Similarities between ancient Greek philosophy and Indian philosophy have long been recognized and are usually ascribed to East-West contact. However, when similarities are recognized between Greek and Indian poetic diction or, more generally, between the myths and the poetry of the two cultures, they are often ascribed to Indo-European common origin; and one asks whether the same explanation could apply in philosophy. The two types of explanation are not incompatible, for a remote common origin could have been followed by one or more periods of interaction. Nevertheless, it is worth seeing how far an explanation of common origin can be pressed before falling back on the explanation of contact.
Contact apparently provides an easier explanation, in two senses. From a logical point of view, it operates primarily with only two cultural entities—East and West (plus any intermediaries one favours), rather than three—East, West and the ancient Common Origin (whenever and wherever it existed). Historically too, a contact theory fits more easily with the standard histories of ideas in the two areas. Being written by specialists in one or other area, rather than by comparativists, these histories often simply ignore East-West similarities; it is easier to maintain traditional disciplinary practices than to envisage the rewriting implied by a common-origin theory. Influence from eastern neighbours is well entrenched in the historiography of Greek philosophy,Footnote 1 and is no doubt relevant; but it is not all that is relevant.
The two approaches also differ in their postulates. Contact theory has to envisage sages communicating deliberately in particular languages at particular times and places (less easy than it may seem!), while common-origin theory has to suppose something like a proto-philosophy, analogous to the proto-language of the linguists. The term ‘proto-philosophy’, applied to such a remote period, will seem to some counter-intuitive, excessively precise, even a misuse of words; but can we be sure? Georges Dumézil (1898–1986), the dominant Indo-European cultural comparativist of the last century, saw himself as studying ‘le cadre d'un système de pensée, une explication du monde, bref une théologie et une philosophie ou, si l'on préfère, une idéologie’.Footnote 2
Dumézil first glimpsed his trifunctional theory of Indo-European ideology in 1938, and soon afterwards concluded his first holistic presentation of the theory by briefly discussing two triads close to the heart of Plato's Republic. He compared the three classes or estates of Plato's Callipolis (ideal city-state) and the three components of Plato's individual soul with certain triads in classical Hindu thought.Footnote 3 Citing the three-guṇa doctrine, which links macrocosm, mesocosm (that is, society) and microcosm, he suggested that Callipolis is, ‘in the strictest sense, an Indo-European reminiscence’. He returned to the topic sporadically during the 1950s and in his great trilogy on myth and epic.Footnote 4
The trifunctional theory of Indo-European ideology has by now become thoroughly embedded in comparativist literature. However, although still widely used, the theory is open to objections, at least some of which can be answered by recognizing a more comprehensive schema. The pentadic schema of my title subsumes the triadic one, subjecting it to slight tweaking, and is supported by a substantial number of comparisons, taken from across the Indo-European speaking world. But controversies surrounding the common-origin theory may have made it seem difficult and may have deterred exploration. It is particularly regrettable that the polymathic Martin West, though well aware of the Indo-European background to the Greek world, effectively ignored trifunctional theory, and consequently omitted parts of the field (including Roman pseudo-history and the Mahābhārata).Footnote 5
The present paper, written by an Indo-European cultural comparativist, operates within narrow parameters. Within Greek philosophy, the paper is limited to Plato and, within his œuvre, to his best-known text. Indian ideas are referred to in passing, but the aim is not to compare Greek and Indian philosophy head-on (as is sometimes done).Footnote 6 It is to examine the Republic in the light of an already-formulated theory of Indo-European ideology. I argue that Plato's text is deeply influenced—‘pervaded’ is probably not too strong—by this ideological heritage. How the heritage reached him (and/or Socrates) is not clear. Presumably the channels were oral, but whether they were Pythagorean, Orphic, Presocratic, other or a mix of these will require separate investigation.
1. THE PENTADIC IDEOLOGY
To judge from the comparative evidence, early Indo-European speakers organized much of their thinking and practice into five categories, using the resulting pentadic sets in many different contexts.Footnote 7 One important context was the social division of labour (real or ideal), from which the categories gained the name ‘functions’ (as in ‘trifunctional’). Another was the division of labour among supernaturals or among a subset of them. Pentadic structures are particularly salient in the context of narratives (myth, epic, pseudohistory, etc.), but have been recognized in an indefinite range of other contexts, including cosmology, ritual and law.
