Republic (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (2 page)

Plato’s
Republic
has long been recognized as a timeless philosophical masterpiece. Its timelessness results from many factors: its artful composition, its vivid characterizations, its thematic sophistication, and—perhaps most important—the breadth of its interests. As it seeks a definition of “justice” and inquires into the relationship between “right behavior” and “happiness,” the work delves into basic questions of ethics and psychology. In the course of this inquiry, it offers up a striking blueprint for an ideal city-state and thus makes a significant contribution to political philosophy. While making the case for the rule of “philosopher-kings,” it presents influential arguments concerning the very nature of reality and the means by which we human beings might apprehend what is real and distinguish it from what we see and experience in the world around us; with compelling logic and arresting images, it encourages our interest in the fields of metaphysics and epistemology.

It also explores the psychological and social impact of popular forms of cultural discourse and, as part of its delineation of the ideal state, makes a strong—and controversial—case for the censorship of the arts and the tight control of entertainments. Lastly, it paints an awe-inspiring picture of what happens to the soul after the body’s death.

Plato himself was well aware of the fundamental importance of the subjects in his dialogue. He has its interlocutors assert more than once that their conversation, whatever its shortcomings, deals with the most significant issues that human beings can discuss. Yet, timeless as
Republic’s
concerns are, it is nonetheless the product of a particular era and a particular place. The era is the fourth century B.C.E., and the place is the city-state (polis) of Athens, where Plato was born (most likely in 428 or 427 B.C.E.) and lived most of his life, and also where he founded his philosophical school, the Academy. To appreciate the scope and contours of the far-ranging conversation represented in
Republic,
it helps to know something about the city in which Plato lived and the cultural milieu in which he composed his dialogues.

Until 338 B.C.E. (about ten years after Plato’s death), Athens was an independent city-state, as were the other major cities of Greece (or Hellas, as it was known in antiquity), such as Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos. For centuries, each community issued its own currency, used its own calendar, and developed its own system of government and social institutions. Territorial disputes and similar grievances frequently caused wars between city-states and their neighbors; the history of such wars and alliances is long and complicated. Yet, despite their differences, Greeks (Hellenes) throughout the Mediterranean were united by a common language and culture and system of religious beliefs and practices that, they felt, made them distinct from other peoples, whom they commonly called “barbarians.”

Athens resembled other Greek city-states in that it had a predominantly agricultural economy. As in most communities in the ancient world, the work force in Athens and its surrounding territory (Attica) consisted largely of slaves who were either prisoners of war, captives bought from pirates, or their descendants. Political enfranchisement in Athens, as in all other Greek city-states, was limited to sons of enfranchised men. Participation in the government and legal system was completely closed to women. It was virtually impossible for foreigners to become naturalized citizens of Athens, although resident aliens, who were called
metics
and were almost always from other Greek city-states, were liable for military service and were generally expected to contribute, financially and otherwise, to the community. Women (that is, the wives, daughters, and sisters of citizens) and slaves, both male and female, lived totally under the control of the male head of the household.

Moreover, many of the public institutions that we take for granted, such as hospitals and law enforcement agencies, did not exist in the ancient world generally or in Athens particularly. The cultivation of homoerotic attachments between men (as “lovers,” or
erastai)
and youths (as “beloveds,” or
erômenoi)
in the upper echelons of Athenian society—an important backdrop to several Platonic dialogues (notably
Symposium
and
Phaedrus
)—further indicates the cultural differences between Athens and contemporary Western civilizations.

Athens differed from other Hellenic city-states in certain important social and political institutions. Unique policies implemented in the sixth century B.C.E. had far-reaching consequences for the development of the city’s famous democratic form of government. Unlike in many Greek communities, the rules determining citizenship in Athens did not require a free-born native man to own land in order to be considered a citizen with some political rights. All citizens, no matter how modest their means, were eligible to attend meetings of the Assembly and scrutinize the performance of magistrates.

