74 PLATO
by preparing cereal from barley and flour from wheat, baking the latter and shaping the for-
mer by hand, and when they’ve set out fine cakes of barley meal and loaves of wheat bread
on some sort of straw or clean leaves, reclining on leafy beds spread smooth with yew and
myrtle, they and their children will feast themselves, drinking wine to top it off, while
crowned with wreaths and singing hymns to the gods, joining with each other pleasurably,
and not producing children beyond their means, being cautious about poverty or war.”
And Glaucon broke in, saying “It looks like you’re making your men have a feast
without any delicacies.”
“That’s true,” I said. “As you say, I forgot that they’ll have delicacies too, salt obvi-
ously, as well as olives and cheese, and they’ll boil up the sorts of roots and greens that are
cooked in country places. And as sweets we’ll doubtless set out for them some figs and
chickpeas and beans, and at the fire they’ll roast myrtle berries and acorns, while sipping
wine in moderation. And in this way it’s likely that, going through life in peace combined
with health and dying in old age, they’ll pass on another life of this sort to their offspring.”
And he said, “And if you were making provisions for a city of pigs, Socrates,
what would you fatten them on besides this?”
“But how should they be provided for, Glaucon?” I said.
“With the very things that are customary,” he said. “I assume they’ll lie back on
couches so they won’t get uncomfortable, and take their meals from tables, and have
exactly those delicacies and sweets that people do now.”
“Okay, I understand,” I said. “We’re examining, it seems, not just how a city
comes into being, but a city that lives in luxury. And maybe that’s not a bad way to do
it, since by examining that kind of city we might quickly spot the way that justice and
injustice take root in cities. Now it seems to me though that the true city is the one we’ve
gone over, just as it’s a healthy one. But if you want us also to look in turn at an infected
city, nothing prevents it. For these things, it seems, aren’t sufficient for some people,
and neither is this way of life, but couches and tables and the other furnishings will be
added, and especially delicacies as well as perfumed ointments and incense and harem
girls and pastries, and each of these in every variety. And so it’s no longer the necessi-
ties we were speaking of at first—houses, cloaks, and shoes—that have to be put in
place, but painting and multicolored embroidery have to be set in motion, and gold and
ivory and all that sort of thing have to be acquired, don’t they?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Isn’t there a need then to make the city bigger again? Because that healthy one
isn’t sufficient any longer, but is already filled with a mass of things and a throng of
people, things that are no longer in the cities for the sake of necessity, such as all the
hunters as well as the imitators [i.e., artists], many of whom are concerned with shapes
and colors, many others with music, and also the poets and their assistants, the reciters,
actors, dancers, theatrical producers, and craftsmen for all sorts of gear, including
makeup for women and everything else. And we’ll especially need more providers of
services, or doesn’t it seem there’ll be a need for tutors, wet nurses, nannies, beauticians,
barbers, and also delicacy-makers and chefs? Furthermore, there’ll be an extra need
for pig farmers; this job wasn’t present in our earlier city because there was no need for
it, but in this one there’s the extra need for this too. And there’ll be a need for a great
multitude of other fattened livestock too, if one is going to eat them. Isn’t that so?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“Then won’t we be much more in need of doctors when people live this way
instead of the earlier way?”
“Very much so.”cde373a
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