Book VIII, 560–567

560a relatives, who warn and reproach him, then faction rises against faction and he battles with himself.”

“Of course.”

“Sometimes, I suppose, the democratic element gives way to the oligarchic one, and some of the desires are destroyed while others are banished, as a sense of shame arises in the young man’s soul and order is restored.”

“That sometimes happens,” he said.

“But then, I think, other desires akin to the ones that were banished grow up in their place. Because the father does not know how to raise him, 560b they become numerous and strong.”

“That is often how it happens,” he said.

“They draw him back to the same company and secretly consort with him, producing a whole brood.”

“Of course.”

“At last, I imagine, they seize the citadel of the young man’s soul, finding it empty of learning, fine pursuits, and true arguments—the best sentries and guardians in the minds of men dear to the gods. 560c”

“By far the best,” he said.

“Then false and boastful arguments and beliefs rush up to occupy their place in such a man.”

“They certainly do,” he said.

“Does he not return to those Lotus-Eaters and openly settle among them? And if help for the thrifty part of his soul arrives from his relatives, those boastful arguments shut the gates of the royal wall within him. They neither admit the allied force itself nor receive the envoys, the words of older 560d private citizens. Fighting, they themselves prevail. They call reverence foolishness and thrust it out in dishonor as an exile. They call moderation cowardice, heap abuse on it, and cast it out. They persuade him that measured and orderly spending is boorish and servile, and with a multitude of useless desires they drive it across the border.”

“Indeed they do.”

“Having emptied and purified the soul of the man they possess and initiate into their grand rites of these virtues, 560e they next usher in arrogance, anarchy, extravagance, and shamelessness with a brilliant procession and a great chorus, crowning them and singing their praises. They address them by endearing names: arrogance they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, extravagance 561a magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Is it not in some such way,” I said, “that a young man changes from a life nourished on necessary desires to the liberation and indulgence of useless, unnecessary pleasures?”

“You have made it very clear indeed,” he said.

“After this, I imagine, such a man spends his money, effort, and time no less on unnecessary than on necessary pleasures. If he is fortunate and his frenzy does not go too far, when he is a little older and the worst of the uproar has passed, he may readmit some 561b of the banished desires without giving himself wholly to the intruders. He then lives with his pleasures on a sort of equal footing, yielding the rule over himself to whichever one comes along, as though it had won its turn by lot, until it is satisfied, and then to another. He despises none of them but nourishes all equally.”

“Exactly.”

“And if someone tells him that some pleasures belong to fine and good desires 561c and others to base ones, that he ought to cultivate and honor the former but curb and enslave the latter, he will neither accept this true argument nor allow it into his fortress. He shakes his head at all such distinctions and says that all pleasures are alike and must be honored equally.”

“That is exactly how he acts,” he said.

“Thus,” I said, “he lives from day to day indulging whatever desire happens upon him. At one moment he drinks himself drunk to the music of flutes, at another he drinks only water and grows thin. 561d Sometimes he exercises, sometimes he does nothing at all and neglects everything, and sometimes he seems immersed in philosophy. Often he enters politics and springs to his feet to say and do whatever occurs to him. If he happens to admire soldiers, he rushes in that direction; if businessmen, then in the other. Neither order nor necessity governs his life. He calls this life sweet, free, and blessed, and lives it from beginning to end.”

“You have given a complete account of the life of a man devoted to equal rights,” he said. 561e

“And I imagine,” I said, “that he has every variety of character and contains the greatest number of dispositions. He is the beautiful, many-colored man, like that city. Many men and women would envy his life, since it holds within itself the most examples of constitutions and ways of living.”

“That is the man,” he said.

562a “Well, then, shall we set him alongside democracy and rightly call him the democratic man?”

“Let us,” he said.

“The most beautiful constitution,” I said, “and the most beautiful man still remain for us to describe: tyranny and the tyrant.”

“Indeed,” he said.

“Come, then, dear friend: in what way does tyranny arise? That it changes from democracy seems fairly clear.”

“Clear enough.”

“Does democracy arise from oligarchy in much the same way 562b that tyranny arises from democracy?”

“How?”

“The good they set before themselves,” I said, “the reason oligarchy was established, was [excessive] wealth, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“Then insatiable desire for wealth, and neglect of everything else for the sake of moneymaking, destroyed it.”