In 508 B.C.E., after a difficult period in the late sixth century when men who held power illegitimately (the “tyrant” Peisistratus and his sons Hippias and Hipparchus) controlled Athens, the democratic government was officially established. Its constitution was liberalized during the fifth century so that opportunities to participate directly in the political system were gradually made available to larger numbers of men. Citizens were still divided, as they were in the early sixth century, into four economic classes determined by the amount of property they owned, and they were also divided into ten “tribes.”

Every year men from the highest economic classes were chosen as magistrates, some by lot and some by election. The ten elected magistrates (called
strategoi,
or “generals”) exercised authority in military as well as civic matters and assumed the political leadership of the polis; most of Athens’ famous statesmen—Pericles, Themistocles, Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon, Cleon, and Alcibiades—were
strategoi.
The Assembly retained the power to hear debates and vote on all domestic and foreign policies, and it scrutinized magistrates at the end of their terms in office. In addition, fifty men were chosen from each tribe every year by lot to form the Council of 500, the body that prepared business for the Assembly and in essence ran the government on a daily basis.

The average Athenian citizen, especially in the later years of the fifth century, could also exercise political power through the system of courts that tried cases ranging from murder to treason to private suits. These courts always had large juries (a minimum of 250 men, again chosen by lot), and all citizens were eligible for service. Jury duty became especially attractive to many poorer citizens after payment for such service was instituted. Since prominent men were often embroiled in legal disputes, sitting in the courts became an effective way for average people to influence the fortunes of the powerful.

As its democracy developed in the fifth century, Athens was also becoming powerful and cosmopolitan. Indeed, the development of its democracy was inextricably linked to the growth of its military influence in the Aegean Sea. This brought great wealth to the city and empowered its lower economic classes, since they furnished the majority of rowers and soldiers on warships.

Success in the Persian Wars (at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.E. and the battle of Salamis in 480) put Athens at the head of the Delian League, an alliance of Greek city-states that was formed to further weaken the influence of the Persians in the Mediterranean. The Athenians, however, gradually monopolized power in the League and used it to advance their own commercial and strategic interests. In the 460s, to protect the maritime trade routes vital to the growing city, Athens began to treat allies on the islands and coasts of the Aegean Sea as if they were subjects, not partners, and interfered in their affairs.

In 454, the League’s treasury was transferred from the island of Delos to Athens, and allies were subsequently required to bring tribute directly to the city. In the 440s, the Athenians, led by Pericles, began using this treasury to finance buildings and extensive public works, including the Parthenon and other edifices on the Athenian Acropolis that are still standing today.

Other leading city-states in Greece, particularly Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, became alarmed by the development of the Athenian “empire” in the Aegean Sea. Throughout the mid-fifth century, the Athenians clashed with those who opposed their maritime hegemony. In 431, the Spartans and their allies from the Peloponnese (the southern portion of Greece, then dominated by Sparta) declared war on Athens to end its control over the island city-states and coastal areas in northern Greece and Asia Minor. In the series of wars that came to be known as the Peloponnesian War, both sides gained and lost ground over several years, until the defeat of Athens in 404. As a consequence of its defeat by the Peloponnesian alliance, Athens permanently lost its exclusive influence over the Aegean islands. It had to contend for power with other city-states, particularly Thebes and Corinth, throughout the fourth century. Nonetheless, Athens remained the preeminent cultural center of Greece, and when Plato founded his Academy in the 380s, he was able to attract students from all over the Aegean area.

Democracy in Athens also survived the Peloponnesian War, but not without serious challenges. Most Athenians doubtless looked on the wealth and power of their city-state as great assets and saw themselves as the liberators and protectors, and not the oppressors, of their allies. They were also proud of their city’s culture, especially of the freedom of speech and opportunities for political involvement that their constitution notionally afforded to every citizen. Even so, a small but significant percentage of men from Athens’ wealthy aristocratic families considered themselves wrongly dispossessed of political power that, in their view, ought to have been their exclusive prerogative. They felt the democratic constitution left them vulnerable to exploitation and extortion, especially in the courts, where informers (“sycophants”) seeking to get rich constantly threatened to bring them to trial. They also resented the prominence of politicians such as Cleon, who did not use the established “old boy” network of connections and appealed directly to the
demos,
or common people, for his power.

