Book 3
417
Gold and silver, we will tell them, they have of the divine quality from the gods always in their souls, and they have no need of the metal of men nor does holiness suffer them to mingle and contaminate that heavenly possession with the acquisition of mortal gold, since many impious deeds have been done about the coin of the multitude, while that which dwells within them is unsullied. But for these only of all the dwellers in the city it is not lawful to handle gold and silver and to touch them nor yet to come under the same roofAs if the accursed and tainted metal were a polluted murderer or temple-robber. Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 2. 27 sub isdem trabibus, Antiphon v. 11. with them, nor to hang them as ornaments on their limbs nor to drink from silver and gold. So living they would save themselves and save their city.Cf. 621 B-C, and Laws692 A. But whenever they shall acquire for themselves land of their own and houses and coin, they will be house-holders and farmers instead of guardians, and will be transformed from the helpers of their fellow citizens to their enemies and masters,δεσπόται. Cf. Menexenus 238 E. and so in hating and being hated,Cf. Laws 697 D in a passage of similar import, μισοῦντες μισοῦνται. plotting and being plotted against they will pass their days fearing far more and rathermore and rather: so 396 D, 551 B. the townsmen within than the foemen without—and then even then laying the courseThe image is that of a ship nearing the fatal reef. Cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides 562. The sentiment and the heightened rhetorical tone of the whole passage recalls the last page of the Critias, with Ruskin’s translation and comment in A Crown of Wild Olive. of near shipwreck for themselves and the state. For all these reasons, said I, let us declare that such must be the provision for our guardians in lodging and other respects and so legislate. Shall we not? By all means, said Glaucon.
