MARK MOESmentions the heroes as eating sweet desserts (404b). Glaucon agrees to
Socrates’ suggestion that a lifestyle centered upon such luxuries makes
one’s body unhealthy. Then Socrates teases Glaucon with gentle comic
irony: “If you think that is right, my friend, then you must not really
approve, as you seem to [wJ~ e[oika~], of the Syracusan’s table or of the
Sicilian’s subt ly sea soned dishes [404d1– 3]... or of Corinthian call-girls
[d5]... or of Attic pastries.” Glaucon says he disapproves of all of them.
Of course there is a dramatic irony expressed in this exchange,
which becomes apparent when it is read in light of that earlier ex-
change between Socrates and Glaucon in book 2, at 372a– 373a.^29 There
Socrates describes the healthy povli~ whose members meet one anoth-
er’s basic needs, feast (eujwchvsantai, 372b6) with their children, hymn
the gods, and live happily without a life of constant luxury and sybaritic
pleasure.^30 In that povli~ neither e[rw~ nor qumov~ operates in the unruly
and dysfunctional way in which it operates in Socrates’ account of the
divided soul in book 4. But no sooner does Socrates fi nish his account
of the healthy povli~ than Glaucon shows his distaste for it and emphati-
cally calls it a “city of pigs.” From that point on, the conversation turns
into a discussion of how to constitute and preserve a sick povli~ more
to Glaucon’s liking. Glaucon misses the signifi cance of the turn, and
Socrates’ task becomes that of showing him a way out of his dimly un-
derstood predicament. An important move in carrying out that task
is made when Socrates conducts the discussion of his fi rst gymnastic
proposal.
The Second ProposalLet us turn to Socrates’ second proposal, articulated and defended at
404e– 408c and 409e– 410b. The proposal is that doctors in the povli~
imitate the Asclepiads before Herodicus by not practicing “this sort of
modern medicine that plays nursemaid to diseases” (th/ paidagwgikh/
twn noshmavtwn tauvth/ th/ nun ijatrikh/, 406a5– 6), which wears people
out treating the symptoms of diseases that it will not cure.^31 Herodicus,
the physician who introduced this modern sort of medicine, was a physi-
cal trainer who “mixed gymnastic with medicine” (meivxa~ gumnastikh;n
ijatrikh/, 406a8– 9). In line with what he said in the Gorgias passage men- tioned above, Socrates is proposing that gumnastikhv should map out and promote a virtuous and healthy way of life or politeiva for citizens t hat prevent s d i sea ses f rom t a k i ng hold i n t he fi rst place. It should not be concerned with the regulation and treatment of diseases in either povli~ or yuchv or swma. He is thereby implicitly reproaching Glaucon again for
those attitudes that motivated him to agree to train a political elite to