“True,” he said.

“And does democracy too fall through an insatiable pursuit of the good it defines for itself?”

“What good do you mean?”

“Freedom,” I said. “For in a democratic 562c city you would hear that freedom is its finest possession, and that this is the only city in which anyone free by nature should live.”

“That claim is made everywhere,” he said.

“Then, as I was about to say, does an insatiable desire for freedom and neglect of everything else transform this constitution too, preparing it to need a tyrant?”

“How?” he asked.

“When a democratic city thirsts for freedom, I suppose, and gets bad cupbearers to govern it, it drinks more than it should of freedom unmixed. 562d Then, unless its rulers are very gentle and provide an abundance of freedom, the city punishes them, accusing them of being polluted oligarchs.”

“That is what they do,” he said.

“And those who obey the rulers,” I continued, “it abuses as willing slaves of no account. Rulers who behave like subjects and subjects who behave like rulers it praises and honors both privately and in public. Must not freedom in such a city reach every extreme? 562e”

“How could it not?”

“And anarchy,” I said, “sinks into private homes as well, my friend, and finally grows even among the animals.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“A father, for instance, grows accustomed to becoming like his child and fearing his sons, while a son becomes like his father and has neither respect nor fear for his parents—all so that he may be free. A resident alien 563a puts himself on a level with a citizen and a citizen with a resident alien, and a foreigner does likewise.”

“That does happen,” he said.

“And these things occur,” I said, “as well as little matters like these: in such a city the teacher fears and flatters his students, while the students disdain their teachers and their tutors. Young people in general resemble their elders and compete with them in word and deed, while old men lower themselves to the company of the young, full of playful wit and good humor, 563b imitating the young for fear of seeming unpleasant or overbearing.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“And the utmost freedom of the multitude in such a city, my friend, comes when the men and women who have been bought are no less free than those who bought them. As for the equality before the law and freedom that arise between women and men and men and women, we nearly forgot to mention it. 563c”

“Shall we not say, in Aeschylus’ words,” he said, “whatever has just come to our lips?”

“Certainly,” I said. “And that is just what I am saying. Anyone who has not seen it would scarcely believe how much freer the animals under human rule are there than elsewhere. The dogs, to use the proverb, become just like their mistresses. Horses and donkeys grow accustomed to walking along with perfect freedom and dignity, barging into anyone they meet in the road unless that person gets out of the way. Everything else too 563d is as full of freedom as that.”

“You are describing my own dream to me,” he said. “It happens to me often enough on the way to the countryside.”

“But the chief result,” I said, “when all these things come together—do you see how tender they make the souls of the citizens? If anyone presents them with even the least trace of servitude, they resent it and cannot endure it. Eventually, as you know, they pay no heed even to laws, written or unwritten, so that no one at all may be their master. 563e”

“I know it very well,” he said.

“This, my friend,” I said, “is the fine and spirited beginning from which tyranny springs, as it seems to me.”

“Spirited indeed,” he said. “But what comes next?”

“The same disease that arose in oligarchy and destroyed it also arises in democracy; there, through its freedom, it grows stronger and more abundant, and enslaves democracy. Indeed, excess in any direction tends to bring a great reversal into its opposite—in the seasons, in plants, in 564a bodies, and not least in constitutions.”

“That is likely,” he said.

“For excessive freedom seems to change into nothing but excessive slavery, both for the individual and for the city.”

“So it seems.”

“It is natural, then,” I said, “that tyranny arises from no constitution other than democracy: from the height of freedom, I suppose, comes the deepest and most savage slavery.”

“That makes sense,” he said.

“But I think,” I said, “that was not what you were asking. You wanted to know what 564b disease, the same in oligarchy and democracy, grows there and enslaves the latter.”

“You are right,” he said.

“I meant,” I replied, “the class of idle and extravagant men, the boldest of whom lead and the more cowardly follow. We likened them to drones, the leaders with stings, the others without.”

“And rightly so,” he said.

“When both kinds arise in a constitution,” I said, “they throw it into turmoil, just as phlegm and bile disturb the body. 564c A good physician and lawgiver for a city must, no less than a wise beekeeper, take precautions well in advance: above all, to keep the two kinds from arising; and if they do arise, to cut them out as quickly as possible, combs and all.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” he said, “absolutely.”

