I.
SOCRATES AND ARISTOPHANES
(621) ΠΡ. ουχι μαχουνται περι σου, θαρρει, μη δεισης.
ΒΛ. ουχι μαχουνται; (622) περι του;
ΠΡ. περι του ξυγκαταδαρθειν. κου σοι τοιουτον υπαρξει.
(623) ΒΛ. το μεν υμετερον γνωμην τιν´εχει. προβεβουλευται γαρ, οπως αν
μηδεμαις η τρυπημα κενον. το δε των ανδρων τι ποιησει;
φευξονται γαρ τους αισχιους, επι τους δε καλους βαδιουνται.
(626) ΠΡ. αλλα φθλαξουσ᾽ οι φαυλοτεροι τους καλλιους απιοντας
απο του δειπνου και τηρησουσ᾽επι τοισιν δημοσιοισιν
[οι φαυλοτεροι]. κουκ εξεσται παρα τοισι καλοις καταδαρθειν
(629) ταισι γυναιξι πριν αν τοις αισχροις και τοις μικροις χαρισωνται.
—Ἀριστοφάνης “Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι”
Praxagora: All women and men will be common and free,
No marriage or other restraint there will be.
Blepyrus: But if all should aspire to the favors of one,
To the girl that is fairest, what then will be done?
Praxagora: By the side of the beauty, so stately and grand,
The dwarf, the deformed, and the ugly will stand;
And before you’re entitled the beauty to woo,
Your court you must pay to the hag and the shrew.
—Aristophanes “Assemblywomen” (609-629)
Benjamin Bickley Rogers translation, 1924
Book Ε of Plato’s Republic concerns the management of women and children. In it, Socrates states that allowing women into his elite class of educated lawmakers, generals and scholars, his “guardians”, is γελοιος (452a), that is, it is risible. With her recent book, University of Chicago philosophy professor Agnes Callard may have made his point. Here, Socrates gives a provocative account of his “law concerning acquiring and providing for women and children” (453d). Women, he says, despite being weaker than men, should be included in his educated aristocratic class because since the men of this class are the best-bred, then their wives must be too.
The laws that govern Socrates’ ideal class follow the ideal genetics of its members. To keep them disinterested in the affairs of the lower slave class, they ought not to own anything or to touch gold. Wives will be shared among them for the best selective breeding but the bravest soldiers will have first choice of the women. The cowards will be reduced to the slave class of craftsman and farmers. They are all to learn music and work out together naked in harmonious communism, protected by the noble lies from the philosopher king master rulers. Inner-filial marriage is permissible with permission from the oracle but any inbred children will need to be killed. Food will be provided. Alluding to Hesiod, Socrates likens his politico-genetic classes to metals: gold, silver, iron, bronze. It is important for him that the “golden race” and the silver employers and assistants do not mix with the iron and bronze craftsman, farmers and slaves. n.b. In this section regarding the fairer sex in Book Ε, Plato manages to compare those hostages to fortune to dogs not on one but on three separate occasions at 451d, 459a, and 469e. This might all sound a little strange but don’t worry, Socrates is pursuing justice as such. Let him cook.
Plato admired Aristophanes. He was raised on the works of the great satirist and both authors dealt with the extant religio-ethical and political disputes of the 5th century BC. Athens had been defeated in Sicily and Aegospotami. The academy was overrun by skeptic and relativist sophists. With a tyrannical oligarchy at the helm—the leader of whom was Plato’s own cousin, former pupil, and defected Spartan sympathizer, Critias—the city had become so dysfunctional as to be ridiculed, by Aristophanes, in its comparison to a communist gynecocracy, tyrannized by women, neutered of all thumos. Aristophanes’ comedies concerned the following: Νεφέλαι, where a fictional portrayal of Socrates teaches a student to argue for reparations in the form of beating his parents; Λυσιστράτη, where a troop of lecherous “pagkatapugon” wives usurp the Acropolis in an attempted sex strike; Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι, where a writer is cancelled for hate speech by mob of hysterical women; Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι, where the Athenian ladies usurp the impotent political assembly. You get the idea. Plato’s account in Book Ε alludes to these Aristophanic satires.
II.
OPEN SOCRATES