The most generally useful way to conceptualize the ideology seems to be as a triadic core bracketed by two ‘extremes’. Viewed as a whole, the scheme constitutes a hierarchy in which the extremes rank first and last, or top and bottom. It is theoretically unimportant whether the sequence is envisaged horizontally or vertically, or is ordered by rising or by falling rank. But in some contexts, notably in spatial and temporal ones, linear models can be replaced by circular ones, and where the hierarchy correlates with differences in size, a triangular model (or a pyramid/ziggurat) may be helpful.
The three core categories and their ranking will sound familiar to readers of Dumézil or of Dumézilians, from whom the numerical nomenclature has been adapted. F1, the first function, relates most generally to cognition—to knowledge and intelligence, often applied to dealings with gods and the sacred, but also to dealings among humans, as in judicial contexts. F2 relates to physical force, especially as used in war. Though harder to summarize, F3 relates to prosperity and fecundity along with their conditions and consequences—food and drink, health and peace, beauty and pleasure, and large numbers, as of flocks, children or humans in general. The two higher functions sometimes stand together in opposition to F3, for instance as élite to masses.
The two extremes are defined as other, outside or beyond relative to the core and, partly because of this shared ‘outsider’ quality, they share a single numerical label. However, as we know, their respective position within the hierarchy puts them in polar contrast. F4+ pertains to what is supremely valued and often in some sense transcendent, while F4– pertains to what is devalued. Representatives of F4– are present in a context, but are typically somehow excluded (tabooed, feared, rejected, despised, etc.). A particularly simple application of the schema to social structure would have, as core, F1 priests, F2 warriors and F3 producers; and as extremes, an F4+ king (transcendent in being responsible for his society, even identified with it, as a whole), and F4– slaves (excluded from the rights of freeborn citizens). Apart from their shared otherness relative to the core, this application does not illustrate a connection between the two extremes, but it may serve as a mnemonic.
In the simplest case, then, a manifestation of the pentadic ideology is recognized when one or more sources present five parallel elements, one after another, in a hierarchical sequence, without interruptions, each element corresponding to one of the definitions given above. The definitions have been arrived at by analysing many contexts—about a hundred—taken from different areas of the Indo-European speaking world, mostly non-Greek, often Indian; they have not been adjusted so as to facilitate application to the Republic. As it happens, in this particular text many manifestations do not conform to the simplest case.
Departures from the simplest case can be of various kinds. More than one element may fall under one heading: for instance, the third function is often represented by twins or comparable paired figures, so that six elements fall under the five headings. Conversely, a heading may be unrepresented, being irrelevant or inappropriate to the context (for instance because tabooed) or having dropped out in the course of history. This can apply either to core or to extremes.
The pentadic ideology barely survives in the modern world, so, in one way or another, over the millennia, it must have undergone transformation or retreat; and the Republic must represent a particular moment in this massive long-term process. But I can ignore this and related issues. How much was Plato innovating? How conscious was he of the ideology as a whole, or was he merely developing, or playing with, bits and pieces of ideas he found in the tradition? Did he write the dialogue at one time, and did he write all of it? Interesting as such questions are, I do not address them.
2. THE REGIMES
Let us begin with a context that is emphatically fivefold. At the end of Book 4 (445c) Plato starts presenting his typology of political constitutions or regimes, and of the characters of those who dominate them, but he is interrupted in 449b and only picks up the theme again in 543c. He recognizes the existence of an indefinite number of regimes, but thinks that only five types merit discussion. Leaving Callipolis aside for the moment, let us recall the four degenerate types.
The first to be discussed is timocracy or timarchy. This regime favours as power-holders simple and spirited types who prefer war to peace, who admire and enjoy fighting (547e–548a). They base their claims on their military records and their love of gymnastics and hunting (549a). The regime is characterized above all by love of victory and honour (φιλοτιμίαι), and is clearly a strong candidate for interpretation as F2 (it remains a ‘candidate’ until the other members of its set are shown to fall under the other functions).
