The Republic

Character Guide

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Socrates

The narrator and central questioner of the dialogue, an Athenian philosopher famous for his ironic, probing method of questioning; he leads the discussion on the nature of justice.

Glaucon

Plato's brother and one of Socrates' chief interlocutors, an eager and spirited young man who presses Socrates to defend justice for its own sake rather than for its rewards.

Adeimantus

Glaucon's brother, who joins him in challenging Socrates to prove that justice is desirable in itself, even stripped of reputation or reward.

Polemarchus

Son of Cephalus, who first insists that Socrates and Glaucon stay for the conversation and initially defends the traditional saying that justice means helping friends and harming enemies.

Cephalus

An elderly, wealthy host in whose house the dialogue takes place; he offers early, conventional reflections on old age, wealth, and justice before withdrawing from the discussion.

Thrasymachus

A forceful Sophist who argues bluntly that justice is merely 'the interest of the stronger,' setting up the central challenge that Socrates spends the rest of the work answering.

Glossary

Idea of the Good

In Plato's scheme, the highest object of knowledge, compared to the sun in the visible world, which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and being to the knower; it functions as a supreme cause/principle rather than a mere concept.

Dialectic

Plato's term for the highest philosophical method — reasoning that moves beyond hypotheses toward first principles, dividing and uniting ideas to reach ultimate truth.

Guardians

The ruling class of the ideal city, chosen for wisdom and virtue, who govern and defend the state and are meant to hold no private property.

Auxiliaries

The warrior class of the ideal city, corresponding to the 'spirited' part of the soul, who defend the state under the guardians' direction.

Sophist

A professional teacher of rhetoric and argument in ancient Greece, often portrayed by Plato as more concerned with persuasive appearance than truth.

Timocracy

One of Plato's degenerate forms of government, ruled by lovers of honor and military glory, ranked just below the ideal aristocracy.

Oligarchy

A form of government ruled by the wealthy few, identified by Plato as a further decline from timocracy, driven by love of money.

Bendis / the Bendidea

A Thracian goddess and her festival, newly introduced at Piraeus, whose celebration provides the dramatic occasion and setting for the dialogue's opening scene.

Piraeus

The port city of Athens where the dialogue is set, a few miles from the main city.

Myth of Er

The concluding story told by Socrates about a soldier who revives after death and reports on the soul's judgment and choice of future lives, illustrating rewards for justice beyond this life.

Tripartite soul

Plato's division of the soul into three parts — reason, spirit (the 'warrior' element), and appetite/desire — whose proper harmony under reason's rule constitutes justice in the individual.

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