THE ODYSSEUS OF EURIPIDES’ PHILOCTETES

Plato’s characterization of a world-wearied Odysseus, disillusioned with the pursuit of renown in society, and the language Plato’s Socrates uses to rationalize Odysseus’ choice have an important precedent in the prologue fragments of Euripides’ Philoctetes. Odysseus’ depiction in this play, even if it did not directly serve as a model for Plato (although I will argue below it is plausible that it did), provides important background for interpreting the climax to Republic. Euripides’ play was second in the trilogy produced for the Dionysia of 431 in the shadows of the Peloponnesian War, coming immediately after Medea, and before Dictys and the satyr play Reapers.Footnote ⁷ With the aid of Dio Chrysostom, who provides a prose summary in two orations, it is possible to reconstruct the structure of the play with some confidence.Footnote ⁸ It opened with a prologue speech by Odysseus, whose presence in the retrieval of Philoctetes was a ‘tragic and ironic conflict’ introduced by Aeschylus.Footnote ⁹ Odysseus ponders whether continuing to serve the Greeks is worthwhile, considering the immense personal cost of doing so, before concluding that it is. He therefore recommits himself to the cause and attempts to persuade Philoctetes to return to Troy. As Dio tells it, after recommitting, he is much less gentle and honest than he is in either Sophocles’ or Aeschylus’ versions, which makes his depiction in the prologue seem even more anomalous (Or. 52.16).

Political readings of Greek tragedy, and Euripides in particular, are popular, if fraught, while even in antiquity the role of the theatrical poet was considered political.Footnote ¹⁰ Carter is perhaps too ready to attribute Odysseus’ concerns to the playwright himself.Footnote ¹¹ As opposed to comedy, where real events and people were explicitly depicted on stage, tragedy dealt with political issues in more general terms.Footnote ¹² For Pelling, this means that tragedy ‘explores issues in a more timeless register’.Footnote ¹³ None the less, he argues that ‘tragedy can help us to see what moral issues the audience found most interestingly poised’.Footnote ¹⁴ Sourvinou-Inwood describes ‘“distancing devices”, which had the effect of distancing the action from the world of the fifth-century Athenian polis, differentiating the two; and “zooming devices”, which had the effect of bringing the world of the play nearer, pushing the audience into relating their experiences and assumptions directly to the play’.Footnote ¹⁵ So there were moments in Greek tragedy where the audience would see elements of their world reflected back at them, but mythic Lemnos was not fifth-century Athens. Radding argues that Euripides engages with politics as he ‘prompt[s] reflection by recasting the plots, characters, and conflicts of canonical texts’.Footnote ¹⁶

In this section I make two claims. First, that the Odysseus of Euripides’ prologue is recast and diverges from his depiction in Homer, elsewhere in tragedy and in Euripides’ own corpus. Second, that Euripides consciously evokes a specific political issue, worthy of the audience’s reflection, through his characterization of Odysseus: elite political participation and withdrawal.

The Odysseus of epic and tragedy does not resemble the world-weary and contemplative man of Euripides’ Philoctetes prologue. Homer’s Odysseus is the antithesis of the ἀπράγμων, who withdraws from political participation in favour of a quiet life. His epithet πολύτροπος speaks to this. As Deneen puts it, ‘he of “many ways” … is the supreme example of the human who does many things’.Footnote ¹⁷ While in the Iliad there is some hint of an Odysseus partial to inaction as he, perhaps implausibly, fails to hear Diomedes’ exhortation to assist Nestor in Book 8 (8.93–8), he is for the most part the consummate warrior and chieftain and among those chosen to convince Achilles to return to the war after his withdrawal from it (9.169). Even when he reaches Ithaca in the Odyssey, with his homecoming nominally achieved there are hints that it will be temporary. Odysseus tells Penelope (23.266–84) of the prophecy of Tiresias received in the Underworld (11.121–37). After he has slain the suitors he must go abroad again, taking an oar with him and travel inland until he meets another traveller who knows so little of the sea that he does not recognize his oar. Only then, after planting the oar and making sacrifices to Poseidon may he again set sail for home. There is also the Telegony tradition about Odysseus. After travelling to Elis to inspect his stables, according to Tsagalis’s reconstruction of the lost epic, Odysseus travels to Thesprotia, marries their queen, Callidice, has a son with her called Polypoites and is involved in a war with the Brygians. It is only after her death that he returns to Ithaca and is killed by Telegonus.Footnote ¹⁸ This is all far from an ἀπράγμων life.

