The Republic opens with Socrates, accompanied by Glaucon returning from the port of Athens to the main city. He is overtaken by Polymarchus and his companions, who laughingly tells Socrates that they are many and stronger and that he must accompany them. Socrates asks if he could persuade Polymarchus and his companions to let him go. Polymarchus replies, "But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you?"
Though this exchange is done in jest, the parallel with the trial of Socrates is unmistakable; though the vote as close, many chose not to listen to Socrates's "Apology."
Is it a coincidence that Polymarchus, like Socrates, was forced to drink hemlock? The dates work out (Republic written in about 380 BCE; Polymarchus's death about 405 BCE.) Plato's readers would have know the history, and the parallel.
Socrates goes with Polymarchus to his house and has a conversation with Polymarchus's father, Cephalus. The gist of the conversation is whether wealth is beneficial in old age. Cephalus tells Socrates that wealth is beneficial for a man who has lived a just life, but not for one who has not. I freely admit that I may be reading more into this than Plato intended. Nevertheless, I cannot shake the idea that this exchange is a statement on Athens, her wealth, and her lack of justice.
The final parallel is the discussion of justice between Socrates and Polymarchus on the nature of justice. Polymarchus, quoting Simonides, says that justice is the repayment of debt. Socrates, of course, will have none of that, slowly backing Polymarchus into a corner in which Polymarchus can no longer defend his own interpretation of Simonides, that repayment of debts means doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies. Eventually Socrates gets Polymarchus to admit that "the injuring of another can be
in no case just."
Enter Thrasymachus, who angrily exclaims, "I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger." This is certainly the "justice" of the trial of Socrates.
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