After timarchy come oligarchy and then democracy, which I shall treat together. Oligarchy is founded on the valuation of wealth; society is polarized into rich and poor, and the rich govern (550c). It is as if oligarchy promoted Plutus (the blind god of wealth) to become leader of the dance (554b), and, although Plato does not use the word, the regime could be called plutocracy. As for democracy, the liberty it allows for people to pursue their own desires and the resulting variety of characters give it an attractive appearance, like a dress ornamented with lots of gay colours, such as would attract women and children (557c). Its variety also makes the society like a bazaar or emporium (παντοπώλιον, 557d). At least in the short term, the way of life is wonderfully pleasant (ἡδεῖα, 558a). It will accept as its rulers any who claim to be well disposed to the multitude (μόνον εὔνους εἶναι τῷ πλήθει, 558bc). Society is not only anarchic and variegated but also pleasant or agreeable (ἡδεῖα again). The discussion (558d) quickly turns to the topic of pleasures (ἡδοναί, a noun related to ἡδύς) and desires (ἐπιθυμίαι), which are classified into necessary (plain food and drink) and unnecessary (wasteful, luxurious). While the oligarch saves money by confining himself to the former, the democrat indulges both types indiscriminately (561a).
While oligarchy, with its emphasis on wealth, can clearly fall under F3, democracy, with its emphasis on pleasure, qualifies equally well. The similes are themselves suggestive: the ornamented dress suggests both beauty and expenditure of wealth, and the bazaar implies economic activity. The references to multiplicity and variety may recall the multiple aspects of F3, which sometimes extends to the population as a whole. Examples include, in Latin, the link between the F3 god Quirinus and the Quirites or, in Sanskrit, the occasional appearance of the Viśve-devāḥ (‘All-Gods’) in the F3 slot (following unambiguous representatives of F1–2);Footnote 8 moreover, the very term ‘democracy’ points to the population at large, including the dēmos or masses. In any case, here, as so often, F3 is represented by paired entities.
The two regimes also come together in Plato's discussion of the beehive. Oligarchs are compared to the drones in a hive (552c), and those without stings, who become beggars, are contrasted to those with stings, who become criminals. The comparison also bears on the genesis of democrats (559c–d): the transformation of the oligarch's son begins when he tastes the drones’ honey (μέλι). Moreover, under democracy the class of drones provides most of the leaders, who extract their honey from the rich (564d–e). The Indo-European comparativist literature contains various hints associating honey (or mead) with the third function, but they need systematic study.
Tyranny, which ‘differs from all the others’, is the fourth and last illness of the city (544c). The imagery is dramatic. The transformation of protector into tyrant recalls a myth told at the temple of Zeus Lycaeus in Arcadia: a man who tastes human flesh mixed with that of other sacrificial victims becomes a wolf, and a tyrant gets an unholy taste for the blood of his relatives (565d–e). To pay his bodyguard, he will plunder temple treasures (568d), and may even use violence against his own father. His desires may be wild, bestial and shameless, prompting intercourse with a mother, deity or animal (571c–d). Indeed, the wicked wizards (δεινοὶ μάγοι, 572e), who want to corrupt him and turn him into a tyrant, develop lust as his master passion—something like a great winged drone. Lust is combined with drunkenness and madness (573c).
So, tyranny explicitly stands apart from the other regimes and is associated with cannibalism, violation of obligations to gods and relatives, incest, bestiality and madness. These associations are not merely devalued, they point ‘beyond the pale’; they carry us outside the realm of human order and social normality. Despots represent the ultimate in injustice (576a).
Tyranny is linked not only with outrageous behaviour but also, in several ways, with slavery. The great majority of the people, including their most respectable elements, are reduced to dishonourable and miserable slavery (577c). Similarly, within the individual, the best mental elements are enslaved to the minority of utterly corrupt and frenzied ones (577d). But if the ordinary citizen is miserable, the tyrant himself is even more so. His well-founded fears confine him to the prison (δεσμωτηρίῳ) of his home, where he lives like a woman. Dependent on his bodyguard of scoundrels, he is a slave and parasite (579).
