BOOK V.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Plato and Benjamin Jowett
That may be assumed.
And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones?
True.
And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers?
Very properly.
Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them?
True.
Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape.
E What do you mean? he said.
I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is 468hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. 164
I believe that you are right, he said.
The coward is to be degraded into a lower rank. Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think?
By all means, I should say.
And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him.
B Certainly.
The hero to receive honour from his comrades and favour from his beloved, But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say?
I approve.
And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship?
To that too, I agree.
But you will hardly agree to my next proposal.
What is your proposal?
That he should kiss and be kissed by them.
Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: CLet no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour.
Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible?
Agreed.
and to have precedence, and a larger share of meats and drinks; Again, there is another manner in which, according to DHomer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax7, after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing. 165
Most true, he said.
Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with
E ‘seats of precedence, and meats and full cups8;’
and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them.
That, he replied, is excellent.
Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race?
To be sure.
also to be worshipped after death. Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead
469 ‘They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men’?9
Yes; and we accept his authority.
We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do as he bids?
Source notes
7 Iliad, vii. 321.
8 Iliad, viii. 161.
9 Probably Works and Days, 121 foll.