“Let us approach it this way,” I said, “so that we may see our subject more clearly.”

“How?”

“564d Let us divide a democratic city into three parts in our account, as in fact it is divided. One class, that drone-like class, grows up in it through license no less than in an oligarchy.”

“That is so.”

“But here it is much fiercer than there.”

“How?”

“There, deprived of honor and shut out of office, it has no exercise and grows weak. In a democracy it leads nearly everything, apart from a few exceptions. The fiercest members speak and act, while the others sit around the speaker’s platform buzzing and refusing to tolerate anyone who 564e speaks differently. So in such a constitution almost everything is managed by this class, with a few exceptions.”

“Quite so,” he said.

“Another class, then, is always separated out from the multitude.”

“Which?”

“When everyone is engaged in making money, the naturally most orderly people tend to become the wealthiest.”

“That is likely.”

“From them, I imagine, the drones can extract the most honey, and extract it most easily.”

“How could one extract any,” he said, “from people who have little?”

“Such wealthy people, I think, are called the drones’ pasture.”

“Something like that,” he said.

565a “The people would be the third class: those who work for themselves, do not meddle in politics, and possess very little. When assembled, they are the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.”

“That is so,” he said, “but they are not often willing to assemble unless they get a share of the honey.”

“And they do get a share,” I said, “as far as their leaders are able to give them one. The leaders take property from those who have it, distribute some to the people, and keep the greater part for themselves.”

“565b That is how they get their share,” he said.

“The people whose property is taken, I suppose, must defend themselves, speaking before the assembly and doing whatever they can.”

“How could they not?”

“Then the others accuse them of plotting against the people and of being oligarchs, even if they have no desire to make a revolution.”

“Of course.”

“And in the end, when they see the people, not of their own will but through ignorance and deception at the hands of 565c slanderers, trying to do them wrong, they really do become oligarchs, whether they want to or not. They do not choose to become so; that same drone breeds this evil too by stinging them.”

“Precisely.”

“Then come denunciations and trials and lawsuits against one another.”

“Indeed.”

“Is it not the people’s habit always to set one particular man above the rest as their champion, nourishing him and making him great?”

“It is,” he said.

“565d So this much is clear,” I said: “whenever a tyrant grows up, he sprouts from the root of a popular champion and nowhere else.”

“Perfectly clear.”

“How, then, does a champion begin to change into a tyrant? Is it not clearly when he begins to do the same thing as the man in the story told about the sanctuary of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia?”

“What story?” he asked.

“That anyone who tastes a piece of human entrails mixed among those of the other sacrificial victims must 565e turn into a wolf. Have you not heard the tale?”

“I have.”

“Then is it not the same with the champion of the people? He gains a thoroughly obedient crowd, and will not keep his hands off the blood of his fellow citizens. Instead, he falsely accuses them, as men of his kind are apt to do, drags them into court and commits murder, destroying a man’s life. With impious tongue and lips he tastes the blood of his own kin, drives men into exile, 566a kills others, and hints at the cancellation of debts and redistribution of land. Must such a man thereafter either perish at the hands of his enemies or become a tyrant, changed from a man into a wolf? Is that his inevitable fate?”

“Inevitably,” he said.

“He is the one,” I said, “who stirs up civil strife against the property owners.”

“He is.”

“And if he is driven into exile and returns by force in defiance of his enemies, does he return a fully formed tyrant?”

“Clearly.”

“566b But if his enemies cannot expel him or have him killed by denouncing him to the city, they plot to murder him secretly by violence.”

“That is often what happens,” he said.

“Then everyone who has risen to this position discovers that much-repeated demand of tyrants: he asks the people for a personal guard, so that their defender may be kept safe for them.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“And I suppose they grant it, fearing for his safety but feeling secure about their own.”

“566c Exactly.”

“When a man with wealth, and with wealth the charge of being an enemy of the people, sees this, my friend, then, in accordance with the oracle given to Croesus, he

‘flees beside the pebbly Hermus’

and does not stay, nor is he ashamed of appearing a coward.”

“He would not live to be ashamed a second time,” he said.

“And the man who is caught, I suppose,” I said, “is put to death.”

“He must be.”