Being set apart, monstrous, associated with slavery and prison, tyranny qualifies well as F4–. The misery of this last regime contrasts sharply with the emphasis on the pleasures or apparent pleasures of democracy. Nevertheless, the gap between the F3 representative and the F4– representative is less emphatic than in many manifestations of the pentadic ideology. The imagery of the hive forms a bridge of sorts, and the master passion (ἔρωτα … προστάτην, 572e) grows from the desires emphasized in the account of the F3 regime. It is as if the text were torn between magnifying the gap and minimizing it.
The same tension is detectable at the top of the hierarchy, where the gap is between F4+ and F1. At first sight, the core functions may seem sufficient: Callipolis is governed by philosopher-rulers whose cognitive training makes them excellent representatives of F1. But when the five regimes are first introduced, before the long digression, we read that the first ‘can be called by either of two names. If there is a single individual who stands out among the rulers, it would be called monarchy; if several, aristocracy’ (445d). Plato claims that the two constitute a single type, since it makes little difference whether the government is by a single philosopher-ruler or by a small class of them. Elsewhere too, he presents the essence of Callipolis as lying in the fact that power is held by true philosophers, ‘whether by a plurality or by just one’ (ἢ πλείους ἢ εἷς, 540d); and at the end of his account of tyranny (587) he contrasts the unhappy tyrant with the happy philosopher-king (ὁ βασιλεύς). On the other hand, monarchy and aristocracy are usually felt to be quite distinct regimes, and although the difference is minimized by the dialogue, it is not totally effaced. In so far as it is present, it represents the gap between F4+ king and F1 philosopher.
Pentadic theory suggests two further points. First, since Plato has two representatives of F3, his near fusion of the F4+ and F1 regimes enables him to retain the total of five types. Second, as often, links exist between the two extremes of the hierarchy. Both of the fillers of F4—the two men (τοῖν ἀνδροῖν, 587e; note the dual), just and unjust, valued king and devalued tyrant—contrast, as individuals, with the groups who rule the four core regimes. They are also linked in regard to relative happiness: the tyrant is 729 times unhappier than the king. This curious statement is somewhat vaguely linked to conceptions of time (588a), but commentators offer an explanation. Philolaus, the Pythagorean philosopher, held that there were 364½ days in the year and (assuming the same number of nights) 729 = 364½ x 2.Footnote 9 When the pentadic ideology is applied to the year,Footnote 10 F4– is arguably represented by the old year (to be driven out) and F4+ by the New Year (to be welcomed); it is as if New Year's Eve were worse by one whole year than the previous New Year's Day. So, Plato, or the learned tradition he is following, seems to be homologizing the sequence of regimes and the annual cycle.
3. CLASSES AND METALS
The social hierarchy of Callipolis appears to be straightforwardly trifunctional. From above down, the classes are philosopher kings (specialists in cognition, so F1), auxiliaries (military, so F2), and farmers and artisans (broadly speaking, producers, so paired as F3). Early in the Republic, the first two are treated together as guardians; such an association of F1 and F2 representatives resembles the occasional linking of Indian priests and warriors as ubhe vīrye, the two forces.Footnote 11 But from a pentadic viewpoint this interpretation is too simple. As we saw above, our text sometimes approximates extreme and core functions, so that a regime with a king (normally F4+) is assimilated to a regime ruled by F1 philosophers, and the F4– tyrant shares more than one expects with the F3 democrat. Does what applies to regimes apply also to classes?
Dumézil recognized that the position of artisans posed a problem for Indo-European comparativists.Footnote 12 Whatever had been their position, real or ideal, in proto-Indo-European times, in the historical material he found differing modes of articulation with the trifunctional social structure—among them, incorporation in the F3 social class (which would fit a trifunctional reading of the Republic), or addition at the bottom of the hierarchy as a fourth social class (as in some Iranian sources). Viewed trifunctionally, this addition is historically secondary, like that of śūdra at the bottom of the Indian varṇa hierarchy; but in pentadic perspective a bottom-of-hierarchy category is present from the start, and artisans are among its potential fillers. This is not the place to study artisans across the Indo-European world; let it suffice that in the Indian caste system they belong among Dalits or ‘Untouchables’ in the F4– sector.Footnote 13 Thus, in blurring the artisan-farmer distinction, Plato seems again to be minimizing the gap between F4– and F3.
