
‘What notion?’ Polemarchus: ‘That the man who seems to us good is the friend.’
Socrates: ‘And to what shall we change it now?’ Polemarchus: ‘That the man who
both seems and is good is the friend, but that he who seems but is not really
so seems but is not really the friend. And there will be the same assumption
about the enemy.’ Socrates: ‘Then on this view it appears the friend will be
the good man and the bad the enemy.’ Polemarchus: ‘Yes.’ Socrates: ‘So you
would have us qualify our former notion of the just man by an addition. We then
said it was just to do good to a friend and evil to an enemy, but now we are to
add that it is just to benefit the friend if he is good and harm the enemy if
he is bad?’ Polemarchus: ‘By all means, that, I think, would be the right way
to put it.’
Socrates:
‘Is it then the part of a good man to harm anybody whatsoever?’ Polemarchus: ‘Certainly
it is; a man ought to harm those who are both bad and his enemies.’ Socrates: ‘When
horses are harmed does it make them better or worse?’ Polemarchus: ‘Worse.’ ‘In
respect of the excellence or virtue of dogs or that of horses?’ Polemarchus: ‘Of
horses.’ Socrates: ‘And do not also dogs when harmed become worse in respect of
canine and not of equine virtue?’ Polemarchus: ‘Necessarily.’
Socrates:
‘And men, my dear fellow (ȏ hetaire “my fellow”), must we not say that when
they are harmed it is in respect of the distinctive excellence or virtue of man
that they become worse?’ Polemarchus: ‘Assuredly.’
Socrates:
‘And is not justice the specific virtue of man?’ Polemarchus: ‘That too must be
granted.’ Socrates: ‘Then it must also be admitted, my friend, that men who are
harmed become more unjust.’ Polemarchus: ‘It seems so.’
Socrates:
‘Do musicians then make men unmusical by the art of music?’ Polemarchus: ‘Impossible.’
Socrates: ‘Well do horsemen by horsemanship unfit men for dealing with horses?’
Polemarchus: ‘No.’ Socrates: ‘By justice then do the just make men unjust, or
in sum do the good by virtue make men bad?’ Polemarchus: ‘Nay, it is
impossible.’
Socrates:
‘It is not, I take it, the function of heat to chill but its opposite.’
Polemarchus: ‘Yes.’ Socrates: ‘Nor of dryness to moisten but of its opposite.’
Polemarchus: ‘Assuredly.’ Socrates: ‘Nor yet of the good to harm but of its
opposite.’ Polemarchus: ‘So it appears.’ Socrates: ‘But the just man is good?’
Polemarchus: ‘Certainly.’ Socrates: ‘It is not then the function of the just man,
Polemarchus, to harm either friend or anyone else, but of his opposite, the
unjust.’ Polemarchus: ‘I think you are altogether right, Socrates.’
Socrates:
‘If, then, anyone affirms that it is just to render to each his due and he
means by this, that injury and harm is what is due to his enemies
from the just man and benefits to his friends, he was not truly wise man
who said it. For what he meant was not true. For it has been made clear to us
that in no case is it just to harm anyone.’ Polemarchus: ‘I concede it.’
Socrates: ‘We will take up arms against him, then, you and I together, if
anyone affirms that Simonides or Bias or Pittacus or any other of the wise and
blessed said such a thing.’ Polemarchus: ‘I, for my part, am ready to join the
battle with you.’
Socrates’
words ‘injury and harm is what is due to his enemies from the just man and benefits
to his friends’ may remind an attentive reader of Lysias’ Against
Eratosthenes: ‘I propose to put Eratosthenes on the daïs and question him,
gentlemen of the jury. For my feeling is this: even to discuss this man with
another for his profit I consider to be impiety, but even to address
this man himself, when it is for his hurt, I regard as holy and pious
action (24).’
