may be
sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are
raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle
says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be
destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our
citizens believe in it?

Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of
accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale,
and their sons' sons, and posterity after them.

I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief
will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough,
however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of
rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under
the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot
whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory
within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may
come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when
they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare
their dwellings.

Just so, he said.

And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold
of winter and the heat of summer.

I suppose that you mean houses, he replied.

Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of
shop-keepers.

What is the difference? he said.

That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watchdogs, who,
from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit, or evil habit or
other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like
dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd?

Truly monstrous, he said.

And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being
stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and
become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies?

Yes, great care should be taken.

And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard?

But they are well-educated already, he replied.

I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much certain
that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be,
will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their
relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection.

Very true, he replied.

And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that
belongs t