I have had a copy of Plato’s The Republic  for some time now. I decided to pick it up last week to read it. Quickly I found it enjoyable to participate in a dialog/narrative where Socrates and others seek to determine the definition of “justice”. Then I found a surprise at which both philosophy geeks and Tolkien fans will probably roll there eyes: In Book II it seems like Plato provided the inspiration for the concept of “the one ring to rule them all” and even the character Gollum!

In the relevant section a man named Glaucon is trying to show Socrates that when humans act justly it is only because they fear the consequences of being unjust. If a person could do unjustly, and there were no consequences, than injustice would win the day. In order to prove his point he tells this fable:

“According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king ofLydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other;,no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this.”

Now of course there are many that have noted this link. Apparently a whole book (and probably several) has been written on the relationship between Plato and The Lord of the Rings. Many others have written magazine or journal articles.In the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment edited by M.D.C. Drout there is an entry by Gergely Nagy on ‘Plato’ and he says this of the connection:

“In Plato’s Republic (2.359c-360b), the story is told of one Gyges who finds a ring of invisibility and then is corrupted by the power this confers upon him; as a parallel to Tolkien’s One Ring, this is, however, rather superficial, since Gyges’ ring only works to make him invisible and his evil is achieved by the power offered in the knowledge he thus gains.” (p. 513)

It may be superficial, but it sure would be hard to deny some sort of dependency. For Plato or Tolkien fans, what do you think of the connection?