John-Erik Hansson (260334002)

POLI 561 – Seminar Paper

Prof. Christina Tarnopolsky

The dual role of the myth of Er in Plato's Republic

 The treatment of poetry and myth by Plato in The Republic is puzzling, especially

considering how the dialogue itself develops many images, tales, allegories and myths. Following

this train of thought, the Myth of Er, the eschatological myth that closes The Republic, is perhaps

even more puzzling: it comes at the end of a discussion that seemed to thoroughly condemn poetry,

and all other forms of imitation. How can we make sense of this riddle? What role does the Myth of

Er play in the larger framework of The Republic?

In this paper I argue that the myth of Er serves two distinct purposes. First, it serves as a

philosophic manifesto, of both life and death, that takes the form of a new, revamped, philosophic

poetry that is in many ways radically opposed to the traditional Greek poetry. Second, it serves as

an apology and critique of Socrates' way of life, and defends Plato's personal choices.

In order to try and prove this claim, I will proceed in three steps. The first step will consider

the treatment of myth and poetry in Plato first more generally, and then more specifically in the

Republic. I argue there that myths in Plato's work serve a deeper purpose than what has often been

assumed, I also explore further Plato's own critique of traditional Athenian poetry and the

characteristics of his own, new philosophic poetry. Next, I argue that the myth of Er, as a form of

this new, philosophic poetry, constitutes a poetic defense of philosophy and the power of human

choice, both in death and in life. Finally, I will first show how Plato constructs the myth of Er to

serve as an apology for Socrates. Then I will show how we can understand the myth as a more

subtle critique of the Socratic way of life, and as a defense of Plato's own choices.

Before turning to these considerations, let us begin by briefly summarizing the myth of Er. It

begins with the death in battle of a man named Er (614b), who is then given the chance to witness

what occurs after death and is brought back to life to tell what he has seen: he is in that sense a

messenger (614d). His account of the other world and the journey of the souls of the dead includes

judgement (614c), reward and punishment by traveling underground or in the heavens (615a), the

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choice of a new life (616d-620e), and eventually, reincarnation (621a-b). It also includes a

description of the order of the world, which is shown as one, and intelligible (616b-617b). The myth

of Er therefore not only shows what happens to the souls of the dead, but also how the worlds of the

living (in a holistic way) and of the dead are organized.

I. Reading Plato's myths.

Contemporary readings of Plato's dialogues have been gentler on, and more interested in, the

myths than most traditional readings. Indeed, as Julia Annas observes “myths in Plato's dialogues

have been in general neglected by philosophers”.1 Myths were indeed often discarded as non-

philosophic, as “holidays from serious thinking”2, or were seen as attempts to transcend the limits of

the elenchic method and reason, and thus were not included in analyses of Socrates' pure reasoning.

Furthermore, even when Plato's myths are included in the interpretation of the dialogues,

they are often seen as only appropriate and necessary for those incapable of true philosophy.3 In

some sense, this interpretation insists on the aristocratic aspect of philosophy, that can only be

understood and practiced by a few, chosen people. For the others, the multitude who cannot

understand philosophy, and thus are not persuaded by speech, the philosopher must resort to using

myths in order to produce the desired outcome: the practice of “virtue by habit, without

philosophy.” (619c-d), and out of fear of punishment (hence the eschatological myths of the

Gorgias, the Phaedrus and the Republic, where the just are rewarded and the unjust punished).

I want to challenge this understanding of Platonic mythology and argue that Plato's myths

are deeply linked with philosophy and with the arguments of the dialogues, and essentially agree

with Julia Annas when she says that “it is, clearly, a mistake to make Plato's myths or imagery

central to interpreting his thought, at the expense of the argument; […] But it is also a mistake to

1 Annas, Julia. 1982. “Plato's Myths of Judgement”. Phronesis 27:2. p. 119.

2 Ibid.
3 Bloom, Allan. 1991. “Interpretive Essay”. Bloom, Allan (Trans). 1991. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition).
USA: Basic Books. p. 435.