Nor is Odysseus an ἀπράγμων in tragedy; he is, as Worman characterizes him, a ‘mercenary and reprehensibly crafty figure’, associated with lying, who will do anything for honour and glory.Footnote ¹⁹ Whereas in Homer his mutable personality allows him to adapt himself and shape himself appropriately in different circumstances, in tragedy this is treated with suspicion, as an adaptable speaking style becomes a ‘palpable disguise, an assumption of character that fully cloaks one’s true type’.Footnote ²⁰

Euripides’ Odysseus is particularly unscrupulous. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon describes him as ποικίλος as he associates with the rabble, while Menelaus notes that he is held by the love of honour (φιλοτιμία, 525–7). In Hecuba, Odysseus mentions that his previous treatment at the hands of the titular Trojan queen ‘touched his heart’ (242). Nevertheless, it is because Achilles is worthy of honour (ἄξιος τιμῆς) that he refuses her requests to spare her daughter (309). In both Euripidean plays, Odysseus is concerned with τιμή. He is callous and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. Even in Euripides’ Philoctetes, as Dio Chrysostom notes, Odysseus is less gentle or straightforward than in Sophocles’ or Aeschylus’ versions (Or. 52.16).

The Odysseus of the prologue of Euripides’ Philoctetes breaks with the epic and tragic version, and even the one from the rest of Euripides’ corpus. Dio recounts that the prologue of the play begun with Odysseus turning over political questions and expressing his bewilderment (διαπορέω) that while he might be reputed to be wise, he may be the opposite (Or. 52.11). Odysseus spells this out and makes some surprising claims. In one fragment he questions how he could have sense pursuing prominence, rather than choosing a withdrawn life (fr. 787):

This is one of two instances where Euripides uses the term ἀπράγμων, the other being in Antiope (fr. 193). In Antiope Amphion makes the case that quietism facilitates more effective citizenship, since thought and strong thinking are stronger (κρείσσων) than a strong arm, before describing the advisory role the ἀπράγμων can play in the city (frr. 199–200).Footnote ²² Odysseus in fr. 787 makes the case that engagement is not worth its cost. The conventional pursuit of prominence and acclaim, instead of retreat to a life of ἀπραγμοσύνη, can be explained only if one is not in one’s right mind. The additional reward supposedly allocated to an individual in a prominent position is insufficient recompense for the burden that he takes on.

There is also the contested fragment 789a/793n. Here a speaker claims that the man who remains home in good fortune, and who with his cargo on land does not set out to sea again, is blessed (μακάριος). Olson proposes that it might occur following the debate between the Trojans and Odysseus, and attributes it to Diomedes, who Dio explicitly informs us was on Lemnos with Odysseus (52.14). This is because of the fragment’s ‘strong nautical flavour and its identification of the good life as a peaceful existence at home’.Footnote ²³ Such a theme, however, would sit even more easily in the prologue speech. Müller connects 789a/793n with the other fragments unambiguously linked to the prologue speech, as part of Odysseus’ questioning the broken relationship between the hero and the heroic life.Footnote ²⁴ The nautical theme, which Olson picks up on, could also recall for audiences Odysseus’ struggles on the sea in the Odyssey as well as the troubles he was to endure after his homecoming. He was never to be the blessed man described in this fragment. If this fragment came from the prologue, it would have added powerfully to the sense of dissonance with Odysseus’ characterization in epic and elsewhere on the tragic stage.

Odysseus makes a similar point to that made by Achilles in his own withdrawal from the battle at Troy in the Iliad. In response to the embassy of Odysseus and Phoenix, sent by Agamemnon, Achilles also selects the quiet life. After his γέρας is taken away from him by Agamemnon, Achilles recognizes a fragility in the system that regulated the assignation of honours and rewards, as the rewards he receives from battle will be the same as any other soldier; they will both die in the end. Achilles also claims, like Odysseus in Euripides’ Philoctetes, that exerting himself as he has brought no advantage to him (οὐδέ τί μοι περίκειται, Hom. Il. 9.321).

