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Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not singleminded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adeimantus.
Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us. Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. Certainly not. Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. By all means. And what shall be their education?
In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once.
And finally, gentlemen of the jury, to cap all his former baseness, he dared with Adeimantus to betray the ships to Lysander. 39.
The man whose city is under the power of the Barbarian has no vote in this council, however much we condescend to listen to his chatterings.” The Athenian sprang from his seat, his aspect as threatening as Apollo descending Olympus in wrath. “Where is my country, Adeimantus? Yonder!” he pointed out the open port-hole, “there rides the array of our Athenian ships.
The first omen and a fair one.” The word ran in whispers down the benches, and every soul on the trireme rejoiced. How long did they sit thus? An æon? Would Eurybiades never draw out his line of battle? Would Adeimantus prove craven at the end? Would treachery undo Hellas to-day, as once before at Lade when the Ionian Greeks had faced the Persian fleet in vain?
And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied.
Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end.
But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters, I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. Impossible. It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like? To be sure.
Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down.
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