Book VIII

                               Book VIII
Well, then, Glaucon, we've agreed to the following: if a city is to achieve the height og good government, wives must be in common,  children and all  their aducation must be in common, and their kings must be those among them who have proved to be best, both in philosophy and in warfare.

We have agreed to that,  he said.
Moreover, we also agreed that, as soon as the rulers are established, they will lead the soldiers and settle them in thd kind of dwellings we described, which are in no way private but common to all. And we also agreed, if you remember, what kind of possessions they will have.

I remember that we thought that none of them should acquire any of the things taht the other rulers now do but that, as athletes of war and guardians, they should receive their yearly upkeep from the other citizens as a wage for guardianship and look after themselves and the rest of the city.

That's right, but since we have completed this discussion that brought us here, so that we can continue on the same path from where we left off.

That isn't difficult, for, much the same as now,  you were talking as if you had completed the description of the city. You said thet you would class both the city you described and the men who is like it as good, even though, as it seems, you had a still finer city and man to tell as about. But, in any case, you said that, if this city was the right one, the others were faulty. You said, if i remember, that there were four types of constitution remaining that are worth discussing, each with faults that we should observe, and we should do the same for the people who are like them. Our aim was to observe them all, agree which man is best and which worst, and then determine whether the best is happiest and the worst most wretched or whether it's otherwise. I was asking you which four constitutions you had in mind when polemarchus and adeimantus interrupted. And that's when you took up the discussion that led here.

Well, then, like a wrestler, give me the same hold again, and when i ask the same question, try to give the answer you were about to give before. If i can.
I'd at least like to hear what four constitutions you meant.

That won't be difficult since they're the ones for which we have names. First, there's the constitution praised by most people, namely, the cretan or Laconian. The second, which is also second in the praise it receives, is called oligarchy and is filled with a host of evils. The next in order, and antagonistic to it, is democracy. And finally there is genuine tyranny, surpassing all of them, the fourth and last of the diseased cities. Or can you think of another type of constitution—I mean another whose form is distinct from these? Dynasties and purchased kingships and other constitutions of that sort, which one finds no less among the barbarians than among the greeks, are somewhere intermediate between these four.
At any event, many strange ones are indeed talked about.

      And do you realize that of necessity there are as many forms of human character as there are of constitusions?  Or do you think that constitutions are born "from oak or rock" and not from the characters of the people who live in the cities governed by them, which tip scales, so to speak, and drag the rest along with them? 

    No, i don't believe they come from anywhere else.
Then, if there are five forms of city, there must also be five forms of the individual soul.
Of course.
Now, we've alredy desribed the one that's like aristocracy, which is rightly said to be good and just.
We have.