1 See especially Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1981 Google Scholar, ch. 12, ‘The Theory of Society’, pp. 139–62. Other chapters have relevant material.

2 The account of Dionysius I's rise to power in Syracuse is still best recorded by Grote (History of Greece, vol x, esp. pp. 610–16 dealing with his obtaining a body guard). It is particularly unfortunate that Popper failed to see in the account of the emergence of the tyrant at the end of Republic VIII the many parallels (mutatis mutandis) with the emergence of Hitler from the Weimar Republic. Crossman had been prepared to see the parallel between the Weimar Republic and Plato's account of democracy, but he then tried to assimilate Plato's philosopher‐king to Hitler ignoring (among other things) that in the Republic there is not one dominant philosopher and that the ‘organic’ nature of the community there is not based on supposed racial superiority and pure blood in the whole (genuinely Arian) citizen body.

3 The various stories that Plato was embarked on a Spartan boat with tacit instructions to the captain to do away with him or sell him into slavery and that he was in fact sold in the slave‐market at Aegina and then bought and freed by Anniceris, who would not accept repayment from Plato's friends, are colourful but difficult to check. At least it seems to be true that Plato left abruptly and Dionysius saw to it that he did so, no doubt distrusting his relations with Dion. Diogenes Laertius (iii. 18) says Plato openly accused Dionysius of tyranny. He may well have used too Athenian a ‘freedom of speech’ (parrhesia) even if he did not go as far as that. All the evidence on these matters is fully presented by Alice Swift Riginos in Platonica ‐the Anecdotes concerning the life and writings of Plato, Leiden, Brill, 1976, pp. 70–92.

4 Aristotle directly criticizes Plato's account at Politics (1316a1‐b27) citing numerous examples from history of cases which show that tyranny does not necessarily, or even commonly, emerge from democracy and making wide criticisms of the whole scheme. Nevertheless he himself insists that extreme democracy becomes a collective tyrant (1292 a 15 seq.). He recognized that Syracuse was in fact a democracy at the time of Dionysius's rise to power (1304 a 26). See Newman's note on 1306a1. The long account on preserving tyrannies forms the eleventh chapter of the fifth book (1313 a 18 to 1315 b 10) and its whole approach to tyranny is in complete contrast to Plato's; he tells us finally that a tyrant may be half bad but he is also half good.

5 Ernest Barker, The Politics of Aristotle (trans.), p. 250, n. 3.

6 Adam, James, The Republic of Plato, vol. II, p. 1966.Google Scholar

7 Dodds, E. R., Plato's Gorgias, Introduction, p. 34.Google Scholar

8 Aristotle uses the same material differently in Politics (1327b 33).

9 Adam in his note (op. cit. p. 360) gives the mathematical basis of this remarkable statement at 587e. See also footnote 12 infra.

10 Plato's coinage of the term ‘timocracy’ (which had no later use so far as I am aware) seems to be due to his desire to lay stress on the motivation of the society and the individual concerned. He also wished to avoid confusion with so‐called ‘aristocracies’ and other oligarchic patterns which have more complex motivation. The Greek word time signifies the acknowledgement of work or value in a god or a superior person. (Later it can refer to valuation of things and then means ‘price’). Next it comes to mean ‘public esteem’ and so ‘dignity’ or ‘honour’ in the Honours List sense of that word. It is then transferred to the post or office which merits or claims the esteem, and so means ‘office’, ‘magistracy’. Plato's usage here seems fairly close to the original meaning and to refer to esteem for and high valuation of someone of superior merit and achievement. Timocracy therefore means the rule of those who assert their claim and right to sovereign power by virtue of personal achievement and prowess, and the society which responds to such claims.

11 At 545d he dismisses rather summarily ‘hereditary governments, government where sovereignty is for sale (such as Carthage, according to Aristotle: there have been examples since Aristotle';s day) and such like things’. Presumably he would say that they were the rule of one man but not as bad as tyranny. To bring them in would in fact confuse the issue. He is concerned in this analysis only with the worst case of one‐man rule and does not wish to qualify in any way his condemnation of it. In the Statesman he places the rule of one man according to law as the least unsatisfactory alternative to the philosophic ruler; but there too the rule of one without law (which is tyranny) is worst. In the Republic in spite of allowing for the case of only one philosophic guardian he never seriously thinks of anything but a guardian class. See on this my Plato's Statesman, pp. 65–6.

12 On this passage (and that concerning relative well‐being of philosopher and tyrant) I must confine myself to three observations:

1) There is some deliberate playfulness and mystification. It is hard to determine what public the Republic was meant to reach, but non‐experts were certainly being addressed as well as Pythagoreans and mathematically trained members of the Academy. Mathematical detail of this kind would please these latter groups and suitably mystify the others.

2) In both passages there is the underlying serious conviction that mathematical patterns characterize the human psyche as well as the macrocosm. The world soul has its mathematically expressed constitution, and the human soul follows its construction: thus the later definition of soul as a ‘self‐moving number’ has some justification in Plato's own writing.

3) The need for understanding higher mathematics (which remains for Plato in the Laws as in the Republic) shows his continuing conviction that mathematical and moral norms are not radically distinct. This Pythagorean approach is difficult for modern appreciation but must be allowed for in any serious approach to his thinking. Nevertheless, I think that in the eighth book Plato's main concern is to expose current evils in commonly intelligible terms.

13 Though it seems clear that Plato had Sparta mainly in mind, it should be noted that in first introducing timocracy at 544c he speaks of a ‘Cretan and Spartan’ style of constitution. He speaks only of the Spartan style at 455a, but it is not wise to regard the passage simply as an assault on Sparta as François Ollier does in Le Mirage Spartiate, Paris, de Boccard, 1933. However, there seems ample evidence that Sparta was his model: his description of oligarchy has several indications of this. There seems to be good evidence that Plato helped to provide a constitution for Megalopolis, when Arcadia was established again politically after the Spartan defeat at Leuctra. (Plutarch. adv. Colotem 32; Diogenes Laertius says he sent a pupil to help though he declined to act himself because he was dissatisfied with the proposed basis of citizenship.) I do not wish to imply that the Republic was written as late as 371 BC. It is generally dated earlier. If it is earlier, Plato foresaw what Leuctra proved.

14 Morrow, Glen, Plato's Cretan City, Princeton, 1960 Google Scholar, has a chapter on Sparta (pp. 40–63) and Plato's attitude to it in the Laws. He seems to me to be a little too ready to take Plato's approving remarks at face value. The critical judgments out‐weigh them, and the courtesy demanded from the elderly Athenian by the presence of the Spartan Megillus is not to be allowed to obscure Plato's basic dissatisfaction with the Spartan ideal.

15 The oligarch makes love of gain into the Great King within himself (553c).

16 There is the story that he defended the general Chabrias whom he believed falsely accused. But there is no reason to think Chabrias was an oligarch, even though he was said to live opulently. There may have been some personal friendship. Only Diogenes Laertius (iii. 24) records this story and Alice S. Riginos (op. cit., pp. 153–4) gives reasons for suspecting its validity.

17 Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Creek Values, Oxford University Press, 1960.Google Scholar