City

Use in the book

The city is first the arena of Alcibiades' hoped-for distinction and power. He expects to show the Athenians his unprecedented worth and become greatest among them before extending his influence elsewhere (105a–c). Socrates turns that aspiration into a question about qualifications: what civic business will he advise on, and what knowledge entitles him to do so? The city's assembly does not convert general prestige into competence. It seeks the relevant expert when questions concern building or health, and war and peace require a standard of judgment too.

Alcibiades initially treats other Athenian politicians as his rivals. Socrates's ship comparison recasts them as potential collaborators, with the opposing cities' leaders as the actual competitors (119d–120a2). This is part of the strategy for enlarging his sense of what preparation requires. Yet the city itself is also dangerous: flatterers seek its favor without truly ruling it (120b), and love of the people can corrupt capable men (132a).

When political excellence is directly examined, the city is defined through relations among persons. Its inhabitants have dealings with one another, make use of one another, and participate in political life (125c–e2). The “use” formulation is not allowed to suffice: ships and choruses also coordinate persons. Alcibiades must identify what distinguishes civic rule and how it improves those who share in the community. He proposes good counsel, ordering and preservation, friendship, and concord, but cannot give a consistent account.

At 133e–134c2 the requirement of self-knowledge is extended to civic affairs. Someone ignorant of his own affairs cannot understand those of others or cities, so cannot become a statesman; his mistakes harm those for whom he acts. Civic happiness is therefore not secured by fortifications, a fleet, dockyards, population, or size without virtue. Alcibiades must share virtue with citizens, and acquire it himself before claiming to impart it. The city and individual become parallel recipients of justice and temperance rather than unrestricted authority.

The last line makes the civic setting irreducible to an abstract analogy. Socrates fears the city's strength will overpower both him and Alcibiades (135e). The community that needs virtuous government can also undermine the education necessary for it. This does not resolve into a general instruction to abandon politics. Socrates has been trying to prepare the young man to enter it properly, but he doubts whether their shared undertaking can survive its pressures. The city is therefore simultaneously the object of care, the place in which judgment has public consequences, and a force able to deform its aspiring ruler.

Places to read

1. 105a–105cThe city is the first arena of Alcibiades’ ambition
2. 106c–109c23456The right to advise the city is tested by subject-specific expertise and justice
3. 119d–120b2Internal rivals are recast as allies; flatterers fail to exercise true civic rule
4. 125c–127d2345Citizens’ dealings and shared political life are examined through counsel, friendship, and concord
5. 133e–134e23Civic competence requires self-knowledge and virtue, and cities must act justly and temperately
6. 135eThe city’s strength threatens the educational undertaking

Translation in this edition

“The city's affairs,” “statesman,” and “the life of the city” render related but grammatically different expressions. “Life of the city” at 125d–e2 should not automatically become a particular “constitution.” At 134b the limiting ἄνευ ἀρετῆς, “without virtue,” is essential to the criticism of walls and ships.

πόλις

Attested: πόλις (polis; 126b); πόλεως (poleōs; 135e). At 126b: The organized community whose good condition the ruler’s craft must explain. At 135e: The city as the powerful force that may overpower both speakers. Lexical identification: lemma: πόλις. See City and citizens.

πολίτης / πολιτεία / πολιτικός

Attested: πολιτείας (politeias; 125d); πολιτῶν (politōn; 127c); πολιτικός (politikos; 133e). At 125d: Shared civic life in which the people governed participate. At 127c: Citizens whose just action is expected to create friendship. At 133e: A statesman, a role excluded for someone ignorant of himself and civic affairs. Lexical identification: family label: πολίτης / πολιτεία / πολιτικός. See City and citizens.

Use in the book

The city first enters the constructive sequence through the people who are unruly and break its laws. Knowledge that punishes them rightly is called the judge’s and identified with justice. After justice and temperance are made one, Socrates says cities are well ordered when wrongdoers pay the penalty. This makes corrective justice a condition of the order under discussion.

The claim does not furnish a complete account of everything a city needs. The text does not discuss defense, resources, legislation or the selection of officials. It isolates a mode of good ordering which can be treated as knowledgeable judgment about human conduct. The statesman’s art is then identified with that same competence.

The move to a single man ordering the city brings king and tyrant into the list. The parallel question about one man ordering a household allows the argument to pass between political and domestic scales. The earlier one/many agreement has prepared this extension: the relevant knowledge is taken to apply to a single subject or many subjects. Whether changes of scale also change the required knowledge is not independently examined.

At 138e the city becomes the source of a concrete assignment. It may direct the philosopher to decide or judge something. This role differs from the philosopher necessarily being a king or sole ruler. The final responsibility can arise through a limited public commission as well as within private household life. In that assigned matter, appearing second or third is called shameful.

Thus the city is both the setting for the definition of justice and one of the communities in which philosophical competence is tested. The dialogue’s negative conclusion about crafts does not remove philosophy from practical civic affairs; it relocates the demand for authoritative judgment within them.

Places to read

1. 138bαἱ πόλεις εὖ οἰκοῦνται — The relevant political result is a city’s being well ordered.
2. 138bὅταν οἱ ἀδικοῦντες δίκην διδῶσιν — Wrongdoers’ paying the penalty gives the corrective criterion.
3. 138eἡ πόλις τι προστάττῃ διακρίνειν ἢ δικάζειν — The city can entrust a definite decision or judgment to the philosopher.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s Key Words explicitly gloss dikēn didonai as “pay the penalty.” Its singular noun inside the idiom does not mean that all punishments are one kind, and no amount or procedure is stated. The rhetorical concentration on penalty should not be inflated into a detailed penal constitution.