“566d As for that champion himself, clearly he does not lie there in all his greatness. He has struck down many others and stands in the chariot of the city, transformed from champion into tyrant.”

“How could it be otherwise?” he said.

“Let us now describe the happiness,” I said, “both of the man and of the city in which such a mortal arises.”

“By all means,” he said. “Let us describe it.”

“566e Is it not true,” I said, “that at first he smiles and greets everyone he meets, denies that he is a tyrant, and promises much, both privately and publicly? He has freed men from debt and distributed land to the people and his own followers, and pretends to be gracious and gentle toward all.”

“He must,” he said.

“But once he has reached an understanding with some foreign enemies and destroyed others, and all is quiet on that front, I think he begins by continually stirring up wars, so that the people will need a leader.”

“That is likely.”

567a “And also so that paying contributions will make them poor and keep them occupied with their daily needs, leaving them less time to plot against him?”

“Clearly.”

“And if he suspects that any men have independent minds and will not let him rule, can he not use the wars as a pretext to destroy them by surrendering them to the enemy? For all these reasons a tyrant must always keep war in turmoil.”

“He must.”

“By doing so, he will surely become more hated 567b by his citizens.”

“How could he not?”

“And will not some of those who helped him come to power, men of influence, speak frankly to him and among themselves, condemning what is happening—those of them who have the most courage?”

“Likely enough.”

“So the tyrant must remove them all, if he is to continue ruling, until he leaves no friend or enemy of any use whatsoever.”

“Clearly.”

“He must therefore have a sharp eye for anyone courageous, high-minded, 567c sensible, or rich. And he is blessed with such good fortune that he must make enemies of all such people, whether he wants to or not, and plot against them until he has purged the city.”

“A fine purging!” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, “the opposite of what physicians do to bodies. They remove the worst parts and leave the best, but he does the reverse.”

“It seems,” he said, “that he must, if he is to rule.”

“567d So he is bound by a blessed necessity,” I said, “which commands him either to live among the many worthless people, hated by them, or not to live at all.”

“Exactly so,” he said.

“And the more he makes himself hated by his citizens through such acts, the more numerous and trustworthy a bodyguard he will need, will he not?”

“How could he not?”

“Who will be trustworthy, then, and where will he send for them?”

“Plenty will come flying on their own,” he said, “if he pays them.”

“By the dog,” I said, “you seem to be speaking of drones again, 567e of foreign drones from all sorts of places.”

“That is just what I mean,” he said.

“And what about men from the city itself? Would he not want to—”

“To do what?”

“Take the citizens’ slaves from them, set them free, and make them his own bodyguard.”

“Indeed,” he said. “They would be the most trustworthy men he has.”

“What a blessed creature you make the tyrant,” I said, “if he uses such

560a relatives rebuke and advise him, then he is divided against himself. He resists and fights within himself.”“Of course.”“Sometimes, I think, the democratic side gives way to the oligarchic one. Some desires are destroyed and others driven out. A sense of shame enters the young man's soul, and order returns.”“That does sometimes happen,” he said.“But I think that other desires, related to the ones driven out, grow unnoticed. Because the father does not understand how to raise him, they become numerous and strong. 560b”“That often happens,” he said.“They draw him back to the same company. Secret meetings produce a whole crowd of desires.”“Of course.”“At last, I think, they capture the fortress of the young man's soul. They find it empty of knowledge, good practices, and true arguments. Those are the best guards and guardians in the minds of people loved by the gods. 560c”“By far,” he said.“False, boastful arguments and beliefs then rush in, I think, and occupy that same place in him.”“Indeed they do,” he said.“Doesn't he return openly to those Lotus-Eaters and settle among them? If help for the thrifty part of his soul arrives from his family, those boastful arguments shut the gates of his inner royal stronghold. They refuse to let the reinforcements in. They will not even admit the words of older people who come as envoys on their own. They win the battle themselves. 560d They call respect for others foolishness and drive it out in disgrace as an exile. They call self-control cowardice, insult it, and throw it out. They insist that moderation and careful spending are crude and petty, and send them into exile with the help of many useless desires.”“Exactly.”“After they have emptied and purified 560e the soul of the young man they have taken over and initiated into their great rites, they bring in insolence, disorder, extravagance, and shamelessness with pomp and a great procession. They crown them and praise them with flattering names. They call insolence good breeding, disorder freedom, extravagance 561a magnificence, and shamelessness courage.”