Plato’s
reference to Lysias’ speech against Eratosthenes becomes evident when we look
at the Greek. Socrates’ tois de philois ȏpheleian (‘benefits
to one’s friends’) recalls Lysias’ epi toutou ȏpheleiai (‘for his
profit), Socrates’ echthrois blabȇn opheilesthai (‘injury and
harm is due to one’s enemies) recalls Lysias’ epi de toutou blabȇi
(for his hurt).
Plato’s
reference to Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes is reemphasised in Socrates’ and
Polemarchus’ last exchange.
Socrates:
‘Do you know to whom I think the saying belongs – this statement that it is
just to benefit friends (dikaion einai tous de philous ȏphelein)
and harm enemies (tous d’ echthrous blaptein)?’ Polemarchus: ‘To
whom?’ Socrates: ‘I think it was the saying of Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes
or Ismenias the Theban or some other rich man who had great power in his own
conceit (mega oiomenou dunasthai).’ Polemarchus: ‘That is most true.’
Polemarchus
closes the discussion with his ‘That is most true’, as if Socrates’ ‘or some
other rich man who had great power in his own conceit’ had nothing to do with
him. The contemporary reader thought otherwise, thus reminded of Lysias’ ‘They had seven hundred shields of
ours, they had all that silver and gold, with copper, jewellery, furniture and
women’s apparel beyond what they had ever expected to get; also a hundred and
twenty slaves, of whom they took the ablest, delivering the rest to the
Treasury.’
With
the words ‘That is most true.’ (Alȇthestata legeis) ends Polemarchus’
participation in the discussion; he is excluded from the discussion that
follows in the first book, and in the following nine books the Republic.
Republic 396c5-e2 sheds light on this exclusion:
Socrates:
‘A man of the right sort, I think, when he comes in the course of his narrative
to some word or act of a good man will be willing to impersonate (hȏs
autos ȏn) the other in reporting it, and will feel no shame at that kind of
mimicry, by preference imitating the good man when he acts steadfastly and
sensibly, and less and more reluctantly when he is upset by sickness or love or
drunkenness or any other mishap. But when he comes to someone unworthy of
himself, he will not wish to liken himself in earnest to someone who is
inferior, except in the few cases where he is doing something good, but will be
embarrassed both because he is unpractised in the mimicry of such characters,
and also because he shrinks in distaste from moulding and fitting himself to
the types of baser things. His mind disdains them, unless it be for jest.’
Polemarchus
briefly reappears at the beginning of book five, but he does so in conformity
with book III, 396c5-e2.
Socrates:
‘To such a city [described in books two to four], then, or constitution I apply
the word good and right – and to the corresponding kind of man; but the others
I describe as bad, and I was going on to enumerate them, when Polemarchus – he sat
at some little distance from Adeimantus – stretched forth his hand, and, taking
hold of his garment from above by the shoulder, drew him toward him, and
leaning forward himself, spoke a few words in his ear, of which we overheard
nothing else save only this, “Shall we let him off (Aphȇsomen “Shall we
let off”), then,” he said, “or what shall we do?” “By no means,” said
Adeimantus, now raising his voice. “What, pray,” said I, “is it that you are
not letting off?” “You,” said he. “And for what special reason, pray?” said I. “We
think you are a slacker (Aporraithumein hȇmin dokeis),” he said, “and
are trying to cheat us of a whole division, and that not the least, of the
argument to avoid the trouble of expounding it and expect to get away with it by
observing thus lightly that, of course, in respect to women and children it is
obvious to everybody that the possessions of friends will be in common (dȇlon
hoti koina ta philȏn estai).” (Cf. Republic IV, 423e3-424a2)
Polemarchus
is mentioned once again, by Glaucon, in the opening session of book VIII, in
reference to the beginning of book five: ‘And when I was asking what were the
four [bad and mistaken] constitutions you had in mind, Polemarchus and Adeimantus
thereupon broke in, and that was how you took up the discussion again and
brought it to this point.’ (544a8-b3)
