The conversation in Plato’s Statesman is conducted between the chief speaker, a nameless philosopher visiting Athens (called simply the Stranger from Elea), and a young man confusingly called Socrates (Socrates too takes part in this conversation; but we can easily distinguish his contribution from that of the young Socrates). Much of the Stranger’s discourse employs and illustrates the so-called ‘method of division’, with the aim of arriving at a definition of the statesman, or king.
After several pages of somewhat dry attempts at definition, the Stranger notes that they have so far identified the statesman as the herdsman and rearer of the human herd (that is, of the herd of human beings)—a sort of shepherd. But so far he has not been properly distinguished from impostors, from false claimants to the title. To get clearer on the question, says the Stranger, we shall introduce some light relief in the form of ‘part of a great myth’. Ostensibly, then, the myth’s function is to advance the search for a correct understanding of the statesman—hence its unusual place early on in the work, not at the very close as so often in the dialogues.
While the story can be seen as some kind of response by Plato to Protagoras’ myth about the origin of society and civic virtue (see ‘The Origin of Virtue’), the Statesman’s myth is more ambitious, more elaborate and far more puzzling. It presents itself as a rationalization of several earlier myths: that of the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes, of the sun’s brief reversal of its course, and stories of earth-born human beings. The resulting account is a fantastical story, told in a deliberately elliptical and confusing manner, about different cosmic eras, separated by a violent reversal of direction of the cosmos.
The myth tells of a period under the rule of Cronus—the Golden Age when there was need for neither human toil nor politics; of cosmic turning which results in the old becoming young, the white-haired returning to black and thence to babyhood; of a divine helmsman regaining the tiller and setting the cosmos to rights; and much else. Readers will enjoy the challenge of disentangling, ordering, and numbering the myth’s elements. They may discern (as do most readings) just two cosmic eras, that of Cronus and the present one, ruled by Zeus; or they may favour a rival reading of three such eras, adding one in between when no deity is in charge. They may simply relish the cosmological fantasies and the humorous elements, such as the question: did the earliest humans of the age of Cronus, who could converse with animals, spend their time discussing philosophy, or merely swapping good stories (272b)? Plato can surely not have intended this myth to contain serious cosmology; his Timaeus, with its solemn and extended ‘likely story’ comes the closest to supplying that.
What morals are to be drawn, if any, about the nature of the true statesman, or the true king? One is clear: to call him a herdsman and rearer of human herds was to confuse the role of the shepherd of the Golden Age with the role of a human statesman today. Today’s statesman is a man, not a god, who must rule over those of the same kind as himself, so he is no kind of shepherd. And today’s state is one where human toil and human politics are required. One feature remains prominent as the dialogue progresses: the statesman’s claim to his title rests on the nature of his expertise. It is a human expertise, but one which weaves together all the elements of a state, including all the subordinate but necessary skills in a state such as that of the judge and the general; in so doing statesmanship controls and is superior to them all.
L.B.
268d STRANGER: We had better take another starting-point, then, and travel by a different road.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What road shall we take?
268d STRANGER: We should blend in a bit of light relief, as it were, and help ourselves to a lengthy fragment of a great myth, before returning for the rest of the discussion to the
e previous method of separating one part from another and gaining the summit we’re after that way. Do you think this is what we should do?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: So pay very careful attention to the myth, then, as if you were a child listening to a story. In any case, you haven’t left childhood far behind yet.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Please go on.
STRANGER: Among the ancient tales which have often been repeated and will continue to be told in the future too, the particular event I’m thinking of is the miracle which happened at the time of Atreus’ and Thyestes’ famous quarrel. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story and remember what’s supposed to have happened.*
YOUNG SOCRATES: I suppose you mean the portent of the golden lamb.
STRANGER: No, I mean the change that took place in the
269a rising and setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies. It’s said that in those days they used to set where they rise nowadays, and rise on the opposite side of the earth, and that the god* changed things over to the present system then, as an act of testimony for Atreus.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that’s part of the story too.
