The Republic of Plato

Money, needed in the state, 2. 371 B [cp. Laws 11. 918]; not necessary in order to carry on war, 4. 423; —love of, among the Egyptians and Phoenicians, ib. 435 E; characteristic of timocracy and oligarchy, 8. 548 A, 553, 562 A; referred to the appetitive element of the soul, 9. 580 E; despicable, ib. 589 E, 590 C (cp. 3. 390 E).

Music, to be taught before gymnastic, 2. 376 E (cp. 3. 403 C); includes literature (λόγοι), 2. 376 E; —in education, ib. 377 foll.; 3. 398 foll.; 7. 522 A (see Poetry, Poets, and cp. Protag. 326; Laws 2. 654, 660); complexity in, to be rejected, 3. 397 [cp. Laws 7. 812]; the severe and the vulgar kind, ibid. [cp. Laws 7. 802]; the end of, the love of beauty, ib. 403 C; like gymnastic, should be studied throughout life, ibid.; the simpler kinds of, foster temperance in the soul, ib. 404 A, 410 A; effect of excessive, ib. 410, 411; ancient forms of, not to be altered, 4. 424 [cp. Laws 2. 657; 7. 799, 801]; must be taught to women, 5. 452.

Music. [Music to the ancients had a far wider significance than to us. It was opposed to gymnastic as ‘mental’ to ‘bodily’ training, and included equally reading and writing, mathematics, harmony, poetry, and music strictly speaking: drawing, as Aristotle tells us (Pol. viii. 3, § 1), was sometimes made a separate division.

I. Music (in this wider sense), Plato says, should precede gymnastic; and, according to a remarkable passage in the Protagoras (325 C), the pupils in a Greek school were actually instructed in reading and writing, made to learn poetry by heart, and taught to play on the lyre, before they went to the gymnasium. The ages at which children should commence these various studies are not stated in the Republic; but in the VIIth Book of the Laws, where the subject is treated more in detail, the children begin going to school at ten, and spend three years in learning to read and write, and another three years in music (Laws 7. 810). This agrees very fairly with the selection of the 363 most promising youth at the age of twenty (Rep. 7. 537), as it would allow a corresponding period of three years for gymnastic training.

II. Music, strictly so called, plays a great part in Plato’s scheme of education. He hopes by its aid to make the lives of his youthful scholars harmonious and gracious, and to implant in their souls true conceptions of good and evil. Music is a gift of the Gods to men, and was never intended, ‘as the many foolishly and blasphemously suppose,’ merely to give us an idle pleasure (Tim. 47 E; Laws 2. 654, 658 E; 7. 802 D). Neither should a freeman aim at attaining perfect execution [cp. Arist. Pol. viii. 6, §§ 7, 15]: in the Laws (7. 810) we are told that every one must go through the three years course of music, ‘neither more nor less, whether he like or whether he dislike the study.’ Both instruments and music are to be of a simple character: in the Republic only the lyre, the pipe, and the flute are tolerated, and the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies. No change in the fashions of music is permitted; for where there is licence in music there will be anarchy in the state. In this desire for simplicity and fixity in music Plato was probably opposed to the tendencies of his own age. The severe harmony which had once characterized Hellenic art was passing out of favour: alike in architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, and music, richer and more ornate styles prevailed. We regard the change as inevitable, and not perhaps wholly to be regretted: to Plato it was a cause rather than a sign of the decline of Hellas.]