“Isn't this roughly how a young man changes from being brought up among necessary desires to setting free the pleasures of unnecessary and useless desires?”“That's a very clear picture,” he said.“After that, I think, this man spends his money, effort, and time on unnecessary pleasures just as readily as on necessary ones. If he is lucky and is not carried too far away by this frenzy, and if, as he gets older, the uproar subsides, he lets some of the banished desires back in. He doesn't give himself completely to the newcomers. He brings his pleasures to something like equal standing. He hands control over himself to whichever pleasure comes along, as if its turn had been chosen by lot, until it is satisfied. Then he hands control to another, disdaining none of them and feeding them all equally. 561b”“Certainly.”“If someone tells him that some pleasures arise from fine and good desires while others arise from bad ones, and that he should cultivate and honor the first and discipline and restrain the second, he won't accept that true argument or admit it to the fortress. He shakes his head at all this. He says all pleasures are alike and deserve equal honor. 561c”“Yes,” he said. “That is exactly how he behaves.”“And so he lives from day to day, giving in to whichever desire happens to appear. One day he drinks heavily and enjoys flute music. Another day he drinks water and diets. 561d Sometimes he exercises. Sometimes he idles and neglects everything. At other times he seems to spend his time on philosophy. He often takes part in politics, jumping up and saying and doing whatever comes into his head. If he admires soldiers, he heads in that direction. If he admires businessmen, he follows them instead. There is no order or necessity in his life. He calls it pleasant, free, and happy, and lives that way all his days.”“You have described perfectly the life of a man devoted to equality,” he said.561e “I think he has every kind of character in him, full of variety. He is a beautiful and colorful man, like that city. Many men and women would envy his life, since he carries within him examples of so many political systems and ways of living.”“That is what he is,” he said.

562a “Then shall we assign this man to democracy and rightly call him democratic?”“Let's do that,” he said.“The most beautiful political order and the most beautiful man remain to be discussed: tyranny and the tyrant.”“Exactly,” he said.“Come, my friend, how does tyranny arise? It is fairly clear that it develops from democracy.”“Clearly.”“Then does democracy develop from oligarchy in roughly the same way that tyranny develops from democracy? 562b”“How?”“They set up something as their good, and oligarchy was established for its sake. That good was [excessive] wealth, wasn't it?”“Yes.”“The insatiable desire for wealth, and the neglect of everything else in the pursuit of money, destroyed oligarchy.”“True,” he said.“Does an insatiable desire for the good democracy sets up also destroy democracy?”“What good do you mean?”“Freedom,” I said. “In a democracy you will hear people say that it is the city's greatest possession, and that it is the only place worth living for anyone naturally free. 562c”“Yes,” he said. “People say that a lot.”“Then, as I was about to say, does an insatiable desire for freedom, and the neglect of everything else, change this political order too and make it need a tyrant?”“How?” he said.“Suppose a democratic city is thirsty for freedom and gets bad wine-pourers as its leaders. It drinks too much undiluted freedom and becomes intoxicated. Then, if its rulers are not very gentle and do not provide plenty of freedom, the city punishes them. It accuses them of being corrupt oligarchs. 562d”“That is what happens,” he said.“It insults people who obey their rulers, calling them willing slaves and worthless. It praises and honors rulers who act like subjects and subjects who act like rulers, both in private and in public. Isn't it inevitable that freedom will go to every extreme in such a city?”“How could it not?”“And, my friend, this refusal to accept authority spreads into private homes. In the end even animals take on its spirit. 562e”“What do you mean?” he said.“For instance, a father gets used to acting like his child and fearing his sons. A son acts like his father and feels neither respect nor fear for his parents, in order to be free. A resident foreigner becomes equal to a citizen, and a citizen to a resident foreigner. The same goes for a visitor

