CHRISTOPHER P. LONGWhile the Republic is narrated by Socrates himself, his authority
is constantly undermined by playful irony. Distance here is established
by embedding the account not in a nexus of testimony with ambigu-
ous credibility, but in an atmosphere of mock coercion that constantly
runs the risk of becoming frighteningly serious. So the Republic begins,
quite literally, with Socrates being held against his will. After pointing
out that Socrates and Glaucon are outnumbered, Polemarchus says: “Be
either stronger than these men or remain.” To which Socrates responds,
“Does there not remain yet one other possibility; let us persuade you
that it is necessary for us to go” (327c9– 11). Polemarchus suggest s t hat
this is impossible if they refuse to listen, but in the end, Adeimantus and
Polemarchus do in fact use persuasion to convince Socrates to stay—
Adeimantus tempting him with a novel torch race on horseback, and
Polemarchus with the erotic possibilities of dining with many young
men. Socrates relents, though that he remains somewhat unwilling is
heard in his last statement of this opening scene: “But if it is so resolved
[eij dokei], this is how we must act” (328b3).^27 The phrase Socrates de- ploys here—eij dokei—gestures to the vocabulary the Athenian Assem-
bly used when it announced that it had passed a law.^28 Although this
decree establishes the ad hoc political community around which the ac-
tion of the Republic takes place, the founding of the polis is not without
coercion.^29 And while these opening passages obviously prefi gure the
complex set of political questions concerning the relationship between
force and justice addressed in the Republic, methodologically they intro-
duce a dimension of coercion that infuses the entire discussion of the
Republic with an aura of ambiguity.
Here again, Plato’s distancing strategy is manifest. The straight-
forward acceptance of the ideas presented in the text is undermined
by the atmosphere of coercion in which they appear. This atmosphere
is not limited to the opening scene, but pervades the entire dialogue.
Coercion already underlies Thrasymachus’ bestial attack on Socrates
in book 1 (336b; see also 354a– b). Book 2 begins with Socrates think-
ing he “has been released from the argument” only to have Glaucon
and Adeimantus pull him back to defend the just against the unjust life
(357a– b). Socrates recognizes his predicament: he is caught between
the urgent need to come to the defense of justice and the recognition
of his own incapacity to mount a defi nitive apology (368b– c). As in the
Symposium, Socrates is here shown to occupy the in-between position of
eros: he is drawn toward justice and yet aware of the fi nitude that keeps
it beyond his grasp. The entire discussion of books 2– 4 of the Republic in
which Socrates founds a series of progressively more rationally ordered
cities is determined by this erotic position. The irony is, of course, that