[37] The passage, abbreviated, follows: “First, then, let us consider what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work in summer commonly stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the flour, making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds of yew or myrtle boughs. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and having the praises of the gods on their lips, living in sweet society, and having a care that their families do not exceed their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or war.... Of course they will have a relish,—salt, and olives, and cheese, and onions, and cabbages or other country herbs which are fit for boiling; and we shall give them a dessert of figs, and pulse, and beans, and myrtle-berries, and beech-nuts, which they will roast at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.”—Republic, 372. Cf. The Rousseauian anthropology of Laws, 679.
[38] Republic, 372-3.
[39] Much of modern criticism of democracy finds its inspiration in Plato. Cf. Bernard Shaw: “The democratic politician remains exactly as Plato described him.” Cf. also the Modern Utopia and Research Magnificent of H. G. Wells. Nietzsche’s debt to Plato will appear in a later chapter.
[40] “Omnia communia inter nos habemus, praeter mulieres.”
[41] Let us remember that a property-qualification for the vote remained in our own political system till the time of Jefferson, and has in our own day been resuscitated in some of the Southern states.
[42] Laws, 783.
[43] Republic, 403
[44] Protagoras, 322.
[45] Plato, says Cleanthes, “cursed as impious him who first sundered the just from the useful.”—Gomperz, ii, 73. Cf. Republic, 331.
[46] Edmund Gosse, Life of Henrik Ibsen, p. 100, note.