Wealthy Athenians also tended to disagree with the aggressive military policies that the democratic government pursued, especially the disastrous Sicilian expedition of 415-413 B.C.E., in which a good part of the Athenian navy was destroyed. While many disaffected aristocrats sought to withdraw as much as possible and live quiet lives of “noninvolvement”
(apragmosyne),
the conflict between oligarchic and populist ideologies caused increasing friction as the Peloponnesian War continued, and the disaster in Sicily galvanized some malcontents and set the stage for radical action. In 411 a short-lived oligarchic coup suspended the constitution and dissolved the Council of 500 and the Assembly. Resistance by loyalists led to the relatively quick and bloodless restoration of both institutions in 410.

After the Athenians surrendered to the Peloponnesian alliance in 404, the Spartans helped the surviving leaders of the coup of 411 overthrow the democracy once again and install another oligarchic government. This new regime suspended the constitution once again, dissolved democratic political institutions, and severely limited political franchise. It also gained renown for its brutality, and, like the government that came into power in 411, lasted only a year. Many men loyal to the democratic constitution took refuge in the port city of Piraeus, which was only a few miles from Athens and a populist stronghold. After a series of battles with supporters of the coup, the loyalists restored democracy to Athens in 403.

To reduce lingering factional strife between loyal “democrats” and those who had supported the second coup, a general amnesty was declared in 403. Only those deemed directly involved with the Thirty Tyrants, as the leaders of the coup of 404 came to be called, were liable for prosecution. Tensions and suspicions remained elevated for many years afterward, however. Although there were no further coup attempts in the fourth century, Athenian democracy continued to generate and, to its credit, tolerate critics. Among these critics, Plato is often counted as the most forceful and articulate.

Athenians were fully invested in the established traditions of Hellenic culture. Religion, and therefore religious rituals and celebrations, were central to this culture. Like other Greeks, the Athenians believed in an array of divinities, from the Olympian gods and goddesses who had Zeus as their king, to the chthonic powers of the underworld, such as the Furies, to local deities, such as river gods. They also deified phenomena that we would consider abstractions, such as Justice, Persuasion, Fear, Madness, and Necessity. The sustained welfare of the community was thought to reside in divine favor, which could be withdrawn if the gods were slighted in any way. Accordingly, every resident was expected to participate in rituals and celebrations in honor of the gods.

In addition to the festivals of individual city-states, Greeks also participated in major biennial and quadrennial religious festivals, such as those at Delphi (the oracular shrine of Apollo) and Olympia (the shrine of Zeus). Even in times of war, men from all over the Hellenic world attended these festivals and competed in their well-known athletic contests. Mystery cults whose members worshiped particular deities—such as the cults devoted to the grain-goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone at Eleusis in Attica—required their participants to undertake special rites of initiation and keep cultic rituals secret from non-initiates.

The Greeks envisioned the principal Olympian gods and goddesses as members of an extended family who were virtually omnipotent and, although capable of disguise, looked like human beings and were frequently influenced by jealousy and other strong passions. Overall, the gods were thought of as guarantors of justice, rewarding those who uphold laws and customs and punishing those who transgress. But they were also considered capable of adversely affecting human lives in what might strike us as capricious, cruel, and unfair ways. This ambivalent understanding of divine behavior is reflected in Greek poetry and literature, beginning with the Homeric epics
(Iliad
and
Odyssey).
In these, deities interfere freely in human affairs and regularly assist their favorite mortal men and women while wreaking havoc upon their “enemies” and competing with their fellow deities.