Use in the book

The father's report first distinguishes movement into town from the home deme: Theages' peers come down to the asty and repeat arguments that excite his ambition (121d). The town is thus a source of intellectual exposure, although the text does not say where those arguments originated or that all urban influence is corrupting.

The city later becomes the proposed domain of the wisdom the boy wants. Asked which human beings are governed, he answers “those in the city” (124a). Socrates points out that the sick are included there, so medicine has not yet been adequately distinguished. Theages clarifies that he means the others as well. The exchange concerns extension: a category can include a narrower group without being defined by that group's specialized condition.

Socrates develops the comprehensive answer through craftsmen and non-craftsmen, women and men (124b–c). The enumeration makes the desired authority wider than coordination of one occupation. It should not be read as a historical claim that every listed person possessed Athenian citizenship or shared identical political rights. The explicit women-and-men formulation describes the population ruled, not the franchise.

The subsequent rulers govern these same broad categories. From their shared subjects Socrates moves toward the title tyrant. Theages' later distinction between forced and willing rule exposes why the extension alone is inadequate. The same collection of people may fall under different modes of authority. Calling the comprehensive competence political therefore requires more analysis than adding every occupational group together.

At 125e–126a the wording changes to citizens, and at 127d Socrates describes the proposed educational outcome as becoming a good citizen. These formulations register different perspectives on civic ambition: governing the community, holding public standing, and being a good member of it. The dialogue does not explicitly prove that success at the first entails the last. Its vocabulary leaves that normative problem visible rather than solving it through the word polis.

Places to read

1. 121dεἰς τὸ ἄστυ καταβαίνοντες — Peers travel into the town
2. 124aτῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει — Theages gives the city as the desired domain
3. 124bτῶν ἰδιωτῶν καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ ἀνδρῶν — The enumeration reaches private persons and both sexes
4. 124eτῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει συμπάντων — The comprehensive population underlies the tyranny inference
5. 125eπάντων … τῶν πολιτῶν — Socrates reformulates the ambition in terms of all citizens
6. 127dπολίτην ἀγαθὸν γενέσθαι — Becoming a good citizen is the proposed benefit

Translation in this edition

“Town” for asty and “city” for polis retain the early spatial distinction. “Private persons” for idiōtai avoids the modern pejorative sense of “idiots.” The translation's alternation between “men” and “citizens” follows different Greek words and should not be normalized into one political category in an index.

Alone — μόνος (monos)

μόνος (monos)

Alone. Theages specifies that the sick are included but not the sole group he means. Attested: μόνον (124a). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

City — πόλις (polis)

πόλις (polis)

City. The proposed comprehensive civic domain of the desired wisdom. Attested: πόλει (124a). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Human beings — ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos)

ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos)

Human beings. Theages' first broad specification of the people his desired wisdom would govern. Attested: ἀνθρώπων (123e). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Men — ἀνήρ (anēr)

ἀνήρ (anēr)

Men. Men are paired with women in the comprehensive enumeration. Attested: ἀνδρῶν (124b). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Private persons — ἰδιώτης (idiōtēs)

ἰδιώτης (idiōtēs)

Private persons. Non-specialist or private people contrasted with craftsmen; no modern pejorative meaning is intended. Attested: ἰδιωτῶν (124b). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Town — ἄστυ (asty)

ἄστυ (asty)

Town. The urban center into which the peers travel. Attested: ἄστυ (121d). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Women — γυνή (gynē)

γυνή (gynē)

Women. Women are expressly included among the governed population, without a claim about franchise. Attested: γυναικῶν (124b). The city and the reach of comprehensive rule.

Not these alone (contextual phrase)

124a: οὐ τούτων λέγω μόνον. Theages does not exclude the sick from the political population; he denies that only they are meant. Negated monon removes the restriction on scope. This matters because the craft sequence leads toward all the city's people, not toward a class emptied of every craft's recipients. Its breadth still leaves manner and consent undetermined. See City and universal rule.

Use in the book

Simonides pairs city and mortal in asserting that excellence comes through the gods. The parallel treats a community as capable of excellence just as an individual is. A narrow rendering as fortification or townscape would miss the collective ethical subject.

Places to read

1. I.1.10City and individual are paired as recipients of divinely aided excellence.

Translation in this edition

“City” is familiar, with its communal sense made clear.

Use in the book

The city of childhood seems built in Heaven because ordinary civic features are received as gifts. Gates first appear to be the world's limit, then open onto the surprising glory of trees. That local experience does not remain a closed enclosure. In the later scene of fear in an empty field, the unseen presence of cities and kingdoms helps restore the sense of a populated and providentially sustained world. The contemplative traveller likewise seeks flourishing cities as an analogy for finding abundant objects of knowledge and delight. Cities are therefore neither merely corrupt markets nor merely heavenly emblems; their meaning depends on the life and relations apprehended within them.

Places to read

1. III.3Gates, streets, people, and the temple form the remembered city’s Edenic appearance.
2. III.23Unseen cities and kingdoms counter the child’s terror of isolation.
3. III.52A traveller’s choice of flourishing cities illustrates the search for fruitful intellectual objects.

In this edition

The primary childhood passage says “the city” without naming it. Identifying the historical city requires biographical evidence outside this meditation and is not necessary to its lexical meaning.