Abstract

This article examines the significance of the image of the Chimera which Socrates invites Glaucon to mould in Book IX of Republic. It argues that the image, when explicitly intended to represent the just and rationally autonomous individual soul, must also, in keeping with Socrates’ methodological procedure in the dialogue, correspond to a political structure. We argue that, as it cannot correspond to or represent the structure of the Kallipolis, the city this soul would correspond to would be the approximately just polis from which the Kallipolis could emerge. The question thus arises as to what kind of individual or which class of persons each part of the tripartite soul can be assigned in a political context. We conclude that the answer supplied and best supported by the dialogue is a rule of the philosopher over a demos or tyrant through the intermediary aid of a rhetorician.