Odysseus is not dealing with a breach of trust from his commanders. Nevertheless, he has arrived at a similar set of concerns and is questioning the utility of service and engagement in the Greek cause. Achilles ultimately returns to the fight when his anger at the theft of his γέρας is eclipsed by the death of Patroclus. In the prologue speech of Philoctetes, Odysseus also decides that he must continue to serve the Greeks. Unlike Achilles, Odysseus chooses to do so for the sake of honour. He notes that in Greek society, implicating himself in this wrongheaded appraisal by his use of the first person plural, those who go beyond the ordinary and seek success are honoured more and are considered men (τοὺς γὰρ περισσοὺς καί τι πράσσοντας πλέον | τιμῶμεν ἄνδρας τ᾽ἐν πόλει νομίζομεν, fr. 788). Equally, he is reluctant to waste the gratitude he received for his past toils and so will not reject the present task (fr. 789). Achilles withdraws from and is then pulled back to the war by the death of his closest friend. Odysseus recognizes what seems to be a similar shortcoming in the assignation of rewards, but is motivated by internal stimuli in line with a conventional valuation of honour and reputation and returns to the task at hand.Footnote ²⁵ As Olson shows (citing fr. 788), while Odysseus is afraid that his ‘actions will be misunderstood by those who do not see that good sense can be compatible with personal risk taking’ he recommits to the cause because of ‘his love of honour and his hope of securing a claim on social status and prestige, or τιμή’.Footnote ²⁶ So Euripides’ dalliance with a reconfiguration of the character is over. Odysseus in the prologue of Philoctetes, in a break with his typical characterization elsewhere in Euripides’ corpus, and in epic, recognizes a problem with the way in which honour and rewards are distributed in Greek society. Despite signalling that Odysseus has been recast in this prologue speech, throughout the rest of the play, as Dio informs us, Odysseus reverts to his nefarious old ways, more unscrupulous than in Aeschylus and Sophocles in the single-minded pursuit of societal acclaim (52.16).

The language that Euripides’ Odysseus employs during the prologue, to borrow Sourvinou-Inwood’s term, serves as a ‘zooming’ device, on a contemporary debate in democratic Athens, over the value of participation.Footnote ²⁷ In particular, the adverbial form of ἀπραγμοσύνη in fr. 787 situates these concerns in a broader societal dialogue regarding elite participation and service in Athens in the fifth century.

There was dissatisfaction over the assignation of honour, and particularly of blame, in democracy in the fifth century. The Old Oligarch complains that it is only the individual who proposed a vote who would be held responsible; the δῆμος who ratified decisions escapes culpability by referring blame to the individual ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.17). Thucydides also chides the citizens for their refusal to take responsibility for the failure of the Sicilian Expedition, instead blaming the orators, even though they decreed the expedition themselves (8.1.1). A comic fragment expresses a similar sentiment, as the speaker claims that each man will speak against the assembly at which he himself was present (Com. adesp. fr. 1024 K–A). Euripides himself has other characters engage with this issue. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon fears incurring the wrath of his troops and laments the effects of his position. He describes how while being most honoured is sweet, one might still be shattered by many opinions of men (21–7). He goes on to express the wish that someone else had been chosen as general, given the great personal cost he was to bear (85–6). Later, Menelaus describes how he sought to buy τὸ φιλότιμον from the many (342). For Radding, this language’s contemporary valences in the fifth century, where φιλοτιμία was ‘laden with both positive and negative connotations’, signalled that contemporary ‘power structures are less than ideal’.Footnote ²⁸ Menelaus goes on to describe his change upon attaining the position, before coming unstuck when the army became stranded at Aulis (337–75). Agamemnon ultimately expresses the belief that low birth is useful (ἡ δυσγένεια δ᾿ ὡς ἔχει τι χρήσιμον). This is because the prestige of his office controls the life of a noble man who is enslaved to the masses (446–50). Radding links this last passage to an Athenian practice of forcing individuals to serve as generals.Footnote ²⁹

ἀπραγμοσύνη and its derivatives appear only once, and in dubious circumstances, in the extant corpus before the second half of the fifth century, in a fragment attributed to Archilochus to describe a life suitable to the elderly.Footnote ³⁰ Following this, the term became increasingly popular to describe a withdrawn aspect vis-à-vis the world. Disenfranchised elites became attracted to and developed language to justify the decision to disengage from democratic politics.Footnote ³¹ The term is used in both individual and collective contexts and is frequently contrasted with its inverse, πολυπραγμοσύνη.Footnote ³²

In the first detailed treatment of ἀπραγμοσύνη and πολυπραγμοσύνη, Ehrenberg argues that the terms ‘are extreme opposites, but there is nothing in between them’.Footnote ³³ He concludes that both were ‘expressions indicating certain qualities of mind, either of individuals or of states’. πολυπραγμοσύνη involved ‘interference with other people’s lives’ while ἀπραγμοσύνη developed into a ‘determined opposition to politics as such’.Footnote ³⁴ Adkins discusses how πολυπραγμοσύνη came to be used to describe activities that would traditionally confer ἀρετή, if the person carrying out the action was acting beyond ‘his sphere of influence’.Footnote ³⁵ This was part of a strategy, on the part of the ἀγαθοί, to ‘keep their social inferiors in place᾽, as they demanded that everyone mind their own business (τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν), a turn of phrase coined by Plato in his definition of justice (Resp. 433a), and in opposition to πολυπραγμοσύνη.Footnote ³⁶ Carter goes further by tracing a growing trend of elites throughout the fifth century who would rather choose the ἀπράγμων life than fulfil their democratic obligations as a result of their dissatisfaction with the way that honour was assigned in Athens, which culminated with Plato’s βίος θεωρητικός.Footnote ³⁷ Bierl discusses how conservative and Sparta-friendly sources criticize πολυπραγμοσύνη before examining how Aristophanes lampoons this bourgeois daydream.Footnote ³⁸ Leigh traces how the valences of πολυπραγμοσύνη change into the Roman period. In the fifth and fourth centuries, however, ἀπραγμοσύνη is the ‘antithetical notion of πολυπραγμοσύνη … [which] figures as a reaction to the ardent activism of so many individual citizens as well as of Athens as a whole’.Footnote ³⁹ He argues that the definition of justice offered in Republic is ‘of signal importance for ancient thinking on πολυπραγμοσύνη’. While, in the Charmides, πολυπραγμοσύνη is opposed to σωφροσύνη and is ‘the opposite of doing that which is proper to oneself’, in the Republic Socrates takes what seems to be a definition of justice in similar terms, but detaches it ‘radically from any plausible reconstruction of conventional social attitudes’.Footnote ⁴⁰ Odysseus’ contemplation of the futility of continued service in Euripides, as well as Plato’s treatment of Odysseus in the myth of Er that will be discussed in the following section, should be read amidst this debate.

In the end, the Odysseus of the Philoctetes cannot bear to waste his past labours (fr. 789). As he goes on to recount, preserved in Dio’s paraphrase, he will be transformed by Athena and help to persuade Philoctetes to return to the fray, with his bow, so that his previous labours will not have been in vain (59.2–4). For all the attractions of the ἀπράγμων life, τιμή is still pre-eminent, for him, and so he rededicates himself to the cause. The prologue, then, to borrow Pelling’s term, explores an ‘arguable’ issue in Athenian civic life; one that in 431, with the Spartans looming, must have seemed pressing.Footnote ⁴¹ Elites were attracted to a disengaged life, and were using novel language to justify this choice. The Euripidean Odysseus synthesizes a number of reasons why an individual might choose such a life, but his ultimate return to the cause precludes a simplistic didactic reading of Euripides’ text.

ODYSSEUS IN THE MYTH OF ER

The language that Plato’s Odysseus uses in the Myth of Er when making his choice of soul bears a striking resemblance to his prologue speech in Euripides’ Philoctetes (Resp. 620c–d):

Like Euripides before him, Plato has Odysseus make a choice that undermines the heroic ethos of the Homeric character as he disavows φιλοτιμία in favour of the life of an ἀπράγμων ἰδιώτης. As noted above, Montiglio proposes that Plato deliberately draws on Euripides’ Philoctetes;Footnote ⁴² I concur and offer three pieces of support. The first is the language itself. Neither Plato nor Euripides use the term ἀπράγμων liberally. Euripides uses it once in Antiope (fr. 193) and Philoctetes (fr. 787). Plato, meanwhile, also only uses the word twice in the surviving corpus, both times in the Republic (565a, 620c). It is unlikely to be coincidental that both authors use this word so sparingly, but that both do so to describe Odysseus. Equally, the ἰδιώτης parallels the man who counts himself among the many of the army. Second, it is striking that both Euripides and Plato are using Odysseus as a mouthpiece for this sentiment when, as Deneen and Malabou agree, it seems to break with his traditional characterization.Footnote ⁴³ Finally, Plato also offers recourse to Euripides on the topic of the ἀπράγμων life in Antiope.Footnote ⁴⁴ That Plato uses similar language to Euripides to describe Odysseus, that both authors are depicting him unusually and that Plato referred to Euripides on this very subject, all suggests he was consciously drawing on Euripides’ Odysseus at the climax of the Myth of Er, even if, with no direct citation of Euripides’ text or extended quote, this is not fully demonstrable.

