Republic (1.327-1.331)

I[*] went down yesterday to the Peiraeus[*] with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, to pay my devotions[*] to the Goddess,[*] and also because I wished to see how they would conduct the festival since this was its inauguration.[*] I thought the procession of the citizens very fine, but it was no better than the show, made by the marching of the Thracian contingent. After we had said our prayers and seen the spectacle we were starting for town when Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, caught sight of us from a distance as we were hastening homeward[*] and ordered his boy[*] run and bid us to wait[*] for him, and the boy caught hold[*] of my himation from behind and said, Polemarchus wants you to wait. And I turned around and asked where his master[*] was. There he is, he said, behind you, coming this way. Wait for him. So we will, said Glaucon, and shortly after Polemarchus came up and Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and a few others apparently from the procession. Whereupon Polemarchus said, Socrates, you appear to have turned your faces townward and to be going to leave us. Not a bad guess, said I. But you see how many we are? he said. Surely. You must either then prove yourselves the better men[*] or stay here. Why, is there not left, said I, the alternative of our persuading[*] you that you ought to let us go? But could you persuade us, said he, if we refused to listen? Nohow, said Glaucon. Well, we won’t listen, and you might as well make up your minds to it.

Do you mean to say, interposed Adeimantus, that you haven’t heard that there is to be a torchlight race[*] this evening on horseback in honor of the Goddess? On horseback? said I. That is a new idea. Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race with the horses, or how do you mean? That’s the way of it, said Polemarchus, and, besides, there is to be a night festival which will be worth seeing. For after dinner we will get up[*] and go out and see the sights and meet a lot of the lads there and have good talk. So stay and do as we ask.[*] It looks as if we should have to stay, said Glaucon. Well, said I, if it so be, so be it. So we went with them to Polemarchus’s house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, the brothers of Polemarchus, yes, and[*] Thrasymachus, too, of Chalcedon, and Charmantides of the deme of Paeania, and Kleitophon the son of Aristonymus. And the father of Polemarchus, Cephalus, was also at home. And I thought him much aged, for it was a long time since I had seen him. He was sitting on a sort of couch with cushions and he had a chaplet[*] on his head, for he had just finished sacrificing in the court. So we went and sat down beside him, for there were seats there disposed in a circle.[*] As soon as he saw me Cephalus greeted me and said, You are not a very frequent[*] visitor, Socrates. You don’t often come down to the Peiraeus to see us. That is not right. For if I were still able to make the journey up to town easily there would be no need of your resorting hither, but we would go to visit you. But as it is you should not space too widely your visits here. For I would have you know that, for my part, as the satisfactions of the body decay,[*] in the same measure my desire for the pleasures of good talk and my delight in them increase. Don’t refuse then, but be yourself a companion to these lads and make our house your resort and regard us as your very good friends and intimates. Why, yes, Cephalus, said I, and I enjoy talking with the very aged. For to my thinking we have to learn of them as it were from wayfarers[*] who have preceded us on a road on which we too, it may be, must some time fare—what[*] it is like—is it rough[*] and hard going or easy and pleasant to travel. And so now I would fain learn of you what you think of this thing, now that your time has come to it, the thing that the poets call the threshold[*] of old age. Is it a hard part of life to bear or what report have you to make of it?

Yes, indeed, Socrates, he said, I will tell you my own feeling about it. For it often happens that some of us elders of about the same age come together and verify[*] the old saw of like to like. At these reunions most of us make lament, longing for the lost joys of youth and recalling to mind the pleasures of wine, women, and feasts, and other things thereto appertaining, and they repine in the belief that the greatest things have been taken from them and that then they lived well and now it is no life at all.[*] And some of them complain of the indignities that friends and kinsmen put upon old age and thereto recite a doleful litany[*] of all the miseries for which they blame old age. But in my opinion, Socrates, they do not put the blame on the real cause.[*] For if it were the cause I too should have had the same experience so far as old age is concerned, and so would all others who have come to this time of life. But in fact I have ere now met with others who do not feel in this way, and in particular I remember hearing Sophocles the poet greeted by a fellow who asked, How about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles—is your natural force still unabated? And he replied, Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a master.[*] I thought it a good answer then and now I think so still more. For in very truth there comes to old age a great tranquillity in such matters and a blessed release. When the fierce tensions[*] of the passions and desires relax, then is the word of Sophocles approved, and we are rid of many and mad[*] masters. But indeed in respect of these complaints and in the matter of our relations with kinsmen and friends there is just one cause, Socrates—not old age, but the character of the man. For if men are temperate and cheerful[*] even old age is only moderately burdensome. But if the reverse, old age, Socrates, and youth are hard for such dispositions. And I was filled with admiration[*] for the man by these words, and desirous of hearing more I tried to draw him out and said, I fancy, Cephalus, that most people, when they hear you talk in this way, are not convinced but think that you bear old age lightly not because of your character but because of your wealth. For the rich, they say, have many consolations.[*]