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ignore the myths (or images) as being clearly dispensable”.4 However, integrating Plato's myths into

his philosophical thought and the train of his argument requires, at least to some extent, resolving

what Socrates himself calls the “old quarrel between philosophy and poetry” (607b). Indeed, with

these words, he seems to point out that there is a fundamental tension between myths, as a kind of

poetry, and philosophy. To allow for philosophical myths therefore implies resolving that tension,

and showing that the two are not mutually exclusive but can on the contrary complement one

another.

It is true that books 2, 3 and 10 of the Republic attack poetry in general, and myths and epics

in particular. However, there are various hints that qualify this attack as an attack on traditional

Greek myths and poetry rather than an attack on poetry in general, which would leave open the

possibility of a different, more philosophic kind of poetry.

Indeed, the charges on poetry of the Republic begin in book 2 with the critique of the tales of

Homer, Hesiod and the traditional poets (377c) that, Socrates argues, depict gods and heroes in an

unacceptable manner, indeed they make a “bad representation of what gods and heroes are like”

(377e). It follows that Socrates banishes parts Hesiod's Theogony such as the castration of Uranus

(377e-378a) and parts of Homer's Iliad, namely the description of Zeus as being responsible for

both good and evil (379d-e). Similarly, book 3 begins by pursuing this line of argument and

banishing the tales of the horrors of Hades, again, in order to protect the children from the poets'

bad influence on their ignorant minds (386b-387b). However, he does not banish tales and poems

completely, he banishes them from the education of children as those stories would be detrimental if

they were told to “thoughtless young things” (378a). Moreover, Socrates' argument does allow for

appropriate tales to be told to children (377c), because even though “they are, as a whole false”,

“there are true things in them too” (377a), thus implying that some poetry can be useful in the

education of the youth, though “most of what they [nurses and mothers] now tell [children] must be

4 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. p. 121.

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thrown out” (377c).

In books 3 and 10, Socrates' critique of imitation is also deeply linked with the critique of

poetry. It seems that Platonic education if it accepts imitation, only accepts the imitation of “men

who are courageous, moderate, holy, free and everything of the sort” (395c), and rejects the

imitation of “worse men […], unless it's done in play” (396d-e). Furthermore, he argues that the

only poet that should be allowed in the city is the “unmixed imitator of the decent” (397d), even

though “the man who is mixed is pleasing” (397d). There therefore seems to be a tension between

pleasure and usefulness, and unity and multiplicity. This is further illustrated in book 3 by the fact

that Socrates and Adeimantus, as founders of a city, “would use a more austere and less pleasing

poet and teller of tales for the sake of benefit” (398a-b). Still, it seems that by the end of the section

on poetry (at 398b), some poets remain in the city, those that are useful to it by imitating decent

men.

Book 10 then presents us a puzzle. Indeed, in book 10, Socrates seems to banish all

imitation, regardless of the distinctions which he made in book 3 (595a-b). Why is there a shift from

books 2 and 3, where some poetry was still accepted, to book 10, where all poetry seems to be

banned? As Elizabeth Belfiore observes, these inconsistencies have puzzled many subsequent

readers of Plato, who have had many diverging interpretations.5 Her argument, however, is that

these apparent inconsistencies actually follow a consistent definition and stem from a systematic

application of the definition of imitation as “to make oneself similar to someone else in sound or in

shape”.6 From this she differentiates two different types of imitation that she entrenches in the

Greek text: the mimêtikê type of imitation, that is to say, the “imitation of many things” or as she

calls it, “versatile imitation”7, and a “good kind of imitation, the antithesis of imitation of 'things as

5 Belfiore, Elizabeth. 1984. “A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic”. Transactions of the American Philological
Association. 114. pp. 121-122.
She illustrates this in the introduction to her paper by reviewing a few of the possibilities, for example: that book 10
is a subsequent addition to the original Republic, that these inconsistencies stem from Plato's failure to define
systematically imitation, that they are due to the different goals of the two books.
6 Ibid. p. 123.
Allan Bloom's translation reads “likening himself to someone else, either in voice or in looks”.
7 Ibid, p. 126.

