dogs, men and women are to have the same employment (for there is no real difference between the sexes), and will go out to war together. Marriages must be strictly regulated; and, as in the case of dogs or game-fowl, we must keep up the purity of breed. The best must marry the best, and the worst the worst; and the children of the former must be carefully reared, while any offspring from the latter must be exposed. There must be a public nursery, and no mother must know her own child. Thus, where all have common sympathies and interests, and there are no jealousies arising from separate families or properties, the State will be most thoroughly at unity with itself.
"These children of the State shall be present in the battle-field—but at safe distance—to stimulate the courage of our warriors, and accustom our young to the scene of their future duties. And in war, the runaway and coward shall be degraded: but the brave shall be crowned and shall wed the fair; he shall be honoured at the sacrifice and banquet, and if he falls, we shall proclaim that he sprang from the race of gold, and now haunts the earth in the form of a holy and powerful spirit.
"War between Greek and Greek is an unnatural feud, and therefore we will not despoil the bodies of the dead for there is a meanness in injuring a body whence the soul has fled; nor will we enslave a free Greek, nor lay waste Greek land, or burn houses, as heretofore."
Glaucon is willing to admit that this ideal State will have a thousand advantages over any at present in