Similarly, the hierarchy in Callipolis is supported by a Foundation Myth, sometimes called the Noble Lie (414–15): fashioned and reared within Mother Earth, all the citizens were brought into the world by their mother when they were ready; hence all are siblings. But when the god moulded them, he mixed gold into the composition of the future rulers, silver into the auxiliaries, and “iron and bronze into the farmers and remaining artisans” (τοῖς τε γεωργοῖς καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις δημιουργοῖς). Since the metals justify the allocation of individuals to the various classes, the rulers must scrutinize the composition of children, and any of their own offspring who contain bronze or iron must be mercilessly degraded to the rank of artisan or farmer. But if the first two metals correspond to two classes (gold to rulers, silver to auxiliaries), the same should apply to the last two. The relative rank of the latter pair is clear enough, if only from Hesiod's myth of the five races (Op. 109–201): his sequence is gold (most valued race), silver, bronze, no metal (for the Heroes) and iron (degenerate contemporaries). So, although the text does not say it, the natural interpretation of the Republic is that F3 farmers correspond to bronze and F4– artisans to iron.Footnote 14
At the other end of the hierarchy, Section 2 has already shown a comparable merging between representatives of F4+ and F1: to assimilate monarchy to rule by philosophers implies assimilating royalty as a class (F4+) to specialists in wisdom (F1).
There may be more to it. Kings are not the only possible representatives of F4+, any more than artisans are of F4–. A normal Greek state has a founder and/or legislator, and Callipolis needs one no less than Sparta needs Lycurgus. Founders stand apart from and, in that sense, transcend their foundation, as creators transcend their creation. The ‘founding’ of Callipolis by Socrates and his main collaborator Glaucon is referred to in passages using ordinary vocabulary such as οἰκίζω or κατοικίζω (for example 428c, 433a), and we also read of an original legislator (νομοθέτης, 429c, 497d). When Socrates argues that the foundation of Callipolis is not impossible, he envisages founders in the plural. They are like painters using a divine model, who must start with a clean surface on which to work (501a). But a plurality of painters working on the same surface could meet problems, and some translators present the painter/legislator in the singular.Footnote 15 Moreover, Plato himself claims that a single philosopher would be sufficient to found the city (502b). So, the gap between individual founder/legislator and philosophers who rule the ideal state thereafter is probably a second expression of the ideological gap between F4+ and F1.
4. STRUCTURE OF THE DIALOGUE
This section deals not with a particular theme or passage but with the overall organization of the Republic. I am not claiming that the dialogue falls precisely into five sections, but simply that the general course of the argument shows the influence of the pentadic ideology. Let us start with the core of the book, which is formed by the construction of Callipolis.
Having decided to seek justice in the community rather than in the individual (368–9), Socrates discusses the origin of the community. The origin lies in our needs, above all in our need for food, provided by a farmer. Next comes our need for shelter and then for clothing, provided by artisans—a builder, weaver, shoemaker and one or two others. ‘The minimal state would thus consist of four or five men’ (369d). Already hints of hierarchy appear: farmers (F3) have priority over artisans (F4–), who may themselves be ranked (builder above weaver). We soon meet further specialities—smiths and the like, stockmen, merchants, ship-owners, sailors, shop-keepers, wage-labourers, which renders the rudimentary state more or less complete (πλήρωμα, τελέα, 371e). So far the emphasis has been firmly on economics. Plato, as we know, mainly merges artisans with farmers, so we have a stretch of argument that could qualify as F3.
After a brief account of the rudimentary society, Adeimantus is replaced by Glaucon as Socrates’ interlocutor (372c), and we read of the luxuries of a more developed community. New professions and new demands arise, leading to the appearance of warfare (πολεμήσομεν 373e). War demands military specialists, namely the guardians (φύλακες, 374d). The specialists in production recede from view, and the text concentrates on the guardians and their education. The focus on the guardians’ physical strength, courage, vigour, etc. points towards F2.