Beyond the possible allusion to Euripides, Plato uses targeted language that evokes explicit Athenian political phenomena, a strategy he employs elsewhere in Republic and his dialogues.Footnote ⁴⁵ There are two main words used to describe the life that Odysseus chooses, ἰδιώτης and ἀπράγμων, while the choice of this life is motivated by the fact that he is tired of φιλοτιμία. In a manner analogous to Sourvinou-Inwood’s tragic ‘zooming’, these terms focus the reader’s mind on Athenian political discourse. This language is important to Plato’s purposes in the passage generally and helps to explain the purpose of the proposed Euripidean intertext.

The term ἀπράγμων, as discussed above, became prominent in the second half of the fifth century and was used to describe quietist elites who had forsaken traditional participatory obligations. Rubinstein argues that ἰδιώτης is an ‘almost technical term to denote the individual citizen, the “atom” of the citizen-body as opposed to the collective whole’.Footnote ⁴⁶ Rubinstein also locates a second opposition between the ἰδιῶται and the ῥήτορες relying on the second meaning of ἰδιώτης, which connotes an unskilled individual as opposed to an artisan.Footnote ⁴⁷

Plato uses the term ἰδιώτης building on both senses of the word. For instance, in both the Theaetetus and the Laws the ἰδιώτης is a layperson who is opposed to the doctor.Footnote ⁴⁸ He also uses, respectively, in the Apology and the Gorgias, an infinitival and participial form of the word ἰδιωτεύω in the ‘atomic’ sense.Footnote ⁴⁹ In Republic to refer to Odysseus, Plato seems to be using it in the sense of a private citizen. Nevertheless, it retains echoes of the other meaning, of non-expert, in the later sense that Rubinstein identifies: the citizen who is unskilled in rhetoric and is addressed by skilled orators in the assembly. This private citizen, as Euripides’ Odysseus desired, will stand as one of the many.

One could be an ἰδιώτης without being an ἀπράγμων. For instance, the citizen could attend assemblies and through one’s relationship to a serving magistrate be considered an ἰδιώτης. Equally, in later instances, even the magistrate himself might be an unskilled ἰδιώτης vis-à-vis the ῥήτωρ who was able to use his mastery of the oratorical art to dominate the assembly. Plato’s construction, layering consecutive genitives to qualify βίος, makes clear that Odysseus is not just choosing the life of any private citizen. Odysseus chooses the life of both the ἰδιώτης and the ἀπράγμων. As an ἰδιώτης he chooses to remain in the crowd. Equally, as he espouses ἀπραγμοσύνη he also rejects taking on the technical role of the ἰδιώτης as the ‘atom’ of the citizen body. He will completely disengage from his society. This implies, perhaps, an emphasis on the ‘non-specialist’ definition of ἰδιώτης. He will be completely ignorant of the manner in which society functions and how to acquit himself in the political arena.Footnote ⁵⁰

In choosing this life, Plato’s Odysseus echoes Euripides’, who desired an ἀπράγμων life where he could be numbered among the many. The choice of Plato’s Odysseus, however, represents a rupture. In the prologue of Euripides’ tragedy, Odysseus’ concern for his reputation and past deeds is enough motivation to continue to serve the cause. He expresses doubt but decides, in the end, to rededicate himself because his reputation among his peers will suffer if he does not. Plato’s Odysseus, in contrast, is tired of φιλοτιμία. He has decided that the accumulation of honours and renown among his peers is worthless. This is because in Republic, there is a different set of factors that motivate how an individual should make choices; they should privilege the maintenance of the proper order of the soul, with each part performing its proper function (441d–e), in line with the definition of justice as doing what is proper for oneself and not meddling (πολυπραγμονεῖν) (433a). Indeed, as Annas emphasizes, the soul-state analogy is introduced ‘to illuminate the soul, because justice in the state is supposedly easier to discern’.Footnote ⁵¹ If the intertext is deliberate, Plato takes Euripides’ Odysseus, who is sympathetic to the idea of the quiet life and language of ἀπραγμοσύνη, and adapts him to his own ends. If not, he at least exploits the usual associations of Ithaca’s wayfaring king similarly to Euripides, before offering a different conclusion.

