The Republic of Plato

Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on Bthose who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers.

I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of C which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep—the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of. 161

The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive Erewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial.

Answer to the charge of Adeimantus that we made our citizens unhappy for their own good. Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous 466discussion6 some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy—they had nothing and might have possessed all things—to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole?

Their life not to be compared with that of citizens in ordinary States. And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic Bvictors—is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it?

He who seeks to be more than a guardian is naught. At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head Cshall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he 162 will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, ‘half is more than the whole.’

The common way of life includes common education, common children, common services and duties of men and women. You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described—common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt Dtogether like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes.

The children to accompany their parents on military expeditions; Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan’s child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up; 467and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters’ boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel?