Wealth

Use in the book

The Thracian healer forbids Socrates to let anyone's wealth, good birth or beauty persuade him to bypass treatment of the soul (157b–c2). These advantages cannot override the relevant therapeutic requirement. Because Charmides is the attractive well-connected pupil before him, the instruction also bears on Socrates' own temptation to favour this particular candidate.

The dream at 173b–c includes expertly made clothing, footwear, equipment and possessions among the benefits expected from genuine craftsmen. Chrēmata here belongs to the list of produced resources, not specifically to coins or investment capital. The later question is whether such technical achievements ensure doing well and happiness. They do not automatically provide the knowledge of good and bad on which benefit is made to depend.

The dialogue thus neither denounces material resources as intrinsically bad nor certifies their sufficiency for a good life. It places inherited and acquired advantages under a more searching assessment of soul, knowledge and use.

Places to read

1. 157b–c2Wealth cannot justify bypassing the soul’s treatment
2. 173b–cExpertly made equipment and possessions form part of the dream’s technical success
3. 174b–dTechnical results remain distinct from their beneficial contribution to life

Translation in this edition

“Possessions” at 173c translates χρήματα, not a form of κτᾶσθαι. “Rich” at 157b is one member of a three-part description and should not be made the sole source of the temptation Socrates is instructed to resist.

πλούσιος

Attested: πλούσιον (plousion). Rich; material wealth is one of the advantages that must not persuade Socrates to administer the head remedy without the prior treatment of the soul. References: 157b. Lexical identification: lemma: πλούσιος. See Wealth and possessions.

σκεῦος

Attested: σκεύη (skeuē). Equipment, implements or utensils; part of the material provision imagined as well made when a society employs genuine craftsmen. References: 173b. Lexical identification: lemma: σκεῦος. See Wealth and possessions.

χρῆμα

Attested: χρήματα (chrēmata). Things one uses or possessions in this context; the reference is broader than money alone. References: 173c. Lexical identification: lemma: χρῆμα. See Wealth and possessions.

Use in the book

Wealth is initially one of Alcibiades’ real advantages, although Socrates thinks he takes least pride in it. Already at 107b wealth is set apart from expertise: the useful adviser in a particular subject is the person who knows, not the person who is rich. Poverty would not disqualify a competent doctor from advising the city. Thus financial standing is neither denied nor accepted as a universal warrant for leadership.

The royal comparison deliberately reintroduces the resource scale. Spartan holdings include land of great extent and quality, enslaved people and helots, horses and other livestock. Gold and silver are said to accumulate in private hands over generations, and the kings receive substantial receipts and tribute. The Aesopic tracks image pictures a one-way flow. Yet Spartan wealth, great beside other Greeks’, is said to be nothing beside Persian resources. The queen’s ornament districts and the numerical comparison with Deinomache and Erchia complete the effect. These are Socrates’ emphatic claims within persuasion, not figures supported by an independent statistical inquiry in the dialogue.

The later argument changes the issue from how much one has to what the object of one’s care is. At 131b–c2 tending money is described as tending things still further removed than one’s own body. The money-maker consequently is not “doing his own business” in the newly sharpened sense. This is a joke on ownership language, not the legal assertion that he is handling somebody else’s property. It depends on the provisional identification of the person with soul and the separation of a person, what belongs to that person, and what serves those belongings.

At 132c bodily and monetary care can be entrusted to others. At 134b becoming rich does not free someone from wretchedness; becoming temperate does. The civic analogue is equally important: walls, ships, dockyards, numbers and size do not secure happiness without virtue. The conclusion is not that material resources can never be useful. It denies that accumulating them settles the human and political question to which they must be subordinated.

Places to read

1. 104b–104c2Wealth belongs to the initial inventory of confidence.
2. 107b–107c2Financial standing does not identify the right adviser.
3. 122d–123c2Land, labour, animals, precious metals, tribute and royal revenues are compared.
4. 131b–131c2Tending money is distinguished from care of the person; money-making is mocked through the idiom of own business.
5. 132cCare of money can be handed over.
6. 134a–134bRiches and civic equipment are insufficient for happiness without virtue.

Translation in this edition

The edition sometimes uses money where the broader resources-sense of chrēmata remains relevant. The later person/possession argument is not a claim that the early estate and wealth cease to belong legally to Alcibiades.

ἀργύριον

Attested: ἀργύριον (argyrion; 122e). Silver, paired with gold in the accumulation claim. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀργύριον. See Wealth and property.

κτῆσις

Attested: κτήσει (ktēsei; 122d). Possession or acquisition, here of enslaved people and other resources. Lexical identification: lemma: κτῆσις. See Wealth and property.

