Reminder: The intention of such word exercises is to give you the opportunity to think through how Plato is using an important term within the dialogue. We will give you our take later this month.
Barbaros (barbarians)
423a9 There are two, in any case, warring with each other, one of the poor, the other of the rich. And within each of these there are very many. If you approach them as though they were one, you’ll be a complete failure; but if you approach them as though they were many, offering to the ones the money and the powers or the very persons of the others, you’ll always have the use of many allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is moderately governed in the way it was just arranged, it will be biggest; I do not mean in the sense of good reputation but truly biggest, even if it should be made up of only one thousand defenders. You’ll not easily find one city so big as this, either among the Greeks or the barbarians, although many seem to be many times its size.
452c8 “But since we’ve begun to speak, we must make our way to the rough part of the law, begging these men, not to mind their own business, 10 but to be serious; and reminding them that it is not so long ago that it seemed shameful and ridiculous to the Greeks — as it does now to the many among the barbarians — to see men naked; and that when the Cretans originated the gymnasiums, and then the Lacedaemonians, it was possible for the urbane of the time to make a comedy of all that.”
469c1; 469c7 “First, as to enslavement: which seems just, that Greek cities enslave Greeks; ;; or that they, insofar as possible, not even allow another city to do it but make it a habit to spare the Greek stock, well aware of the danger of enslavement at the hands of the barbarians?”
“Sparing them,” he said, “is wholly and entirely superior.”
“And, therefore, that they not themselves possess a Greek as slave, and give the same advice to the other Greeks?”
“Most certainly,” he said. “At any rate in that way they would be more inclined to turn to the barbarians and keep off one another.”
470c3; 470c5; 470c5 I assert that the Greek stock is with respect to itself its own and akin, with respect to the barbaric, foreign and alien.”
“Yes,” he said, “that is fine.”
“Then when Greeks fight with barbarians and barbarians with Greeks, we’ll assert they are at war and are enemies by nature, and this hatred must be called war; while when Greeks do any such thing to Greeks, we’ll say that they are by nature friends, but in this case Greece is sick and factious, and this kind of hatred must be called faction.”
“I, for one,” he said, “agree to consider it in that way.”
471b7 “Therefore, as Greeks, they won’t ravage Greece or burn houses, nor will they agree that in any city all are their enemies — men, women, and children — but that there are always a few enemies who are to blame for the differences. And, on all these grounds, they won’t be willing to ravage lands or tear down houses, since the many are friendly ; ;; and they’ll keep up the quarrel until those to blame are compelled to pay the penalty by the blameless ones who are suffering.”
“I for one,” he said, “agree that our citizens must behave this way toward their opponents; and toward the barbarians they must behave as the Greeks do now toward one another.”
494c8 “What do you suppose,” I said, “such a young man will do in such circumstances, especially if he chances to be from a big city, is rich and noble in it, and is, further, good-looking and tall? Won’t he be overflowing with unbounded hope, believing he will be competent to mind the business of both Greeks and barbarians, and won’t he, as a result, exalt himself to the heights, mindlessly full of pretension and empty conceit?”
“Indeed he will,” he said.
499c9 “Well, it was on account of this,” I said, “foreseeing it then, that we were frightened; but, all the same, compelled by the truth, we said that neither city nor regime will ever become perfect, nor yet will a man become perfect in the same way either, before some necessity chances to constrain those few philosophers who aren’t vicious, those now called useless, to take charge of a city, whether they want to or not, and the city to obey; or a true erotic passion for true philosophy flows from some divine inspiration into the sons of those who hold power or the office of king, or into the fathers
“Yes, it is.”
“Therefore, if, in the endless time that has gone by, there has been some necessity for those who are on the peaks of philosophy to take charge of a city, or there even now is such a necessity in some barbaric place somewhere far outside of our range of vision, or will be later, in this case we are ready to do battle for the argument that the regime spoken of has been, is, and will be when this Muse has become master of a city.
533d1 “Then,” I said, “only the dialectical way of inquiry proceeds in this direction, destroying the hypotheses, to the beginning itself in order to make it secure; and when the eye of the soul is really buried in a barbaric bog, dialectic gently draws it forth and leads it up above, using the arts we described as assistants and helpers in the turning around. Out of habit we called them kinds of knowledge several times, but they require another name, one that is brighter than opinion but dimmer than knowledge. Thought was, I believe, the word by which we previously distinguished it. But, it seems to me, there is no place for dispute about a name when a consideration is about things so great as those lying before us.”
“No, there isn’t,” he said.
544d3 “And, in fact,” he said, “I myself really desire to hear what four regimes you meant.”
“It won’t be hard for you to hear them,” I said.
“For those I mean are also the ones having names; ‘the one that is praised by the many, that Cretan and Laconian regime; and second in place and second in praise, the one called oligarchy, a regime filled with throngs of evils; and this regime’s adversary, arising next in order, democracy; and then the noble tyranny at last, excelling all of these, the fourth and extreme illness of a city. Or have you some other idea of a regime that fits into some distinct form? For dynasties and purchased kingships and certain regimes of the sort are somewhere between these, and one would find them no less among the barbarians than the Greeks.”
“At any rate,” he said, “many strange ones are talked about.”