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they appear'”,8 that is however, much less well defined. Thus, what Socrates has banished from the

city was not the good kind of imitation, but mimêtikê. Moreover, the poetry he refers to at the

beginning of book 10 is indeed that which is mimêtikê and not the good kind of imitation.9 We have

seen that Socrates argued in book 3 that there is a tension between useful poetry, and pleasant

poetry (397d, 398a-b). Moreover, the pleasant poet, the mixed man is, as Belfiore notes, a

mimêtikos (an expert at mimêtikê). This tension between useful and pleasant poetry is the therefore

the same as the tension between good imitation and mimêtikê, and it is reiterated in book 10 of the

Republic, at 607c, when Socrates justifies banning “poetry directed to pleasure and imitation”,

because it is not “beneficial to regimes and human life” (607d).

It appears, therefore, that Plato in the Republic does not condemn all poetry indiscriminately.

He does condemn some tales, because of their effect of the youth (the tales of Hades, or the

castration of Uranus). He also more generally banishes the imitation of many things, mimêtikê,

though it brings pleasure, because it is not beneficial to the city or to the individual. However, this

leaves open the possibility of a good kind of imitation, that Elizabeth Belfiore calls “imitation with

knowledge”, which she broadly defines as the “imitation in poetry of the works of craftsmen as they

are, to produce what is useful”.10 Socrates' critique, therefore, is not directed at poetry in and of

itself, but at the traditional Greek notion of poetry, which requires mimêtikê and the mimêtikos, the

imitation of many things, and the expert at the imitation of many things.

Still, since there manifestly is the possibility in Plato for a good kind of poetry and myth,

what the relationship between this good kind of myth and philosophy? In “Plato's Myths of

Judgement” Julia Annas makes a convincing argument that making a crude distinction between

myth and reason is somewhat fallacious when looking at Plato's work. Indeed, she observes that

“Plato nowhere says or implies that there is a single all-purpose distinction between storytelling and

reasoning such that all stories are necessarily stupid or immoral. He in fact clearly believes that

8 Ibid, pp. 132-133.

9 Belfiore, Elizabeth. 1984. op cit. p. 127.
10 Ibid. p. 124.

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some mythoi, stories, do have rational depth”.11 There therefore seems to be a tighter relationship

between philosophy and myth that has been often assumed. In effect, it seems that Annas argues

that there is room for a philosophical myth, separate from the other kinds of myths. 12 Philosophical

myths can be part of this new poetry Plato advocates when he criticizes the traditional Greek myths

and the use of mimêtikê. Charles Segal pushes further this line of argument by saying that Plato

“needs myth not only because it confers an heroic grandeur on his intellectual enterprise, but also

because myth is the language of the adventures of the soul”.13 Segal here implies that the myths are

not only tightly related to the more general argument, but they also complement it by appealing to

“the language of the adventures of the soul”.

The dichotomy between “imitation with knowledge” and “versatile imitation” thus leads to a

distinction between truly useful and merely pleasant poetry. Once one adds to this the fact that

myths can have a rational depth, this justifies Plato's use of new myths in a philosophical manner in

the Republic. The words of Julia Annas are particularly enlightening on that matter: “the fact that

popular stories are mostly trivial does not prevent the philosopher from using or inventing a story

which is not”.14

II. The myth of Er: an exhortation to philosophy

Now that we have seen that Plato's myths can and should be understood as useful,

philosophical myths that complement the more theoretical argument, let us turn to the myth of Er

itself, the eschatological myth that closes the Republic.

One of the first things that one can note with the myth of Er is that the Republic seems to

have come full circle. Indeed, the philosophic argument of the dialogue begins in book 1 at 328d,

when Socrates meets Cephalus, a rich metic and the father of Polemarchus, who is described as an

11 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. p. 121.