563a from abroad.”“Yes, that happens,” he said.“These things happen, along with smaller examples like these. Teachers in such a city fear and flatter their students, while students look down on teachers and tutors. Young people generally imitate their elders and compete with them in speech and action. Old people lower themselves to the level of the young and fill their talk with jokes and clever remarks. They imitate young people so that they won't seem unpleasant or bossy. 563b”“Exactly,” he said.“And, my friend, the final stage of freedom for the masses in such a city comes when men and women who have been bought as slaves are just as free as the people who bought them. We almost forgot to mention the equality and freedom between women and men, and men and women. 563c”“Shall we say, as Aeschylus puts it, whatever has just come to our lips?” he said.“Yes,” I said. “I will say just that. Someone who has never seen it would hardly believe how much freer domestic animals are there than in other cities. As the saying goes, the dogs become like their mistresses. Horses and donkeys get used to going about with great freedom and dignity. They run into anyone they meet on the road unless that person gets out of their way. Everything else is just as full of freedom. 563d”“You are describing my own dream to me,” he said. “That often happens to me on my way to the countryside.”“Put it all together and see the main point. It makes the citizens' souls so sensitive that if anyone brings them even a trace of servitude, they get angry and refuse to bear it. You know that in the end they pay no attention to written or unwritten laws, so that no one can be their master in any way. 563e”“Yes, I know it well,” he said.“This, my friend, is the fine and spirited beginning from which tyranny grows, as I see it.”“Spirited indeed,” he said. “But what happens next?”“The same disease that developed in oligarchy and destroyed it grows stronger here because of the freedom, and enslaves democracy. In fact, doing anything to excess often brings a great change in the opposite direction. That happens in seasons, in 564a plants, and in bodies, and especially in political orders.

”“That makes sense,” he said.“Excessive freedom, it seems, turns into nothing other than excessive slavery, both for an individual and for a city.”“That seems likely.”“So it makes sense that tyranny arises from democracy and no other political order. From the greatest freedom comes, I think, the greatest and harshest slavery.”“That is reasonable,” he said.“But I don't think that's what you were asking. You wanted to know which disease grows in both oligarchy and democracy and enslaves them. 564b”“That's right,” he said.“I meant the class of idle and wasteful men, with the boldest leading and the less bold following. We compared them to drones, some with stings and some without.”“And rightly,” he said.“When these two groups arise in any political order, they disturb it like phlegm and bile in a body. A good doctor and a city's lawgiver must be as watchful as a wise beekeeper. They should above all keep these groups from developing. If they do develop, they must cut them out as quickly as possible, along with their honeycombs. 564c”“Yes, by Zeus, absolutely,” he said.“Then let's look at it this way, to see what we mean more clearly.”“How?”“Let us divide the democratic city into three parts in our argument, as it really is. One such class grows in it because people are free to do as they wish, no less than in oligarchy. 564d”“That is so.”“But it is much fiercer here than there.”“How?”“In oligarchy it gets no respect and is barred from office. As a result it gets no practice and gains no strength. In democracy, with a few exceptions, it is the leading class. Its fiercest members speak and act, while the rest sit around the speakers' platforms buzzing and refuse to let anyone express a different view. Apart from a few exceptions, everything in such a city is managed by this group. 564e”“Indeed,” he said.“Now another class always stands out from the crowd.”“Which one?”“When everyone is trying to make money, those who are most orderly by nature generally become the richest.”“That makes sense.”“So they provide the drones with the most honey, and the easiest to extract.”“How could anyone extract it from those who have little?” he said.“These rich people, I think, are called the drones' pasture.”“More or less,” he said.

565a “The people form the third class: those who work for themselves, take no part in public affairs, and own very little. This group is the largest and most powerful in a democracy whenever it gathers together.”“Yes,” he said. “But it seldom wants to gather unless it gets a share of the honey.”“And it does get a share, as far as its leaders can arrange it. They take wealth away from those who have it and distribute some to the people, keeping most of it for themselves. 565b”“That is how it gets its share,” he said.“Those whose property is taken have to defend themselves by speaking before the people and doing whatever they can.”“Of course.”“Then the others accuse them of plotting against the people and being oligarchs, even if they have no wish to start a revolution.”“Of course.”“Eventually they see the people trying to wrong them, not deliberately, but in ignorance after being misled by their accusers. Then, whether they want to or not, they truly become oligarchs. They did not choose it. The drone brings about this evil too, by stinging them. 565c”“Exactly.”“Then come charges, trials, and legal battles against one another.”“Indeed.”“Don't the people regularly set one particular person over themselves as their special leader? They support him and make him great.”“They do,” he said.“Then this much is clear: whenever a tyrant grows, he grows from the root of the people's leadership, and nowhere else. 565d”“Very clear.”“How does a leader start turning into a tyrant? Clearly it begins when he does what the man in the story about the temple of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia does.”“What story?” he said.“It says that anyone who tastes a piece of human entrails, cut up and mixed with the entrails of the other sacrificed animals, must become a wolf. Haven't you heard that story? 565e”“Yes, I have.”“Isn't it the same when someone leading the people gains a very obedient crowd and cannot keep his hands off the blood of his fellow citizens? He brings false charges, as such people like to do, and takes a man to court. He murders him through the courts and destroys his life. With unholy tongue and mouth he tastes the blood of his own kind. He exiles people and 566a kills them, and hints at canceling debts and dividing up land.

