[457c]
and have not been quite swept1 away by
it in ordaining that our guardians and female guardians must have all
pursuits in common, but that in some sort the argument concurs with itself
in the assurance that what it proposes is both possible and
beneficial.” “It is no slight wave that you are thus
escaping.” “You will not think it a great2 one,” I said, “when you have seen the
one that follows.” “Say on then and show me,”
said he. “This,” said I, “and all that
precedes has for its sequel, in my opinion, the following law.”
“What? “That these women shall all be common3 to all the men,
1 Cf. Aeschylus Septem, in fine.
2 For this form of exaggeration Cf. on 414 C, 339 B.
3 On the whole topic cf. Introduction p. xxxiv, Lucian, Fugitivi 18οὐκ εἰδότες ὅπως ὁ ἱερὸς ἐκεῖνος ἠξίου κοινὰς ἡγεῖσθαι τὰς γυναῖκας, Epictetus fr. 53, p. 21, Rousseau, Emile, v: “je ne parle point de cette prétendue communauté de femmes dont le reproche tant répété prouve que ceux qui le lui font ne l'ont jamais lu.” But Rousseau dissents violently from what he calls “cette promiscuité civile qui confond partout les deux sexes dans les mêmes emplois.” Cf. further the denunciations of the Christian fathers passim, who are outdone by De Quincey's “Otaheitian carnival of licentious appetite, connected with a contempt of human life which is excessive even for paganism.” Most of the obvious parallels between Plato and Aristophanes'Ecclesiazusae follow as a matter of course from the very notion of communal marriage and supply no evidfence for the dating of a supposed earlier edition of the whole or a part of the Republic. In any case the ideas of the Republic might have come to Aristophanes in conversation before publication; and the Greeks knew enough of the facts collected in such books as Westermarck's Marriage, not to be taken altogether by surprise by Plato's speculations. Cf. Herodotus iv. 104, and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 20. Cf. further Adam's exhaustive discussion in the appendix to this book, Grube, “The Marriage Laws in Plato's Republic,”Classical Quarterly, 1927, pp. 95 ff., Teichmüller, Literarische Fehden, i. p. 19 n., and the more recent literature collected in Praechter-Ueberweg, 12th ed. i. p. 207, Pöhlmann, Geschichte der Sozialenfrage und des Sozialsmus in der antiken Welt, ii. p. 578, Pohlenz, Aus Platon's Werdezeit, pp. 225-228, C. Robert, Hermes lvii. pp. 351 ff.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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