12 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. p. 121.
13 Segal, Charles. 1978. “The Myth was Saved: Reflections on Homer and the Mythology of Plato's Republic”.
Hermes. 106:2. p. 329.
14 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. p. 121.

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old man, close to death and terrorized by the tales of Hades he was told as a child (330d-e). In book

10, we are recounted the story of a man who dies and discovers what the other world really is like.

The myth of Er therefore appears to be, in some way, a response to Cephalus' fears. It can be

roughly divided in two parts: first, the judgement, rewards and punishment (614b-616a); second,

the cycle of reincarnation (616b-621b). The first part is directly related to the tales of Hades that

Cephalus has already heard, and perhaps one could say that they would worsen his fears. Indeed,

not only is the soul punished for its unjust deeds, but it also pays off “the penalty for the injustice

ten times over” (615b). Still, while this may have worried Cephalus even more, the prospects of an

eternal soul and possibility of being reborn would maybe respond to his fears. Although it seems

that the punishment for injustice is great, the possibility of choosing a new life, a possibility offered

to all those who traveled the journey, were they just or unjust, may well give hope to Cephalus. It

may actually purge him of his fear of death by the hopes of a new life: the punishments are only one

step in the eternal cycle of reincarnation. In effect, when the journey of reward and punishment is

over, the souls gather and come in front of the “Daughters of Necessity” (617b), where they are

given a range of new lives from which to choose (617e). Therefore, while the punishments of the

underworld are hard, there is nevertheless the reward of living again, and living well, provided the

soul chooses wisely (619b).

However, this argument can be challenged by the fact that the eternal cycle of life, death and

rebirth “represents a belief in a kind of determinism”.15 Julia Annas provides a powerful argument

that the myth of Er, rather than relieving the fear of death and punishment actually aggravates it,

because of the absence of moral responsibility on the side of the individual. Indeed, the myth shows

the way life is determined by a choice over which the individual has no control. 16 As a consequence,

there is a discrepancy, a gap, between the punishment (or the rewards) the individual receives, and

the responsibility he has for his actions: why should I be punished for actions that I have not chosen

15 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. p. 133

16 Ibid.

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to do, but that were imposed on me by my past lives which I cannot even remember? How can I be

held responsible for the bad choice my soul has made following a life I do not remember?

Following this argument, the myth of Er seems to alienate the individual from his actions, by

entrenching them in a greater cosmic order and thus render the rewards and punishments of the

after-life arbitrary. Moreover, the alleged ultimate consolation, the choice of a new life, is also

rendered void of significance because of the determinism it imposes on the next life.17

This is where the timing of the discussion of the myth of Er becomes important. Indeed,

from book 1 to book 10, one critical dramatic detail has changed: Cephalus is not here anymore.

Indeed, he has to go off in the early part of book 1, in the middle of his conversation with Socrates,

in order to attend to the sacrifices he has to make in honour of the gods (331d). Cephalus therefore

does not remain for the argument, and its arrival point: the myth of Er.

Indeed even though the myth of Er does not necessarily alleviate the fear of death and

punishment for a person like Cephalus, as Julia Annas shows, the fact is that the whole Republic

stands between the first allusion to the tales of Hades and the final myth that addresses those tales.

The reason behind this, I believe, is that the myth of Er is only accessible to those who have listened

to, and understood (at least part of) the argument. The myth of Er indeed throws the audience back

into the beginning of the argument and exhorts them to question the beginning of the argument. As

Jonathan Lear argues, the myth of Er “sends us back to the Noble Falsehood and the Cave. For if

the all-important task is to be able to determine what is (and what is not) a good life, these earlier

myths help free us from the illusion that we already know the answer”.18 In this sense, the myth of

Er shows us how important philosophizing is in order to free ourselves from the illegitimate fears

that the society we live in, through its own myths and images, plant in us. Cephalus is afraid of

death and Hades because of the tales he has heard as a child, but it is only in his old age that he

truely begins fearing them (330d-e). Moreover, it is this fear of death and of the punishments of an

17 Annas, Julia. 1982. op cit. pp. 133-134.

18 Lear, Jonathan. 2006. “Allegory and Myth in Plato's Republic”. Santas, Gerasimos (Ed.). 2006. The Blackwell guide
to Plato's Republic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. p. 40.