The next shift in orientation begins in 412b, with the division of guardians into rulers proper (ἄρχοντες) and auxiliaries (ἐπίκουροι). It is now the turn of the latter to recede from view, giving way to the rulers and their philosophic education. Philosophers fall under F1.
Thus the three stages in constructing Callipolis fit the core functions taken in ascending order. So, is there, towards the start of the text, something devalued, and towards the end, something transcendent—both extremes being separated from the core by a degree of otherness? Scholars have in fact often regarded the first and last books as heterogeneous parts of the dialogue. Some maintain that Book 1 (‘Thrasymachus’) was written earlier than the rest, and Book 10 has been described as a disturbing ‘excrescence’ tacked on to an argument that was essentially completed in Book 9.Footnote 16 Such approaches express the otherness in terms of date of composition, but one can also look to values. The Republic starts in the everyday world: after his excursion from Athens to the festival at Piraeus, Socrates is returning. It is not the excursion as such that is devalued but, in Plato's eyes, the mundane world in which it takes place. The work ends with another journey: Er's visit to the Other World transcends the boundaries of ordinary experience, taking us into the valued realm of mythic truth. In other words, whatever the history of the written text, an F4– opening leads via an F3–1 philosophic core to an F4+ close.
The argument can be pushed further. Though gods and demons may choose to intervene in the human world, normally they stand outside it. Now the very first sentence of the Republic refers to a goddess, whose festival is being celebrated for the first time in Piraeus (327a), and later (354a) we learn her name. She is Bendis—originally from Thrace.Footnote 17 The Greeks assimilated her to Artemis, the virgin goddess who hunts wild animals in forests and mountains, and often kills humans. This somewhat ‘unnatural’ figure (a female hunter, who rejects marriage) is, from the point of view of a polis, including Callipolis, an outsider as regards social role, habitat and origin. The text does not directly devalue her, but even so she is a possible candidate for F4– (cf. the Indian outsider archer-god, Rudra-Śiva).Footnote 18
A very different goddess appears at the end of the Republic (614–21). Er's journey takes him to what seems to be the cosmic axis; made of light, it is associated with a spindle and with the planetary orbits. But this spindle turns on the knees of the goddess Ananke (‘Necessity’), mother of the three Fates, who are enthroned symmetrically around her (617bc). The many uncertainties do not obscure the contrast between the centrality of Ananke and the peripherality of Bendis. Again the valuation has to be read from the context: if Bendis relates to local and datable events, Ananke relates to enduring operations of the cosmos.
Usually the two goddesses are treated separately. Thus one Platonist admits inability to explain the Book 1 reference to the Bendideion,Footnote 19 while another argues that the ‘preludes’ to Plato's dialogues foreshadow their philosophical contents.Footnote 20 Recently a comparativist has discussed Ananke and the cosmology of Er's story, but ignores Bendis.Footnote 21 The French translator suggests plausibly that, in the literary construction of the Republic, Plato intended a symmetry between its beginning and its end, but the relationship he proposes is between the Thracian goddess and the whole myth of Er the Pamphylian.Footnote 22
5. ALLEGORY OF THE LINE
If the last section tackled the largest possible scale, this one works in miniature. Book 6 ends with ‘The Line’ (509d–511e). The line, envisaged vertically, serves as an analogy for stages of cognition, putting lowest those that are least valued, clear, and true. Its four segments differ in length according to their relative value, but I pass over Plato's treatment of the ratios. I follow the ascending order used to introduce the line, rather than the descending one used by Glaucon and Socrates in their summary.
The lowest segment stands for images, such as shadows and reflections (εἰκασία). Next come the originals of the images—the realm of ordinary objects and common-sense beliefs (πίστις). Together they compose the world of appearances. Above this is the intelligible world, whose lower segment (διάνοια) represents mathematical reasoning using models from the previous stage. The top segment (νόησις) represents pure intelligence or cognition and deals only with Platonic Forms.