As noted above, previous scholars have argued that the choice of Odysseus’ soul is geared around maintaining its order and that it suggests its philosophical potential.Footnote ⁵² These perspectives situate Odysseus’ soul within the philosophical context of the Republic and Plato’s corpus.Footnote ⁵³ By considering the literary precedent and Plato’s language, we can see that Plato is also engaging with a broader societal discourse. The logic underpinning the speech of Euripides’ Odysseus is turned on its head. The choice of Plato’s Odysseus implies that it is the worthlessness of honour itself, not frustration with how it is allocated, that should decide the nature of one’s engagement with society. Plato rejects the values system that holds that φιλοτιμία is a motivator for action. This breaks with normative ἀπράγμων language, which does not reject honour, but instead indicates that the allocation of honours and blame in democracy is unfair. The ἀπράγμων life of a private citizen is desirable not because one feels one has been insufficiently compensated with honour, but because it is the best means of maintaining the soul’s order. The language of ἀπραγμοσύνη, initially used to express elite dissatisfaction, is subordinated to the project of Republic. In the following section, I argue that the language Plato’s Socrates attributes to the soul of Odysseus, as well as the probable Euripidean intertext, is intended to speak directly to Socrates’ primary interlocutor in the myth of Er: Plato’s brother Glaucon.

GLAUCON

At the end of the myth, Odysseus makes his choice because he is tired of φιλοτιμία. On the other hand, Glaucon, as he exists in the historical record and in the Republic, was desirous of honour. In Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Glaucon is described as yearning, before the age of twenty, to speak in the assemblies and to be a leader in the Athenian polis (3.6.1). This indicates that, at least when he was young, Glaucon coveted a political role and all that would go along with it, including conventional acclaim from the city. Equally, in the Republic, Glaucon is directly associated with a desire for societal acclaim and advancement in society when Adeimantus asserts that he resembles the timocratic man. Socrates qualifies this suggestion but does not reject it, proposing that Glaucon is more cultured than the lover of victory they are describing (548d–e).

As Ferrari argues, it seems possible that when Socrates pushes back on the characterization of Glaucon as φιλόνικος it is because both Glaucon and Adeimantus are quietists associated with ἀπραγμοσύνη.Footnote ⁵⁴ Ferrari also notes that while Plato ‘is certainly at pains to lay the shadow of the Thirty and of its bloody failure over the Republic’s opening pages, most obviously by staging it at the house of Cephalus’, neither Glaucon nor Adeimantus took part in the regime instead ‘holding themselves aloof and cultivating their souls’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Ariston’s sons ‘set their value too high to compete in an arena that is unworthy of them’, and while Glaucon is ambitious, his reflections and experience ‘have caused him to retreat within his shell’.Footnote ⁵⁶

There is an alternative school of thought, however, which follows Munn’s proposal that Glaucon was among the dead on the oligarchic side at the Battle of Munychia. He bases this on Glaucon’s attested ambition and that he ‘was no longer named in the company of his brothers a few years later, at the time of Socrates’ trial’.Footnote ⁵⁷ This hypothesis, while speculative, is suggestive. Building on Munn’s argument, Howland contends that it can be used to recast the entirety of the Republic. Hence, the Republic becomes the story of Socrates’ doomed efforts to ‘to keep Plato’s brother Glaucon from the path of tyranny—a path on which Plato himself began to embark when, in the immediate aftermath of the Peloponnesian war, his influential relatives championed a kind of ideological absolutism that promised to promote the cause of justice in Athens’.Footnote ⁵⁸

Ultimately, it is impossible to be certain if Munn is correct and Glaucon perished at the Battle of Munychia, or alternatively if Ferrari is right and Glaucon and Adeimantus withdrew from the city during the Thirty’s bloody regime. Fortunately, either possibility facilitates a fruitful reading of Plato’s evocation of the language of disaffected elites and probable subversion of Euripides’ Odysseus from the fragments of Euripides’ Philoctetes in the Myth of Er.