8
unjust life, that motivates him to leave the conversation. This echoes the first critique of traditional

Greek poetry, in book 3, and shows one aspect of the tension between traditional poetry and

philosophy: because poetry has planted the germ of fear in Cephalus, which makes him unable to

participate in the argument until the end. Therefore, the myth of Er can only free Socrates' more

philosophic interlocutors, those who have remained for the conversation from their initial,

traditional-myth-induced fear of death, and teaches them the philosophic practice of death: how to

make the correct choice that will allow them to “keep to the upper road and practice justice with

prudence in every way so that we shall be friends to ourselves and the gods, both while we remain

here and when we reap the rewards for it like the victors who go about gathering in the prizes”

(621c-d).

There is, I think, an alternate reading to the myth of Er that can emphasize even more

strongly its status as a philosophic manifesto. Let us now consider the myth of Er not as a myth

about death proper, but about metaphorical death, and further than this, let us consider the myth of

Er as the death of the non-philosopher, or the less philosophic who encounters philosophy. As

Charles Segal observes, the philosopher's “heroism is of a new kind. It is attained through the

battles of the soul, not hand-to-hand combat on the field.”19 Indeed, in many ways, philosophy and

argument is a battle, in which part of the defeated competitor's soul is broken, is killed. Indeed,

Socrates' elenchic method of philosophy is often very violent as we can see in book 1 where he

ruthlessly successively destroys the arguments of Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus with

what seems like pure logic.

Let us now explore this possibility and apply it to the myth of Er in a more systematic

manner. Death in battle is the first theme that is picked up by the myth: Er dies in war (614b). The

next step in the myth is judgement: the unjust go underground and are punished while the just go

above, “through the heaven” (614c), and are rewarded. Under this framework, who are the just and

19 Segal, Charles. 1978. op cit. p. 321.

9
who are the unjust? At 619d-e, Socrates seems to argue that the philosophic individuals would be

the just, going through death “not by the underground, rough road but by the smooth one, through

the heavens”. This is reiterated at 621d, when Socrates claims that the individuals that are

persuaded by him “shall always keep the upper road”. It seems, therefore, that in this context the

just are the one's who follow the precepts of Socrates, who are philosophic. The unjust, by

opposition would be the non-philosophers. The punishment of the unjust could then be having their

assumptions shattered, and going through the pain of having to reconstruct a way through which

they can make sense of their lives, or perhaps more simply being shamed, as Thrasymachus in book

1 (350d). On the other hand, the reward of the just, the philosophic individuals, would be the bliss

of having their false opinions stripped away from them, and as a consequence, coming closer to the

truth. This would then perhaps echo the movement out of the cave of the philosophic man: he goes

up out of the cave and into the light (516a).

After the “thousand year journey” (621d) of rewards and punishment, all the dead meet

again and are taken to see the “Daughters of Necessity” (617c). Once they are in front of the three

Fates, the souls of the dead must choose a new life from the possibilities that are offered. It is

interesting “for the most part the choice was made [by the souls] according to the habituation of

their former life” (620a), which would thus imply that most often the interlocutors who have been

defeated and proven wrong still revert to their former beliefs, their former assumptions, and, all in

all, their former lives. This perhaps even echoes Cephalus, who, though he has was being defeated

in argument by Socrates (331d), goes off to the sacrifices and therefore does not practice

philosophy.