The common-sense opinions include the multiple judgements of the hoi polloi (τὰ τῶν πολλῶν πολλὰ νόμιμα, 479d), so could be F3. The two higher stages are grouped together, as F2 and F1 manifestations so often are. Of them, ‘dianoia suggests discursive thinking or reasoning from premiss to conclusion, whereas noēsis is constantly compared to the immediate act of vision and suggests rather the direct intuition or apprehension of its object’.Footnote 23 Ordinarily, an account of F2 centres on strength, force, speed and valour, but in philosophical contexts it can cover a more abstract concept of energy or dynamism—like Sanskrit rajas, the F2 guṇa in Sāṃkhya doctrine.Footnote 24 The connotation of action or activity, combined with its position in the hierarchy, makes F2 construal of dianoia just possible. As for the highest mode of cognition, it is clearly located in the F1 realm of philosophy.
Since the line has only four segments, nothing obvious corresponds to F4+; but we must look more closely. The true philosopher who contemplates the Forms tries to make himself like them (500bc), and the supreme Form is that of the Good (ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα, 505a). The highest goal seems to be ability to discern it (526e), separating it from everything else (ἀφαιρέω, 534b); but its status is controversial. Some identify it with Plato's God, the summit of his metaphysics, while others keep it as supreme within the world of Forms.Footnote 25 Accordingly, it can be envisaged either as above the top of the line or, since Plato tends to merge F4+ entities into F1, simply as the tip of the line.
6. MORAL QUALITIES AND HUMAN NATURE
Since moral qualities are embodied in the state as well as in the individual, Callipolis, being perfect, will be wise, brave, temperate and just (427e). The first two virtues clearly qualify as F1 and F2, and respectively characterized the top two classes; therefore, does the third, σωφροσύνη—temperance, moderation, discipline—represent F3 and characterize the third class? In fact, being a kind of harmony, concord or order (κόσμος), it applies to all classes, but it is also defined as the control of certain pleasures and desires/appetites (ἡδονῶν, ἐπιθυμιῶν, 430e), words which strongly suggest F3.
The remaining virtue, justice (δικαιοσύνη), demands a special hunt (432bc), and stands somewhat apart from the triad. Above all, it transcends them, being a precondition both for their initial appearance and for their continuation (433b). It consists in performing one's duties without encroaching on those of others. Regarded abstractly, it is the principle underlying the separateness of the components; without it the ideology would lack a structure in the strict sense.
A rejected or devalued virtue would make little sense, but this section of the dialogue, which starts in 427d by asking about justice and injustice (ἀδικία), ends in 434c by defining the two essentially as opposites. Injustice must represent F4–.
The discussion now turns to the individual with his tripartite soul. The components are treated in the order: appetitive (F3), reasoning (F1) and spirited (F2). Again justice consists in each performing its own task, and again the F2 representative tends to ally with its superior against its inferior (441d–444a). When justice fails, confusion sets in, producing injustice, indiscipline, cowardice, ignorance and vice of all kinds. One pentadic structure is not uncommonly nested within another, and in this list the three core items clearly represent F3–2–1 respectively. If injustice again represents F4–, the last phrase (συλλήβδην πᾶσαν κακίαν, 444b) could represent totality and hence F4+.
An F4– component of human nature appears in other guises in Book 9. Desires can be classified into necessary and unnecessary, the latter including some that are frankly illegal or immoral (παράνομοι, 571b). During sleep the rest of the soul—the reasonable, gentle and controlling part—is inactive, and the bestial and wild part (θηριῶδές τε καὶ ἄγριον, 571c) jumps to life.Footnote 26 Though such desires no doubt exist in all of us, usually they only appear in dreams; but they dominate the waking life of the tyrant (576b).
The point is reinforced towards the end of the book (588b–589b), where the human soul is compared to a composite mythic monster, such as Chimaera, Scylla or Cerberus. At first sight the image is triadic: one is to imagine a shape-changing polycephalic beast, then a lion, then a man, and combine them. The first component is multifarious (ποικίλος), and represents F3; the lion, with its strength and savagery, F2;Footnote 27 the man, endowed with reason, F1. The latter pair resemble each other in being monocephalous, and the three range in size from largest to smallest.Footnote 28 But there is more to it. Having mentally synthesized the three parts of the psyche, Glaucon is to imagine an external covering that gives the appearance of a man (588d–e). As elsewhere, the text assimilates the F4+ filler (outer man, seemingly the whole creature) with the F1 filler (the smallest part of the soul).
