The Republic | Page 9

greatly to the humour of the scene.

The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of
dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is
greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him
more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their
throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates.
The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument.
Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once
thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon
with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two
occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates
'as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend.' From Cicero and Quintilian
and from Aristotle's Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so
ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his
name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris. Rhet.), 'thou wast ever bold
in battle,' seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude.
When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and
Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three
actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family
likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer
examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters.
Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can 'just never have enough of fechting' (cp. the
character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the
mysteries of love; the 'juvenis qui gaudet canibus,' and who improves the breed of
animals; the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full
of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of
Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life,
and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be
termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of
simplicity is 'a city of pigs,' who is always prepared with a jest when the argument offers
him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to
appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of
theatricals, or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are
several times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by
his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at
the battle of Megara (anno 456?)...The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and
the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more
demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further.
Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the
maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon
insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences,
Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of
their consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the
fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is answered that
happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect
consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and
mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and

carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the
book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the
Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the
question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more
argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue.
For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of
philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus.
Glaucon resumes his place