After that, isn't it inevitable and fated that he either dies at the hands of his enemies or becomes a tyrant, turning from a man into a wolf?”“It must be,” he said.“This is the man who leads the conflict against property owners.”“Yes.”“If he is driven out and then returns by force against his enemies, doesn't he come back a fully formed tyrant?”“Clearly. 566b”“If they cannot exile him or kill him by turning the city against him, they secretly plot to assassinate him.”“That often happens,” he said.“Then everyone who has come this far makes the familiar demand of a would-be tyrant. He asks the people for bodyguards, so that their defender will be kept safe for them.”“Yes indeed,” he said.“I think they give him guards because they fear for his safety but feel confident about their own. 566c”“Certainly.”“When a man with property sees this, and finds that his wealth has brought him a reputation as an enemy of the people, then, my friend, he follows the oracle given to Croesus:‘Beside the pebbly Hermushe flees, and does not wait or feel ashamed to seem a coward.’”“He wouldn't get a second chance to feel ashamed,” he said.“If caught, I think, he is put to death.”“He must be.”“But the leader himself clearly doesn't lie there, great in his greatness. Having struck down many others, he stands in the city's chariot, a finished tyrant instead of the people's leader. 566d”“How could he not?” he said.“Shall we go through how happy the man and the city are, when such a mortal appears in it?”“Yes, let's do that,” he said.“In his first days, doesn't he smile at and greet everyone he meets? He denies being a tyrant and makes many promises, both privately and publicly. He has canceled debts and distributed land to the people and his own supporters. He pretends to be kind and gentle to everyone. 566e”“He must,” he said.“Once he has made peace with some outside enemies and destroyed the others, and there is quiet on that front, he first keeps stirring up wars so that the people will need a leader.”“That seems likely.”

567a “And also so that contributions to the wars will make them poor, keep them busy with daily needs, and leave them less able to plot against him?”“Clearly.”“And if he suspects anyone of having an independent spirit and being unwilling to let him rule, he can find a pretext for destroying them by handing them over to the enemy. For all these reasons, a tyrant must keep stirring up war.”“He must.”“By doing these things, isn't he likely to become more and more hated by the citizens? 567b”“How could he not?”“And won't some of those who helped put him in power, men who still have influence, speak freely to him and to one another? The bravest among them will criticize what is happening.”“That seems likely.”“The tyrant must remove all of them if he is to stay in power. He must go on until he leaves no friend or enemy who is of any use.”“Clearly.”“So he has to watch closely to see who is brave, high-minded, sensible, or rich. He is so fortunate that he must treat every one of them as an enemy, whether he wants to or not, and plot against them until he has purged the city. 567c”“What a fine purge,” he said.“Yes, the opposite of how doctors treat bodies. They take away what is worst and leave what is best. He does the opposite.”“It seems he must, if he is to rule,” he said.“So he is bound by a happy necessity: either live with a crowd of worthless people who hate him, or not live at all. 567d”“That is his situation,” he said.“And the more he makes the citizens hate him by acting this way, the more numerous and loyal the bodyguards he will need.”“Of course.”“Who will these loyal guards be, and where will he send for them?”“Plenty will fly to him on their own,” he said, “if he pays them.”“By the dog,” I said, “you seem to be talking about drones again, foreigners from every country. 567e”“Yes, I am,” he said.“What about people from the city itself? Would he be willing to—”“To do what?”“Take the citizens' slaves away from them, free them, and make them his own bodyguards?”“Certainly,” he said. “They will be the most loyal of all.”“What a blessed lot the tyrant has, if these are the sort of