STRANGER: There are also a lot of stories about Cronus’ rule and kingdom.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very many indeed.
b STRANGER: And it’s also said that in the old days people used to be born from the earth, rather than from other human beings.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that’s another of the things we’re told used to happen in ancient times.
STRANGER: Well, every one of these things is the result of a single incident. In fact, they are the least remarkable of all the countless consequences of this incident, but because it all happened such a long time ago, the other events have either been forgotten or have become scattered, with their various parts now forming separate stories. None of the stories tells us of the incident which caused all these events,
c however, but I had better do so, because it will help us in our attempt to understand kingship.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That’s a very good idea. Do please tell us the story, and don’t leave anything out.
STRANGER: All right. Periodically, this universe of ours is under the guidance of the god himself, and at these times he helps it on its circling way, but there are also times – when it has spun around for the appropriate amount of time – when he releases it. It then revolves back again in the opposite direction under its own impulse, since it is a living creature
d and has been granted intelligence by its original constructor. There is a particular reason why this ability to retrace its path is bound to be an inherent part of its make-up.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And what is that?
STRANGER: Only the most divine entities have the property of remaining for ever in an unchanging, self-identical state, and any material thing is not of this order. However, although the creator of what we call heaven or the cosmos granted it a great many enviable qualities, it is at least partially
e material,* and therefore it cannot be completely free from change. Nevertheless, in so far as it is within its power to do so, it keeps to the same place and restricts the change it undergoes to a single, stable form of motion. So the reason it has the ability to revolve in the opposite direction is that this reversal is the smallest possible deviation from its former motion. There is nothing which is always the source of its own motion, except perhaps the initiator of all motion,* and it would be blasphemous to suggest that this moves at different times in opposite directions.
All this rules out three ideas: first, that the cosmos is always the source of its own motion; second, that it is always the god who is turning the cosmos as a whole, in both of its
270a conflicting directions; third, that its movements are due to a pair of gods with conflicting purposes.* The only position we’re left with, then, is the one we’ve just expressed: that the universe is sometimes helped on its way by a divine cause external to itself (and during this period its maker* renews its life and replenishes its store of immortality), while at other times it is released and moves under its own impulse. And it is let go at the critical moment, to enable it to retrace its path for hundreds of thousands of cycles, thanks to its enormous mass, its perfect balance, and the tiny ‘foot’ it uses for travelling.*
YOUNG SOCRATES: Your whole account sounds very plausible
b to me.
STRANGER: Then let’s use it as a basis for rational thinking and see if we can come to some understanding of the incident which, I suggested, caused all those remarkable things to happen. I’ll tell you exactly what the incident was.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: It’s the fact that the universe sometimes revolves in the direction it is currently taking, but sometimes goes in the opposite direction.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Of all the reversals that take place in the heavens, we are bound to think that there is none greater or more
c thorough than this.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That seems likely.
STRANGER: So we are also bound to think that this is the time when we inhabitants of the universe experience the greatest changes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That seems likely too.
STRANGER: But isn’t it obvious that it is hard for living creatures to endure many violent and various changes at once?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: So this must be a time when creatures in general suffer widespread destruction, and when the human race in particular is all but wiped out. A lot of remarkable
d and extraordinary things happen to the survivors, but one, which is a consequence of the unwinding of the universe that occurs when the reversal of its present direction occurs, is particularly important.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is that?
STRANGER: At first, every living creature stayed just as old as it was and every mortal thing stopped getting older in appearance; then they all went into reverse and started
e growing younger, as it were, and more tender. Old people’s white hair grew dark; bearded men’s cheeks became smooth and regained the lost bloom of youth; as the days and nights passed, young people’s bodies became smoother and smaller and they reverted to a state which was no different, mentally as well as physically, from infancy; then their bodies, which were by now fading fast, just completely disappeared. And the corpses of people who met with violent deaths during this period went through exactly the same changes in a short
271a space of time, so that within a few days their bodies had deteriorated and vanished.
YOUNG SOCRATES: But, sir, how were creatures born in those days? How did parents produce offspring?