Two souls are opposed in the cycle of reincarnation that Er witnesses: the soul that earns the

first lot, the unnamed virtuous man who becomes a tyrant (619b-c), and the soul that earns the last

lot, the soul of Odysseus (620c). The fact that the man who draws the first lot comes from heaven is

somewhat of a puzzle, if we consider that the just are the philosophic individuals. A link between

10
the virtuous man, the just man and the philosopher would explain why this virtuous man was

momentarily able to go through the door in the sky. However, because he is only virtuous “by habit,

without philosophy” (619c-d), he cannot understand the meaning of his rewards, he cannot see the

truth, and is therefore not in a position to make the right choice come the time to choose a new life.

The soul of Odysseus, on the other hand, “from memory of his former labours”20 has “recovered

from [the] love of honour” (620c), and as a consequence is empowered to make the right choice:

“the life of a private man who minds his own business” (620c), the life of a philosopher.21 This

opposition goes to show that virtue (in the case of Odysseus, moderation of his love of honour) and

philosophy can be acquired, through death and “labours, but that virtue itself is not a sufficient

condition for philosophy.

This interpretation of the myth of Er, namely, that it represents an exhortation to philosophy

rooted in the death of old assumptions, and ways of life, therefore seems to be consistent with the

inner-workings of the myth itself, and the more general argument in which it grounded.

III.The myth of Er: a two-sided apology?

Let us now turn to the second role that the myth of Er plays in the Republic, the myth of Er

as an apology. It can be said that the the myth of Er serves as an apology for Socrates, the

philosopher. As a matter of fact, the word that Socrates first uses to describe the myth of Er is

apologon, which Bloom translates as “story” (614b), and which is “very close to apology”22. This

suggests an allusion to the Apology, and further suggests that the myth of Er could take on a similar

role. However, this apology may also be riddled by a certain critique, which Plato uses to justify his

own philosophical choices.

How does the myth of Er take the role of the Apology of Socrates? One first way to look at
20 This could be an allusion to the thousand year journey underground that precedes the choice of a new life, or
Homer's Odyssey. It could also invoke both, thus entrenching Plato's new mythology within the framework of the
traditional Greek myths.
21 It should be noted that the equation between private man and philosopher that I pose is subject to divergent
interpretations, though I read it that way, there is no reason why this should be a necessary equation.
22 Bloom, Allan. 1991. “Notes”. Bloom, Allan (Trans). 1991. op cit. p. 471n13

11
it is by comparing the trial that happens in the other world, and the trial that happened in Athens.

The myth of Er suggests, as we have seen, that philosophers are recognized by the judges of the

after-life as just, and are therefore allowed to travel the “upper road” (621c). In contrast, the judges

in ancient Athens condemned Socrates, thus implying that he was unjust with regard to the city. In

this sense, the apology of Socrates that is in the myth of Er takes the form of a posthumous homage.

Indeed, Plato seems to show that even though the judges of the city may have condemned Socrates,

the true judges of the other world, those who reward you or punish you ten times over, will not.

Another way to look at it goes beyond the judgement and the “thousand year journey” to the

reincarnation. Indeed, the soul of the philosopher, because it “philosophizes in a healthy way”

(619d) is able to make the choice of a good life when it faces the three Fates (617c-e). More

generally, the myth of Er as an exhortation to philosophy can be seen as an apology of Socrates,

since the latter represents the figure of the philosopher.

There may, however, also be a more subtle critique of Socrates, in that depiction. Indeed, the

soul that chooses the life of philosophy, the private life, that is to say the soul of Odysseus, has done

so at the expense of his love of honour (620c). These two attributes of the new Odysseus (the

privacy of his life and the moderation of honour) are arguably in conflict, or even opposition, to

some of the characteristics of Socrates. In effect, one can question the fact that the life of Socrates

was a private life: his elenchic (refutational) method, is on the contrary based on meeting people in

the Agora and asking them questions about their views on justice, for example. Thus, rather than

being private, Socrates' life, and Socrates' practice of philosophy are deeply entrenched in the public

realm, though it is not necessarily within the political realm, as Socrates does not appear before the

Assembly. It can also be argued that Socrates has a love of honour, and further than that, a love of

victory in argument. This is the crux of the accusation Thrasymachus makes against Socrates and

his elenchic method before picking up the argument about justice in book 1. Indeed, at 336c,

Thrasymachus claims that Socratic refutation is a way for the philosopher to “gratify [his] love of

12
honour” by winning in arguments, because “it is easier to ask than to answer”.