You are right, he said. They don’t accept my view and there is something in their objection, though not so much as they suppose. But the retort of Themistocles comes in pat here, who, when a man from the little island of Seriphus[*] grew abusive and told him that he owed his fame not to himself but to the city from which he came, replied that neither would he himself ever have made a name if he had been born in Seriphus nor the other if he had been an Athenian. And the same principle applies excellently to those who not being rich take old age hard; for neither would the reasonable man find it altogether easy to endure old age conjoined with poverty, nor would the unreasonable man by the attainment of riches ever attain to self-contentment and a cheerful temper. May I ask, Cephalus, said I, whether you inherited most of your possessions or acquired them yourself? Acquired, eh? he said. As a moneymaker, I hold a place somewhere halfway between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather and namesake[*] inherited about as much property as I now possess and multiplied it many times, my father Lysanias reduced it below the present amount, and I am content if I shall leave the estate to these boys not less but by some slight measure more than my inheritance. The reason I asked, I said, is that you appear to me not to be over-fond of money. And that is generally the case with those who have not earned it themselves.[*] But those who have themselves acquired it have a double reason in comparison with other men for loving it. For just as poets feel complacency about their own poems and fathers about their own sons,[*] so men who have made money take this money seriously as their own creation and they also value it for its uses as other people do. So they are hard to talk to since they are unwilling to commend anything except wealth. You are right, he replied. I assuredly am, said I. But tell me further this. What do you regard as the greatest benefit you have enjoyed from the possession of property? Something, he said, which I might not easily bring many to believe if I told them.[*] For let me tell you, Socrates, he said, that when a man begins to realize that he is going to die, he is filled with apprehensions and concern about matters that before did not occur to him. The tales that are told of the world below and how the men who have done wrong here must pay the penalty there,[*] though he may have laughed them down[*] hitherto, then begin to torture his soul with the doubt that there may be some truth in them. And apart from that the man himself[*] either from the weakness of old age or possibly as being now nearer to the things beyond has a somewhat clearer view of them. Be that as it may, he is filled with doubt, surmises, and alarms and begins to reckon up and consider whether he has ever wronged anyone.

Now he to whom the ledger of his life shows an account of many evil deeds starts up[*] even from his dreams like children again and again in affright and his days are haunted by anticipations of worse to come. But on him who is conscious of no wrong that he has done a sweet hope[*] ever attends and a goodly to be nurse of his old age, as Pindar[*] too says. For a beautiful saying it is, Socrates, of the poet that when a man lives out his days in justice and piety

sweet companion with him, to cheer his heart and nurse his old age, accompanies

Hope, who chiefly rules the changeful mind of mortals.

Pindar Frag. 214, Loeb That is a fine saying and an admirable. It is for this, then, that I affirm that the possession of wealth is of most value not it may be to every man but to the good man. Not to cheat any man even unintentionally or play him false, not remaining in debt to a god[*] for some sacrifice or to a man for money, so to depart in fear to that other world—to this result the possession of property contributes not a little. It has also many other uses. But, setting one thing against another, I would lay it down, Socrates, that for a man of sense this is the chief service of wealth.An admirable sentiment, Cephalus, said I. But speaking of this very thing, justice, are we to affirm thus without qualification[*] that it is truth-telling and paying back what one has received from anyone, or may these very actions sometimes be just and sometimes unjust? I mean, for example, as everyone I presume would admit, if one took over weapons from a friend who was in his right mind and then the lender should go mad and demand them back, that we ought not to return them in that case and that he who did so return them would not be acting justly—nor yet would he who chose to speak nothing but the truth to one who was in that state. You are right, he replied. Then this is not the definition of justice: to tell the truth and return what one has received. Nay, but it is, Socrates, said Polemarchus breaking in, if indeed we are to put any faith in Simonides. Very well, said Cephalus, indeed I make over the whole argument[*] to you. For it is time for me to attend the sacrifices. Well, said I, is not Polemarchus the heir of everything that is yours? Certainly, said he with a laugh, and at the same time went out to the sacred rites.[*] Tell me, then, you the inheritor of the argument, what it is that you affirm that Simonides says and rightly says about justice. That it is just, he replied, to render to each his due.[*] In saying this I think he speaks well.