STRANGER: Quite simply, Socrates, they didn’t: there was no such thing at that time as parental procreation. It was the earth-born race, whose existence once upon a time we hear of in our stories, which was born: that was the time when they began to rise up again out of the earth. Our earliest ancestors, who were the immediate neighbours in time of
b the end of that former cycle, though they were born at the beginning of the present cycle, left records of the existence of the earth-born race. They passed these stories on to us – stories which nowadays are commonly disbelieved, though they don’t deserve to be. You have to look at the matter from a particular point of view and then you can understand it, I think. I mean, it’s in keeping with the idea of old people turning into children that people would re-form in the earth where they were lying after their deaths and would come back to life from there, in conformity with the reversal undergone by all natural cycles. Any people who were not gathered up by the god for some other destiny,* therefore, necessarily formed an earth-born race in this way. That is
c why they are called ‘earth-born’, and that is the origin of the legend.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, this is perfectly consistent with the earlier parts of your account. But you also mentioned life under Cronus’ regime.* Did this happen when the heavenly bodies had reversed the direction they took before, or the direction they take now? I mean, it goes without saying that a change in the motion of the sun and the heavenly bodies takes place during both reversals.
STRANGER: You’ve followed the discussion well. As for your question, there isn’t the slightest trace in the current cycle
d of things just happening without people having to put in any effort; this is another feature of the former cycle. For that was when the god first began to rule and to take charge of the actual rotation as a whole, and the same thing happened domain by domain as well, with the parts of the cosmos being exhaustively divided between various tutelary gods. To take living creatures in particular, a different divine spirit was assigned to each species and each flock, to act as its herdsman, so to speak. Each spirit had sole responsibility for supplying all the needs of the creatures in his charge. As a result, there was no savage behaviour, such
e as creatures preying on one another, and fights and disputes were completely unknown.
Thousands of examples could be given of other consequences of this arrangement, but I’ll tell you the reasons for the stories about people living an effortless life. A god was directly responsible for managing the human herd, just as nowadays, because they are closer to godhood, humans herd inferior species. With the god as their herdsman, there was no organized society, no marriage, and no children, because everyone just came back to life out of the earth, with no
272a memory of the past. But although they didn’t have anything like this, trees and other plants produced huge crops and grew in abundance, without needing to be farmed: the soil yielded them of its own accord. People spent most of their time roaming around in the open air without clothes or bedding, since the climate was temperate and caused them no distress, and the earth produced more than enough grass
b for them to lie on in comfort. That’s what I have to tell you, Socrates, about life under Cronus; our present life, which is supposed to be under Zeus,* you know about at first hand. But are you able, or are you inclined, to decide which of the two ways of life makes people happier?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No, I can’t.
STRANGER: Shall I find a criterion for assessing them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, please.
STRANGER: As well as having so much spare time, Cronus’ wards had the ability to communicate with animals as well as human beings. This being so, the crucial issue is whether
c they used all these advantages of theirs for philosophical purposes. If they entered into discussions with animals as well as with one another, and if, whenever they found that a given species had a particular talent, they tried to learn in what unique way it could add to their understanding, then it’s an easy decision: they were infinitely happier than people nowadays. However, if they stuffed themselves with food and drink and had the kinds of conversation with one another and with the animal species that we hear about these days in our stories, then again, if I may tell you what
d I think, it’s easy to decide the issue. Still, let’s drop this topic for the time being, until we come across someone who can give us reliable information about which of the two attitudes people in those days held about knowledge and which of the two purposes they made conversation serve. We’d better turn to the reasons for bringing up this myth of ours, so that we can make progress and complete the next phase of our argument.
Eventually, this whole set-up had lasted as long as it was meant to and there had to be a change. In particular, the whole earth-born race had been used up, since every soul
e had fulfilled its quota of incarnations and had fallen to earth as seed as often as had been ordained for it. Then the helmsman of the universe released the tiller, so to speak, and withdrew to his vantage-point, and both fate and its innate longing made the universe start to move backwards. As soon as all the gods who had deputized for the supreme deity in the various domains of his kingdom realized what was happening, they too released their sections of the cosmos.