There therefore seems to be both an apology and a critique of Socrates in the myth of Er. Is

it possible to resolve the tension between the two? Perhaps not in the character of Socrates.

However, I am inclined to argue that Plato himself resolves this philosophic tension by hinting, in

the myth of Er, at the choices he has made in his own life. Indeed, there is a sense in which Plato

and the soon-to-be reborn Odysseus of the myth of Er share their two central characteristics: the

moderation of the love of honour and the privacy of their lives (620c). They have both forsaken

their love of honour: Odysseus by deciding to live a private life; Plato by, on the one hand, leaving

Athenian political life, and on the other not practicing the Socratic way of teaching, not practicing

the elenchic method. Indeed, Plato decides to open the Academy rather than follow Socrates'

footsteps and practice philosophy in the Agora. Plato, therefore, has made philosophy part of the

private realm rather than the public realm.

There appears therefore that there not only is a tension between the apology and the critique

of Socrates, but also a tension between Plato and Socrates himself. Not only does Plato criticize

Socrates to a certain extent, but it seems that he also upholds and defends his own choices for the

practice of philosophy. Still, it must be acknowledged that these tensions are only hinted at, and

briefly sketched in the myth of Er. Perhaps a closer and more extensive reading of the rest of Plato's

dialogues would give us further insights concerning them.

Conclusion

Life and death are two themes that fundamentally underlie the Republic. Indeed, not only is

the dialogue is set during the Peloponnesian wars, thus conjuring images of violent death, it also

begins with the words of a man who is at the threshold of death, Cephalus. Moreover, the discussion

of justice is intrinsically related to a critical issue of Greek though: what is the best life? This

question is perhaps even more relevant in times of war, when life may be considerably shortened.

13
Thus, the myth of Er, the eschatological myth that closes the Republic begins with the death in

battle of a man, and describes his journey in the realm of the dead.

As we have seen, there are many ways to tackle the relationship between myth and

argument, poetry and philosophy. I have argued here that they are fundamentally and tighlty linked

with one another. Plato's thought cannot be fully understood if his myths are ignored or

oversimplified. Following this assumption, I have shown that the myth of Er fulfills two roles. Its

first role is to develop a poetic, mythical, exhortation to philosophy, both in death and in life. The

second role of the myth of Er is perhaps less grandly philosophic: it serves as a mirror for the

relationship between Plato and his master. Indeed through the myth Er, Plato defends as well as

criticizes his master, but also upholds the choices that he himself made with regard to his life.

Now, and going well beyond the scope of the current paper, it would be interesting to

explore further the possible points of tension between the master and the student, between Socrates

and Plato, particularly in Plato's other eschatological myths, but also, more generally, in the rest of

Plato's dialogues.

14
 Bibliography

Annas, Julia. 1982. “Plato's Myths of Judgement”. Phronesis 27:2.

Belfiore, Elizabeth. 1984. “A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic”. Transactions of the

American Philological Association. 114.

Bloom, Allan. 1991. “Interpretive Essay”. Bloom, Allan (Trans). 1991. The Republic of Plato
(Second Edition). USA: Basic Books.

Santas, Gerasimos (Ed.). 2006. The Blackwell guide to Plato's Republic. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers.

Segal, Charles. 1978. “The Myth was Saved: Reflections on Homer and the Mythology of Plato's
Republic”. Hermes. 106:2.

All quotes and references from the Republic are taken from Allan Bloom's translation, unless
otherwise noted.