As I have argued, Socrates argues that one should withdraw from society for the right reasons, which it seems Glaucon has not done. In the Myth of Er, before Socrates outlines the choice of lives that the souls make, he makes an aside directed at Glaucon. Socrates offers a lesson that should be heeded, so that the individual can make the best possible choice of life when the time comes (618c–619b). The best life is characterized by avoiding what is unjust and maximizing what is just. It lies in the middle of excesses like wealth and tyrannical practice, and it is by avoiding such excesses that human beings ultimately achieve happiness. The life that Odysseus chooses, that of an ἀπράγμων ἰδιώτης, would seem to be this middle life. By withdrawing from a position of prominence, one would be able to achieve the recommended distance from both tyranny and wealth, which Euripides’ Odysseus realizes would leave him no worse off. Socrates is advocating to Glaucon that he should choose this middle life and put aside thoughts of tyrannical political power and honour.

The reason one should choose this middle life is not because one feels, as Glaucon does according to Ferrari’s analysis, that one’s society does not correctly value them. Instead, it is a choice made for the betterment of one’s soul. Socrates is contending that Glaucon made the right choice—an ἀπράγμων life—for the wrong reason. Euripides’ Odysseus was vexed by the assignation of honour but ultimately decided to re-engage out of care for his reputation and because he does not wish to waste his past deeds. Plato’s Odysseus makes the opposite choice, for entirely different reasons. When Odysseus expresses that he is tired of φιλοτιμία in the Myth of Er and chooses the life that he does, Socrates signals to Glaucon that ἀπραγμοσύνη itself is not necessarily the solution. It might be, but it must be pursued with the right intentions, namely the proper order of the soul. The disenfranchised oligarchic language of Euripides’ Odysseus is appropriated, but the rationale behind its original use is rejected. If the intertext is real, Plato takes Euripides’ model of an Odysseus who is sympathetic to quietism and repurposes it into the overall project of Republic. If not, he at least appropriates the associations of the epic and tragic Odysseus, in a similar fashion to Euripides, before having him arrive at the opposite conclusion. Socrates specifically targets Glaucon, who was sympathetic to quietist rhetoric, and tries to get him to understand that disengagement on its own is insufficient if it is not done for the right reasons.

Glaucon has withdrawn not because he recognizes that doing so will be akin to sheltering beside a wall in a driving storm and the best means of protecting the order of his soul or because he has recognized the futility of the pursuit of honour and the cultivation of one’s reputation. Instead, his ἀπραγμοσύνη is borne out of frustration at the lack of recognition for his inherent worth. Glaucon is not tired of φιλοτιμία and he is withdrawing not because he has recognized its futility, but instead because he is frustrated that his worth is not being recognized. When Odysseus makes his choice, Plato repurposes language with which Glaucon is sympathetic to advocate for a life structured around the principles outlined in the dialogue as a whole and the maintenance of the soul. In Glaucon, Plato has a reason to appropriate and transform the ἀπραγμοσύνη of Euripides’ Odysseus, who resembled his brother in his attitude towards conventional politics. Socrates exhorts Glaucon to make the same journey Odysseus has made in his transformation from Philoctetes to the Republic. Rather than bemoaning inadequate compensation for service or withdrawing through frustration that one is being insufficiently honoured, Socrates shows that Glaucon should withdraw, but only for the sake of his soul.

If Munn is right, and Glaucon perished at Munychia, the purpose of the evocation of Euripides’ Odysseus remains similar, but a shadow is cast over the dialogue. This final effort to exhort Glaucon to choose disengagement for the right reasons ends in failure as Glaucon ultimately fell in with an oligarchic coup and met his end attempting, and failing, to impose the sort of order that aristocratic ἀπράγμονες yearned for. Socrates was unable to convince Glaucon to choose ἀπραγμοσύνη for the sake of his soul and his attachment to honour resulted in his death.

In the Gorgias Socrates defines the art of statesmanship as the ability to improve the citizenry and claims he is the only person who ever successfully practiced that art (521d). Rowe argues that there is a broadly consistent conception of the political art across Plato’s dialogues including in the Republic, which coheres with the definition in the Gorgias, with its goal ‘to make people as good as possible’.Footnote ⁵⁹ Here, at the end of the Republic, Socrates seeks to practise his own idiosyncratic form of politics on Plato’s brother Glaucon as he encourages him, if he is to withdraw from conventional politics, to do so for the right reasons. Whether or not Socrates was successful remains uncertain.