νόμισμα

Attested: νομίσματος (nomismatos; 123a). Coinage or money in circulation; the Aesopic image represents its movement into Sparta as one-way traffic. Lexical identification: lemma: νόμισμα. See Wealth and property.

πλούσιος

Attested: πλουσίων (plousiōn; 104c). Rich, one of Alcibiades’ acknowledged social advantages. Lexical identification: lemma: πλούσιος. See Wealth and property.

πλοῦτος

Attested: πλούτους (ploutous; 122b). Wealth, the resources compared among Athenians, Spartans and Persians. Lexical identification: lemma: πλοῦτος. See Wealth and property.

φόρος

Attested: φόρος (phoros; 123a). Tribute or payment, here paid to Spartan kings. Lexical identification: lemma: φόρος. See Wealth and property.

χρῆμα

Attested: χρήματα (chrēmata; 131b). Money or material resources, the object of care distinguished from the person. Lexical identification: lemma: χρῆμα. See Wealth and property.

χρηματιστής

Attested: χρηματιστής (chrēmatistēs; 131c). Money-maker, mocked as no longer doing his own business in the revised sense of self-care. Lexical identification: lemma: χρηματιστής. See Wealth and property.

χρυσίον

Attested: χρυσίον (chrysion; 122e). Gold, said to accumulate in Sparta. Lexical identification: lemma: χρυσίον. See Wealth and property.

Use in the book

The plural πλούτους appears in Ctesippus’ list of familiar accomplishments celebrated by Hippothales: ancestral wealth, horse-breeding, and victories at major games. Wealth contributes to the social attractiveness of the beloved’s family, but says nothing distinctive about the boy himself.

Compare the adjective πλουσιώτερος, “richer,” in Socrates’ teasing comparison of the two friends. He declines to pursue that comparison because friends supposedly have things in common. Later χρῆματα denotes the wealth Lysis possesses without being allowed to manage it.

Places to read

1. 205cπλούτους τε καὶ ἱπποτροφίας — wealth and horse-breeding.
2. 207c

Use in the book

The genitive plural χρημάτων denotes the considerable wealth from which Lysis seems to obtain no benefit because everyone else controls it. Socrates places it beside the boy’s fine body, likewise supervised by others.

The local contrast is between having resources and effectively using them. The noun itself does not mean usefulness, despite the surrounding argument about benefit and control. Distinguish it from χρήσιμος, “useful,” and from the earlier πλοῦτος, which appears among the family achievements recited by Hippothales.

At 219d a father values his son above all his other wealth; the term returns within the distinction between what matters finally and the resources provided for its sake.

Places to read

1. 208eτῶν χρημάτων τοσούτων ὄντων — from your wealth, great as it is.
2. 219d–220a2

Use in the book

In the Gorgias judgment narrative, wealth is one of the coverings that conceal a wicked soul, along with bodily beauty and noble ancestry. Supportive witnesses reinforce the disguise. The criticism concerns misleading evidence of worth, not the claim that every wealthy person necessarily has a bad soul.

Places to read

1. I.49.63.5Riches can conceal character during a flawed judgment.

Translation in this edition

“Wealth” suits the general condition; “riches” preserves the concrete plural.

Use in the book

The contrast between riches of darkness and riches of light is a contrast between rival economies of desire. Scarce, movable possessions invite exclusion and contention when treated as the whole of happiness. God’s works are common, necessary, and available for shared enjoyment. Souls and bodies, their powers, and the created world therefore precede money as the riches of nature.

Traherne does not consistently say that money is intrinsically evil. The later account judges riches by their relation to felicity. Possessions are desirable when they help it and cease to function as riches when they obstruct it. Poverty and abundance can each provide occasions of virtue. This discrimination is stronger than a simple reversal in which possessing little automatically proves holiness.

Nor should true riches be compressed into private inward contentment. Their objects are distributed throughout creation and among other persons. An enlarged soul finds itself at home in many places because its goods are not confined to a chest, a house, or even a kingdom.

Places to read

1. I.33Devised riches produce false scarcity, contention, and burdensome wants.
2. I.35The riches of light are freely given works that support mutual enjoyment.
3. II.77True satisfaction requires treasures dispersed throughout all places.
4. III.9Natural riches are distinguished from the riches of invention.
5. IV.89Neither coveting nor hating material riches replaces gratitude and the preference for virtue.

In this edition

Riches commonly takes a plural verb and covers more than financial wealth. Keep the qualifiers true, false, natural, or invented: they often carry the argument that the bare noun cannot.