Republic

This dialogue, written in the fourth century BCE, follows Socrates in conversation with Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon, Adeimantus, and others about justice in the person and in the city. They construct a theoretical city with guardians, a system of education, and philosopher-rulers, and they examine the soul's parts, the forms, the cave image, and the decline of constitutions from aristocracy to tyranny. Myths of the afterlife and of Er close the argument. Poetry, property, and the place of women among the guardians are tested along the way. The work is a philosophical dialogue, not a history of any Greek state.

Quarter bound in black leather with paper covers printed with an engraving. Dark brown endleaves and slipcase. Page tops stained dark brown. Single volume issue from 2003 Great Philospophers of the Ancient World set.