Key Arguments

• As a mean between oligarchy and the perfect state, timocracy partly follows each and has peculiarities
• Similarities to the best: honors for rulers, common meals, warrior class abstains from trades, emphasis on gymnastics and military training
• Peculiarities: fear of philosophers (no longer simple and earnest), preference for passionate, less complex natures suited to war, high value on military contrivance, and conducting 'everlasting wars'
• Timocrats are money-covetous like oligarchs, with a 'fierce secret longing' for gold and silver; they hoard in secret magazines and treasuries and spend lavishly on private pleasures
• They are miserly because they cannot openly acquire the money they desire, spending others’ resources while evading law like children
• They have honored gymnastic more than music, neglecting the 'true Muse,' leading to roughness and a deficiency in cultivated reason
• The regime’s predominant trait is contention and ambition, due to dominance of the spirited element

Source Quotes

Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said.

True, he said. In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former. True.

True. But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes.

Yes. Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said.

That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil.

Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,—the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said.

Key Concepts

• the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities.
• In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former.
• in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar.
• men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs
• they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father
• they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music.
• one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,—the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element.

Context

From the genesis of timocracy, Socrates delineates its institutional continuities and deviations from the best regime and ties its ethos to the spirited part of the soul.

Perspectives

Plato

Diagnoses timocracy as a mixed constitution: institutional resemblances mask an ethos corrupted by disdain for philosophy and an undercurrent of money-love.

Socrates

Warns that prioritizing warlike spiritedness and sidelining music/philosophy yields endemic factionalism, secret greed, and perpetual conflict.