The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

50 The Waging of War
See 466c-471e. In the event of war, male and female auxiliaries are to campaign
together. The sturdiest of their children, mounted upon swift horses, are to be
taken along as well, so that they can learn their craft alongside experienced adults,
assisting and observing wherever they can do so in reasonable safety. In battle,
the adults are expected to be courageous. Those who run away out of cowardice
will no longer be permitted to serve as auxiliaries. They are not to allow
themselves to be captured, and they are not to be ransomed if they are captured.
Extraordinary valor is, however, to be rewarded – with feasting, hymns, seats of
honor, and the privilege to kiss and be kissed by whomever one desires.
Distinguished deaths in battle are to receive special funerals, and the memory of
the fallen is to be preserved. It is to be said that these men and women go on after
death to become noble guardian spirits. With respect to the conduct of war,
certain rules are to be followed: Greeks are not to be enslaved; enemy corpses are
not to be stripped of valuables (a traditional, and at times tactically unfortunate,
practice among the Greeks); enemy forces are to be allowed to collect their dead;
enemy arms are not to be displayed as trophies in the temples (something Athens
did at the time, to the dishonor of the cities it defeated); and although it is
permissible to carry off the enemy’s stored harvest, the land itself is not to be
ravaged, nor the houses burnt. The “attitude of mind” of combatants should be
that “of people who will one day be reconciled and who won’t always be at war.”
Would it be wrong to encourage children nowadays who aspire to be
soldiers to experience real warfare? (Consider the practice in the past of
assigning boys in training to be naval officers to serve as “midshipmen,”
apprentices to the ship’s captain.) Perhaps, given the effectiveness of
missile weapons in the present day this would be inappropriate. Still,
children could help out at air bases and support camps.
Why might Socrates think a distinction should be recognized in warfare
between opponents who are Greeks and those who are non-Greeks?
It has sometimes been said that the rules and ideals of morality are irrelevant