So, is there some filler of the F4– slot? The heads of the monster, arranged in a circle, include not only those of tame animals (ἡμέρων … θηρίων) but also of wild ones (ἀγρίων), and wildness fits the slot well (cf. the realm of Bendis and the ‘bestial’ desires). Moreover, in the fleeting comparison between the founding of Callipolis and shepherding (415d–416a, 440d) the agents involved are gods, shepherds, sheepdogs, sheep and outside enemies such as wolves—so, F4+, 1, 2, 3, 4–.
7. CONCLUSION
A direct comparison between the Republic and Indian philosophy might approach via individual concepts (class ~ varṇa, justice ~ svadharma, shadows ~ māyā, etc.); binary oppositions and triads; more elaborate hierarchies or sequences (spiritual journeys of philosopher ~ of yogin); bodies of doctrine (as Pythagoreanism ~ Sāṃkhya). But the aim here has only been to take Dumézil's notion of an Indo-European ideology, as modified by work on Indian and other material, and explore its potential for understanding the dialogue. The paper is only a sample: much else in the text calls for study in the light of pentadic theory.Footnote 29 Instances include music—both in Callipolis and in the cosmos (398–9, 617b–c); rewards for bravery and treatment of defeated enemies (468–70); the five-element allegory of the cave (514a–517c: shadows seen by prisoners, objects casting the shadows, those who move the objects, fire in the passage, outside sunlit world). The merchant Cephalus, the first interlocutor, is such a good candidate for F3 that one cannot help wondering whether the pugnacious Thrasymachus (‘Bold in Battle’) might represent F2, and Glaucon F1. Glaucon accompanied Socrates (F4+) when he went to pray to the goddess (327a), and accompanies him in most of his philosophizing, but the picture is complicated by the other participants. Such possibilities await future exploration. Meanwhile, Table 1 attempts a retrospective overview of the paper.
Rows a–d summarize the pentadic ideology, and rows 1–10 summarize the main analyses presented.
The table is only intended as suggestive; much scope remains for refinements and detailed quibbles. For instance, it conflates contexts presented by Plato as a descending hierarchy (say, rows 1 and 3) from those presented as rising (row 4), and also conflates those where extreme and core elements are clearly distinguished by Plato himself with those where the distinction is minimized by Plato but recognized by the comparativist. It follows the more-or-less arbitrary order of the paper rather than rearranging the rows in any more logical order. Individual entries are sometimes equally arbitrary: thus ‘slave’ in row d covers prisoner, enemy, demonized enemy, fiend, etc. Note that different contexts do not necessarily treat an entry in the same way: shepherds fall under F1 in row 10, but elsewhere could be F3 producers; similarly, gold (F1 in row 3) often represents F3 wealth. I suppose no ideology is free of such complications.
Despite all this, the table tries to illustrate how the pentadic ideology, summarized in rows a–d, has provided a structure that is used again and again, in a variety of contexts. The contexts range from short sections, often analogies (rows 5, 9, 10), through full-scale arguments (rows 2, 8), to the dialogue as a whole (assuming row 4 is justified). A general feature, recalling the Indian Code of Manu, is that, except in row 1, the dialogue tends to concentrate on the left end of rows (F4+ taken with F1) rather than on the right (F3 and F4–); notoriously, the Republic almost ignores slavery, and says little about farmers and artisans. No doubt it would be odd for an élite to show more interest in the bottom of a social hierarchy than in the top.
Finally, I note yet again Plato's tendency to collapse representatives of extreme functions into the core (as in rows 1, 2, 5, 9). However it is conceptualized (homogenization, contraction, focalization, etc.), the phenomenon merits a place in the (still to be written) history of Indo-European ideology/philosophy. But it also merits a place in the historiography of the topic, since it presumably contributed to Dumézil's belief that his triadic scheme was adequate.Footnote 30
