Abstract

The article focuses on the topic of inequality in the first four books of Plato’s Republic. Particular attention is devoted to the myth of the three human gene, starting from its Hesodian roots (in Works and Days). This myth is presented as a «noble lie» to convince all the parts of the new polis to accept social hierarchy as natural. Plato doesn’t think that such hierarchy has its ground in natural hierarchy. Which is a typical sophistic move: lies are used to provide the truth with pragmatic efficiency. Natural inequality is also the ground for the couple soproshyne-dikaiosyne. Such qualities must be distinctive characteristics of the polis as a whole. They cannot be exclusive prerogative of a single part, as it happens with sophia and andreia.