The universe, driven by impulses whose endings and
273a beginnings were opposed, recoiled and crashed against itself. This caused a series of immense shocks to pass through it, and these shocks annihilated, yet again, all kinds of living creatures. Subsequently, once enough time had passed, the chaos and disturbance ended, the shocks died down, and the universe was at peace. Normality and order were restored to its course. It had governance and responsibility for itself and all its parts, and did its best to remember the injunctions
b it had been given by its father-creator. At first, it carried out his commands quite exactly, but later – because at least some of its components were material – some precision was lost, since before attaining its current ordered form as the cosmos, materiality (a primordial and inherent aspect of the universe) was thoroughly steeped in disorder. For all the good there is in the universe stems from the constructor of the universe, whereas cruelty and injustice, in so far as they are features of the universe, stem from the disorderly condition it used to be in; the universe would
c not include these qualities, nor would it breed them in its creatures, had it never been in that condition.
While the universe was under the helmsman’s influence, then, it used to engender little bad and plenty of good in the creatures it maintained within its boundaries. But then the helmsman departs. In the period immediately following the release, the universe manages everything very well, but as time goes by it gets more and more forgetful. Then that primeval disharmony gains the upper hand and, towards the
d end of this period, the universe runs riot and implants a blend of little good and plenty of the opposite, until it comes close to destroying itself and everything in it.
When the god who organized the universe sees the dreadful state it has got itself in by this stage, he is concerned. He doesn’t want to see it swept away and wrecked by the storms of chaos, to founder in the infinite sea of dissimilarity. And
e that is why he resumes his place at the helm and puts it back on a new tack, away from the corruption and decomposition it had been steering towards under its own impulse in the preceding cycle; that is why he organizes it again, corrects it, and makes it immortal and ageless once more.
There is nothing more to be said on this, but if we take up the earlier part of the tale, it will help us in our attempt to understand kingship. Once the universe had been set on the path towards the way things are today, the process of ageing again came to a standstill and produced another series of extraordinary phenomena – the opposite of those which had happened before. Creatures which were so small that they were just about to vanish began to grow; bodies which had just been born from the ground with grey hair died and returned to the earth. What was happening to the universe as a whole was being repeated and reproduced in
274a the changes everything was undergoing, and in particular the processes of pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing conformed of necessity to the general pattern. Creatures could no longer develop inside the earth as a result of various elements coming together and combining, so it was ordained that all the constituent parts of the universe should do their best to propagate and give birth and maintain their offspring by themselves, because this conformed to and was part of the same tendency which ordained that the universe as a whole should be responsible for its own course.
We have now reached the point we were aiming at all
b along in this tale. It would be a long, complicated matter to explain how and why all the other animals changed, but it won’t take long to describe what happened to human beings, and that will be more relevant to our purposes. Now, we had previously been maintained by a deity, whose flock we were, but then this deity’s supervision was removed. At the same time, most animals became wild, because they were innately fierce, and started to prey on the weak, and now defenceless, human race. In these early days, human beings had not yet developed their tools and
c skills; they had been accustomed to being maintained without having to do anything themselves, but now they were deprived of that and they didn’t yet know how to provide for themselves, since no need had ever forced them to learn in the past how to do so. As a result of all this, they were in a very bad way indeed. That is why the gods gave us the gifts we hear about in the ancient tales, along with the necessary education and training – fire from Prometheus, the crafts from Hephaestus and the goddess who shares his skill,*
d seeds and plants from others. This is the origin of everything which contributes towards the totality of human life, following the event I recounted a moment ago when we were deprived of divine supervision and had to start fending for ourselves and being responsible for ourselves, just as the universe as a whole did. In conformity and in keeping with the rhythms of the universe, we swing for all time this way and that in our lives and in the means of our birth. Anyway, I think we should end the myth there and start to put it to
e work. *